UNDERNEWS Sam Smith September 27, 1999 The Progressive Review 1312 18th St NW (Fifth Floor) Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INDEX: http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS: http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINE NEWS: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW UNCLASSIFIEDS: http://www.prorev.com/jobs.htm DONATIONS AND ORDER FORM: http://prorev.com/order3.htm UNSUBSCRIBE: Reply with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. READER'S FORUM: http://www.prorev.com/letters.htm For a free subscription to our e-mail updates send your postal address with zip code. Copyright 1999, The Progressive Review. Matter not independently copyrighted may be reprinted provided TPR is paid your normal reprint fees, if any, and is given proper credit. Because of its quantity, TPR's mail is not always answered, but it is always read. The editor is cheered or remorseful as appropriate and posts some of the more interesting messages at http://www.prorev.com/letters.htm. You can also post messages directly by signing in there. ---------------------------------------------------------- WORD Never eat at place called Mom's. Never play cards with a man named Doc. And never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you. -- Nelson Algren. THE REVIEW LIST How to tell if you're still a liberal You are probably not a liberal anymore if: -- You think the elimination or reduction of social services is a "reform." -- Accept the idea that Social Security and Medicare must live within the limits of an arbitrary "trust fund" but that the Pentagon need be under no such restrictions. -- Liked the Clintons' health plan and wonder whether single player health care wouldn't be too socialistic. -- Consider a 5% wage increase in an industry to be inflationary but a 5% return on your stocks in that industry to be inadequate. -- Think it's all right to bomb the smithereens out of a small Baltic country for humanitarian reasons. -- Think President Clinton is a liberal. -- Regard the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, PBS, and NPR as liberal media. -- Know what NARL stands for but not SEIU -- Have doubts about gays in the US military but approve of having the US military in 130 countries. -- Spend more time thinking about Hillary's chances, abortion, and glass ceilings than you do about sweatshops, the minimum wage, or workplace safety. -- Are afraid your children can't handle drugs and booze as well as you did. -- Believe that because you were robbed once, you can support mandatory sentencing with a clear conscience. -- Haven't notice that democracy and the Constitution have taken a severe beating during the Clinton years. -- If the front seat of your SUV is higher than that of your plumbers' pickup truck. CULTURE WARS Ken McCarthy Brasscheck California became part of the United States as the result of the Mexican American War. Even hard bitten old soldiers like Ulysses S. Grant thought the war, a blatant land grab, was a national disgrace. But over 150 years later, the California dream machine is apparently still a bit sensitive on the subject. A feature film on the story of a battalion of Irish-American and Irish-Mexican troops (the San Patrico's) who fought in support of Mexico, "One Man's Hero," appears to be on the verge of dying in obscurity in spite of positive reviews from the Los Angeles Times. An MGM executive when asked why the company was giving the film the silent treatment replied he considered it "anti-American." Apparently, the film is on a handful screens in LA and various places in the Southwest. Here's the guy who controls the purse strings: Chris McGurk, Vice Chairman, MGM, 2500 Broadway, Santa Monica, CA 90404. FROM A REVIEW BY JAMES FOGARTY OF THE IRISH SOLDIERS OF MEXICO by Michael Hogan (Guadalajara, Mexico: Fondo Editorial Universitario, 1997): "Every since the end of the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-48) U.S. historians have taken pains to dismiss the Irish soldiers of the San Patricio Battalion as a bizarre group of malcontents and ne'er-do-wells who deserted from the U.S. Army, lured by drink, pretty senoritas and/or promises of generous rewards from Mexican officials. Thanks to the scholarly research of Michael Hogan in his new book, 'The Irish Soldiers of Mexico,' there is a much more balanced and objective analysis of the San Patricio phenomenon. Hogan, a history professor at the American School in Guadalajara, Mexico, puts to rest the above stereotypes and proves conclusively that the San Patricios were, in fact, one of the most disciplined, courageous and effective units in the war SAN PATRICIO'S http://www.dayproductions.com/patricio.html BRASSCHECK http://www.brasscheck.com DID YOUR BUSINESS PAGE TELL YOU THIS? INVESTOR'S INTELLIGENCE: The Dow Industrials had their worst weekly point loss ever, dropping 524.30, or 4.8% .... This is the 5th week in a row on the downside. JUST POLITICS -- Decline in percent of black voters who consider themselves Democrats 1994-99: 17% -- Increase in percent of latino votes who consider themselves Democrats 1994-99: 32% [Pew Research] INSIDE POLITICS: Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has threatened to sue a Nevada brothel over the use of his name in promoting the establishment, Court TV reports. The governor should "be a man" and call to talk about the use of his name in the brothel's ad instead of having his "weasel" lawyer send a letter, owner Dennis Hof said last week. LOOSE CHANGE "Food distributed and services provided by charities are often viewed as somehow morally superior than food and human services delivered by government programs. The prevailing view among many politicians is, 'Let the private sector do it.' Well, the private sector cannot do it alone. As people of faith and people of action, we must also remember that our job is certainly to comfort the afflicted, but it is also to afflict the comfortable .... There is no word in the Hebrew language for the word 'charity.' The word 'tzadakah,' often mistranslated as charity, really means 'justice.' And although some people need our charity today, what they hunger for, today and the day after that, is justice." -- Susan Cramer, executive director of Mazon: a Jewish Response to Hunger, at a poverty conference in Missoula MT, reported in the Missoula Independent. MISSOULA INDEPENDENT http://www.headwatersnews.org/miss.hunger.html EAST TIMOR MELBOURNE AGE: The devastation across East Timor is far worse than feared - on a scale similar to Rwanda and Kosovo - with up to 75 percent of key regional towns totally destroyed, according to a United Nations assessment .... "When we flew over the eastern part of the territory and saw the extent of the damage from the air, it was very clear there were very few people left in the towns," said a spokesman for the UN mission in East Timor, Mr David Wimhurst, in Dili .... Mr Wimhurst said the task facing the relief agencies is huge, with almost the entire East Timor population of 800,000 people scattered by the violence since they voted last month to throw off Indonesian rule. Between 400,000 and 500,000 people are estimated to have fled their towns and villages for other parts of the territory, and many are camped in mountains, going hungry. PROZAC NATION THOMAS MOORE, THE WASHINGTONIAN: Prozac is now wisely known to cause sexual dysfunction in 30 to 70 percent of those people who take it, depending on the study .... Irving Kirsch, a professor psychology at the University of Connecticut, analyzed 19 different published studies -- all he could find with sufficient data -- and concluded that 75% of the effect claimed for anti-depressant drugs was explained by placebo .... A total of 1,500 patients had been enrolled in five different clinical studies. When combined, the Prozac patients improved about 8 points on an 0-to-50 scale of depression, compared with 7 points for the patients who got a placebo .... Finally, in a small number of cases -- perhaps 1 percent or fewer -- antidepressants can trigger mania or hypomania, a powerful feeling of being suddenly brilliant, infallible, witty, and sexually attractive. In even few cases, the drug may trigger rage, anger, aggression or suicide. [1% of the American population aged 14-17 is about 130,000 youths. School violence commentators please copy -- TPR] HEALTH NEWS KAY REDFIELD JAMISON, AUTHOR OF "NIGHT FALLS FAST: UNDERSTANDING SUICIDE" WASHINGTON POST: Suicide has been a professional interest of mine for more than 20 years and a very personal one for much longer. I have a hard-earned respect for suicide's ability to undermine, overwhelm, outwit, devastate and destroy .... It is a societal illusion that suicide is rare. It is not. Certainly the psychiatric and addictive illnesses most closely tied to suicide are not rare. They are common conditions and, unlike cancer and heart disease, they disproportionately affect and kill the young. In the United States, more teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, pneumonia, influenza, birth defects and stroke combined. It is the No. 2 killer of college students. Suicide kills more than 30,000 Americans a year--one person every 17 minutes .... Although more women attempt suicide then men in the United States, men are at least four times more likely to die from suicide .... The U.S. suicide rate has declined for the past two decades from 12.1 per 100,000 in 1976 to 11.4 per 100,000 in 1997, but the rate among young people ages 15-19 has increased by 14 percent, and the rate among children ages 10-14 has increased by 100 percent .... Between 1980 and 1996, the rate of suicide among young black men ages 15-19 increased by 105 percent. WASHINGTON POST http://www.washingtonpost.com LOOSE CHANGE GUARDIAN, LONDON: Women are more efficient and trustworthy, have a better understanding of their workforce and are more generous with their praise. In short they make the best managers, and if men are to keep up they will have to start learning from their female counterparts, a report claims today. The survey of 1,000 male and female middle and senior managers from across the UK is an indictment of the ability of men to function as leaders in the modern workplace. A majority of those questioned believed women had a more modern outlook on their profession and were more open minded and considerate. By way of contrast, a similar number believe male managers are egocentric and more likely to steal credit for work done by others. Management Today magazine, which conducted the research, said that after years of having to adopt a masculine identity and hide their emotions and natural behavior in the workplace, women have become role models for managers. The findings tally with a survey of female bosses carried out in the US. A five year study of 2,500 managers from 450 firms found that many male bosses were rated by their staff of both sexes to be self-obsessed and autocratic. Women on the other hand leave men in the starting blocks when it comes to teamwork and communicating with staff. MORE GUARDIAN NEWS http://www.prorev.com/ altnews.htm AMERICA IS JUST A PASSING FANCY STROBE TALBOTT IN THE JULY 20, 1992 ISSUE OF TIME: Here is one optimist's reason for believing unity will prevail ... within the next hundred years ... nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority .... A phrase briefly fashionable in the mid-20th century -- 'citizen of the world' -- will have assumed real meaning by the end of the 21st .... All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary." * * * * * * * * * * PLEASE NOTE NEW ADDRESS AND PHONE EFFECTIVE SEP 24 THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW 1312 18th St NW (5th Floor) Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770 Fax: 202-835-0779 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Editor: Sam Smith INDEX : http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://www.topica.com/lists/readers/read For a free trial subscription to both our bi-monthly hard copy edition and our regular e-mail updates send e-mail and terrestrial address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To order "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual" (WW Norton) direct from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393316270/progressiverevieA/
