theurbanhermit (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} theurbanhermit) wrote,@ 2007-04-10 07:34:00 |
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The next few entries are going to be a little sloppy - for they're transferred from HSHS, which disallowed journal access this morning. . .
Well. . . seems Manly’s computer doesn’t want to allow me access to LiveJurnal. . .
Jan showed last night – chatted with a man most of the evening (I forget his name); called Eddie Al, which makes me question so much. . . Ronnie’s Kevin’s gone – and I wrote of them recently. . . many in here know Jan – see previous entries. ..
The middle computer’s down here (easier to monitor two anyway – and with only days to go, they’ve monitored out the preds I guess they south. . .). .. Prattler’s on the other computer.
Bostonherald.com horoscope: “TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Your self-concept is a delicate web, woven by your curiosities and your take on your life experience. Friends complement and contribute to this dream catcher. Their belief in you carries you higher.”
See previous entries on this. . .
Boston.com:
College freshmen wealthier, study says
By James M. O'Neill, Bloomberg | April 10, 2007
US college freshmen are wealthier than at any point in the past 35 years, and the income gap is widening between their families and the rest of the nation, a study shows.
This academic year's entering class came from families with income 60 percent greater than the national median, as tuition increases shut out lower-income students, the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a report yesterday. The gap was 46 percent in 1971, according to the study of more than 8 million students compiled over 40 years.
The findings, based on the biggest and longest-running survey of college students, may buttress criticism from members of Congress over the increasing cost of a college education. Tuition and fees have risen 35 percent so far this decade at public four-year institutions and 11 percent at their private counterparts, the researchers said, citing College Board figures.
"Students from wealthier families can endure greater fluctuations in 'sticker price' than poorer students," Jose Luis Santos, a UCLA professor and co author of the report, said in a statement. "As a result, more students entering college come from homes that are increasingly wealthier than the national median income."
While federal aid has helped broaden access to higher education since the 1970s, state cuts in appropriations for public universities and colleges have helped lead to tuition increases that affect lower-income students most, the researchers said.
The federal government also has turned more to loans in its offerings of assistance, according to the report, "American Freshmen: Forty-Year Trends 1966-2006."
"The study highlights the growing divide in our society and strongly affirms the need for both the federal government and states to re invigorate their investment in need-based student financial aid," Daniel J. Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the Washington-based American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said in an e-mail.
The report also shows the need "for states in particular to provide increased operating support to their higher education institutions in order to keep tuition costs down," Hurley said.
President Bush and members of Congress are proposing increases in grants and loan aid to students while calling on colleges and universities to keep down tuition increases.
A growing number of private colleges have raised their spending on financial aid. Elite universities including the Ivy League's Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania have replaced loans with grants in their aid packages for students from lower-income families.
Last month, Davidson College followed the Ivies' lead. The shift will cost the school, located near Charlotte, N.C., almost $2 million in the first year.
Universities now dedicate 68 percent of their own budgeted aid for need-based rather than merit-based aid, up from 60 percent in 2001, said Tony Pals of the Washington-based National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
"Enhancing access for low-income students is a challenge that faces every one of America's 3,500 college presidents," Pals said by e-mail.
The report was compiled by the Higher Education Research Institute, part of UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. INCLUDEPICTURE "http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Fil
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Boston.com:
Doctor, nurse, or student? Consult the white coat
By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | April 10, 2007
White coats are everywhere in Boston's academic medical centers, a universal sign that the wearer is a medical professional. But look closer, and you will notice that not all white coats are alike.
There are long coats, and there are short coats. And who wears what is sometimes a sign of their position within a hospital's hierarchy.
Most medical students, who are sometimes called "short white coats," wear hip-length coats that are bestowed upon them in a solemn ceremony when they begin medical school. The short coats indicate they are not yet doctors, who at most of the city's teaching hospitals wear knee-length white coats.
If patients notice the difference, they typically don't know what the lengths mean. But attire has a significant history within the profession. At some hospitals, doctors have held meetings about coat length. And occasionally residents -- junior doctors who have graduated from medical school but have not completed on-the-job training -- protest the short coats they are expected to wear.
"These are byzantine and complex decisions," said Dr. Mark Zeidel, physician in chief at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but it matters to some people."
Adding to the complexity is that the practices regarding white coats differ among hospitals and even within hospitals, because there are few rules, just traditions. At every hospital, there are physicians who break from tradition, for reasons of fashion, practicality, or something deeper. Many nurses, technicians, and other staff now wear long coats, too. Of course, all staff must wear nametags that identify their job.
Residents generally wear short coats at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, but knee-length coats at Tufts-New England Medical Center. Even at these hospitals, however, some residents have started wearing scrubs, the loose-fitting, pajama-like outfits once used mostly by surgeons, rather than coats. Most senior doctors, called attending physicians, wear long coats, except at Massachusetts General Hospital. There, the strong tradition for doctors is short coats just like those worn by medical students; older physicians theorize that this unusual formulation was adopted to symbolize that Mass. General doctors are learners for life. The eminent institution buys nearly 9,000 white coats a year.
Dr. Mark Aronson, one of the few attendings in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess who wears a short coat, said he received a note from one of his residents a year ago complimenting his choice, saying it set an example of a doctor always being a student.
Senior doctors said the white-coat custom, of any length, probably developed because physicians at academic medical centers traditionally have done research in addition to treating patients, and needed the coats to protect their clothing from laboratory chemicals.
The dress codes for residents and doctors at the nation's teaching hospitals used to be far stricter, and as recently as the 1970s residents at some Boston hospitals were required to wear white coats and white pants starched in the hospital laundry.
Dr. Eugene Braunwald, now a distinguished senior physician, required residents to wear white coats at meetings during the 1980s, doctors who trained under him said.
Braunwald "felt it was part of professionalism," said Dr. Richard Schwartzstein, a resident then and now a pulmonologist who is vice president of education at Beth Israel Deaconess. The chief resident kept several extra short white coats in his closet for those who forgot theirs, he said.
In the 1990s, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, a nonprofit started by a physician and his wife to promote "humanism in medicine," popularized the white-coat ceremony at medical schools, during which the dean or hospital president personally places the short white coat on the shoulders of each student "to carry on the noble profession of doctoring." Now, more than 90 percent of US medical schools hold the ceremony.
Coat length matters for Siqin Ye, 27, a first-year resident at the Brigham who wears a short coat, but not because of the status it might suggest. He went to medical school in Chicago, where residents wore long coats.
"I have actually thought a great deal about this," he said. "When I came here, it was very confusing. What we [residents] object to about short coats is that they're not very fashionable. It doesn't even cover the hip. When I switch to a long coat, I won't feel different in terms of being a doctor or not, but I will feel like I look better."
Some residents have had stronger objections to wearing the short coats of medical students, rather than the long coats of a full-fledged doctor.
Dr. Debra Weinstein, who oversees graduate medical education at Mass. General, said she was surprised several years ago when a few medical students who applied to the hospital's residency programs wrote on a questionnaire that they objected to wearing short white coats. "Some people actually look forward to an expected change in coat length as a symbol of status or achievement and object if they don't get it," she said in an e-mail.
Similar comments from a resident in emergency medicine at Mass. General prompted that department to change its policy four years ago. Dr. Eric Nadel, program director for the emergency medicine residency at Mass. General and the Brigham, said he spoke to other attending physicians in the emergency rooms and decided there was no reason not to allow residents to wear long coats; many emergency medicine attending physicians at Mass. General break from the short-coat tradition themselves.
"I don't think I'm breaking any great laws of this institution, but I am breaking with tradition," he said. "But given the choice, most of my residents went to long coats."
Sandy Shea -- senior area director of the Committee of Interns and Residents, a union with a chapter at Boston Medical Center -- said she has received similar complaints. At Boston Medical Center, while most residents wear long coats, first-year surgical residents, called interns, wear short coats, she said.
"They tell me [their objections] in an embarrassed whisper," she said. "They would never bring it up to their attending."
Two years ago, one intern said he felt wearing a short coat was "infantilizing" and asked if there was anything the union could do about it. Shea said the union would not get involved in the issue unless there was a groundswell of protest.
Some attending physicians said they choose their coat length based on comfort, rather than the tradition at their particular hospital. Dr. Mitchell Rabkin, former president of Beth Israel Deaconess, has always worn a short coat at the hospital, even though long coats are traditional. "They drag on the floor when you're sitting down, they're hot, and they get in the way," he said. "It would be like trying to do your job with a dress that goes down to the floor."
Others said they like the tradition. "Medicine is a long process of training," said Dr. Akshay Desai, a cardiologist at the Brigham. The long coat "is a symbol for many of us of having completed our training and some sense of pride at being an attending. It's the signature of the attendings here." INCLUDEPICTURE "http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Fil
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Thecrimson.com:
Allston Plans Continue To Meet Resistance
Residents voice concerns over proposed complex at Task Force meeting
Published On 4/10/2007 3:54:17 AM
By HYPERLINK "http://www.thecrimson.com/writer.aspx?I
Crimson Staff Writer
Allston residents continued to voice concerns about the impact of Harvard’s proposed science complex and questioned the University’s relationship with the neighborhood at a meeting of the Harvard Allston Task Force last night. Allston residents at the meeting showed signs of disagreement with the task force, which is staffed by neighborhood residents and is intended to represent the area’s interests as Harvard expands its campus across the Charles River. Residents criticized the task force’s chair for supporting Harvard’s plan to build a science complex whose height would exceed the guidelines set by the North Allston Neighborhood Strategic Plan, a 2004 scheme set out by Harvard and the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “It’s very offensive to me to listen to the chair of the task force saying that he’s okay with a building that violated the North Allston Strategic Plan,” Allston resident Paul Alford said. The task force chair, Ray Mellone, urged residents to “be a little bit more mature about these subjects,” noting that building designs change over time to accommodate new needs. “We can’t say that height alone is the only determining factor,” he said of the planned complex. Last month, task force meetings dents said Harvard was not giving them enough time to weigh several of the University’s proposed construction projects. Also in March, smaller subcommittee meetings were held to address more specific issues—such as design components of the proposed science complex and the impact that construction would have on surrounding roadways. Despite those meetings—and the slight ameliorating effect they appear to have had on relations between University officials and Allston residents—the height of the science complex has remained a point of contention. Task force member Brent Whelan, who said he lives 100 yards from the Western Avenue location of the future three-building complex, said that he worried about a “towering” structure close to his home. “We said that we all hoped that the heights would be 55 feet and that they might rise to 75 feet,” he said of the design, which shows buildings that range in height from 88 to more than 200 feet. “How can this building considerably be thought of to honor that agreement?” Kathy Spiegelman, the chief planner for Harvard’s Allston Development Group, said that Harvard had been taking the community’s concerns to heart. “Every time that Stefan has come back, his design has gotten lower and lower,” she said, referring the Stefan Behnisch, the designer of the science complex. “I do want to acknowledge that it’s not that we haven’t heard you,” she added. Task force member Millie McLaughlin agreed that there was still a long way to go in the planning process. “We’re just like you, we’re trying to listen to all of it before we can make a final decision,” she said.
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thecrimson.com:
College Uses Web Plagiarism Checks
Admissions office catches a ‘handful’ of plagiarists each year with online programs
Published On 4/10/2007 4:06:04 AM
By HYPERLINK "http://www.thecrimson.com/writer.aspx?I
Crimson Staff Writer
As college applicants face escalating competition to get accepted to selective colleges, admissions offices—including Harvard’s—are increasingly using internet resources to catch plagiarism in application essays. According to Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, the admissions committee tends to catch a “handful” of would-be plagiarists each year using electronic sources in addition to admissions officers’ judgment. Occasionally, he said, attempts are “clearly obvious” to application reviewers, as when students copy college essay books word for word. “There may well be instances that get by us every year. There’s no way to know for sure,” he said in a phone interview. According to Fitzsimmons, students can, and a few likely do, purchase essays from various private sources. Electronic scanning sources cannot detect these works, since while they are not the students’ own, they are not technically unoriginal. Fitzsimmons said that the College has been using online resources since they became available over a decade ago. But the admissions committee also depends, as it has since before these online resources became available, on admissions officers’ intuition. Fitzsimmons said that the committee is generally prompted to check the originality of application essays for a variety of reasons, such as when a reader assigned to a specific geographic region finds similarities between essays from that region. Admissions officers also take notice when familiar passages from well-known pieces published in essay books appear in applicants’ essays, or when essays contain writing that doesn’t seem to match the rest of the student’s profile, Fitzsimmons added. “Certainly there are times when there is an essay that seems much, much better than what a student would have been able to produce,” he said, citing the gap between essay quality and grades or test scores as indicators of this incongruity. In the event that plagiarism is detected, the committee contacts the student and allows him or her the opportunity to provide an explanation. If the student’s response does not suffice, the application is rejected. Fitzsimmons did not say which online resources the admissions office uses to catch plagiarists. But at least one specific resource has been used to detect plagiarism at Harvard. This past fall, the instructors in Sociology 189, “Law and Social Movements,” used Turnitin.com to scan students’ work as part of a plagiarism-detection pilot program run by Harvard’s Instructional Computing Group (ICG). The nine-year-old Web site, which added an admissions-essay service in 2004, has screened 27,000 admissions essays and found 11 percent to contain at least one-quarter of un-original material, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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nytimes.com:
April 10, 2007
Sex Offenders Test Churches’ Core Beliefs
By HYPERLINK "http://topics.nytimes.com/top/referenc
CARLSBAD, Calif. — On a marquee outside and on a banner inside, Pilgrim United Church of Christ proclaims, “All are welcome.” Sustained by the belief that embracing all comers is a living example of Christ’s love, Pilgrim now faces a profound test of faith.
In late January, Mark Pliska, 53, told the congregation here that he had been in prison for molesting children but that he sought a place to worship and liked the atmosphere at Pilgrim.
Mr. Pliska’s request has plunged the close-knit congregation into a painful discussion about applying faith in a difficult real-world situation. Congregants now wonder, are all truly welcome? If they are, how do you ensure the safety of children and the healing of adult survivors of sexual abuse? Can an offender who accepts Christ truly change?
“I think what we have been through is a loss of innocence,” said the Rev. Madison Shockley, Pilgrim’s minister. “People think of church as an idyllic paradise, and I think that is a great part of that loss.”
Pilgrim’s struggle mirrors those of other congregations, of various faiths, across the country.
Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the HYPERLINK "http://topics.nytimes.com/top/referenc
The Rev. Debra W. Haffner, director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing in Norwalk, Conn., said she received one or two calls a month from congregations facing a crisis similar to Pilgrim’s.
Having a policy to deal with sex offenders before a crisis occurs is the best way to avoid turmoil, Ms. Haffner said. But such a policy still may force a congregation to decide under what circumstances an offender can attend, a discussion that can shake many churches to their core.
“They are conflicting ministries,” the Rev. Patricia Tummino said about reaching out to sex offenders, to children and to adult survivors of abuse. Since the late 1990s, Ms. Tummino’s congregation, the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Middleboro, Mass., has dealt with two known sex offenders. “You can’t be all things to all people,” she said.
Congregations have always had sex offenders, largely unknown to others, Ms. Haffner said.
Parole officers have encouraged offenders who have been jailed to seek congregations as a source of community and support, Ms. Haffner said.
States have computerized registries of sex offenders that let anyone check on a new congregant. Local news media often report on a sex offender’s arrival from prison, making it hard for a parolee to remain anonymous.
After being released in mid-2006, Mr. Pliska ended up at First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Santa Cruz, Calif.
“My spiritual growth is very important to me,” Mr. Pliska said in an interview in Mr. Shockley’s office. “I went looking for an open and affirming church and attended a U.C.C. church and liked it.”
The United Church of Christ takes pride in its liberalism, and it has led other Protestant denominations in the ordination of women and on civil rights issues.
In Santa Cruz, Mr. Pliska agreed to avoid children and to always be escorted by another adult. The church has two services, which made it easier for those uncomfortable with him to still worship.
But business was slow and he lost his job as a mechanic, Mr. Pliska said, and in December, he moved to Carlsbad, an affluent seaside town 30 miles north of San Diego.
Mr. Shockley received an e-mail message from Santa Cruz about Mr. Pliska’s search for a new congregation. He said he thought that if Pilgrim established the same limits as Santa Cruz had, Mr. Pliska’s presence would be as uneventful.
Before introducing Mr. Pliska to the congregation, Mr. Shockley spoke to a few congregants who had been abused as children and to parents, and none objected to Mr. Pliska’s inclusion.
But Mr. Pliska’s introduction unlocked a flood of emotions among the 300 members.
“The scariest moment,” Mr. Shockley said, “was when I got the feeling in the congregation about whether Mark could attend or not, and we needed more time, yet people were saying ‘If he stays, I leave,’ or ‘If he leaves, I leave.’ ”
The church has pulled back from that edge, and most people seem to be listening respectfully to one another. A few families have stopped attending. Some new people have started to come, impressed by local news accounts of the congregation’s willingness to consider having Mr. Pliska.
Tristan Green attends with her three sons, and is torn about having Mr. Pliska in the congregation. She believes he should be welcome but she wonders how she might keep track of the boys during the social hour, whether they would enjoy the freedom to play, whether Mr. Pliska would get the church’s pictorial members’ directory.
“I’d feel uncomfortable,” said her oldest son, Sebastian, 9, “but we’re supposed to let everybody come.”
Samantha Peterson, 21, said she believed Mr. Pliska should attend. “I feel that those who are fearful have a very valid opinion, but we have a unique opportunity to be really tested and to make the right decision,” she said. “I don’t think this guy is a danger. He’s asking for help.”
Her mother, Missy Peterson, who also has a 10-year-old son, said she felt guilty about her wariness. But she could not ignore it.
“Why should I reserve judgment and not listen to the bells and whistles in my gut that say ‘No’?” Ms. Peterson asked.
Adult survivors of sexual abuse are also shaken by the possibility of worshipping with a sex offender.
“There are people who feel that if we don’t welcome Mark, we lose who we are,” said David Irvine, 48, who was sexually abused as a child. “But what do you say to one member who was abused for 10 years, several times a week? By welcoming one person, are we rescinding our welcome to some of the survivors among us, people in pain and healing, members of our family?”
An ad hoc committee at the church is trying to develop a “safe church” policy that would apply to sex offenders and would also create programs to prevent sexual abuse through education and screening of anyone working with children.
The policy is expected to be ready for discussion in early May, Mr. Shockley said. Mr. Pliska has been asked not to attend worship services for now, but he meets weekly with a small group from Pilgrim.
In the meantime, publicity over his arrival at Pilgrim led to Mr. Pliska’s eviction and the loss of his job. He is homeless and unemployed. Yet he said he does not regret being open with the church, after spending years hiding who he was.
“So far, there is no upside,” he said. “But there will be later on. God makes miracles in different ways.”
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ah – then if not science and religion the sexpred laydown and relighion testing. . . ? still – absolutely wrong of the HUMF. . .
washingtonpost.com:
Learning to Live With the Mahdi Army
By Karin Brulliard Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 10, 2007; A01
BAGHDAD -- No, there have been no problems, the police commander was telling the armor-laden American soldiers squeezed into his office in the vast Shiite enclave of Sadr City. Except, he said, for the text-messaged death threats he often received from militia members.
Suddenly the meeting was interrupted by a loud mortar blast, followed by another explosion. A third, thunderous boom rattled the room, sending ripples through the yellow curtains and bringing the U.S. soldiers to their feet.
The soldiers later learned the target was a nearby outpost they had recently established with Iraqi security forces on the edge of Sadr City. The third explosion was a car bomb that upended a blast barrier and punched three neat holes through a concrete wall 50 yards away. The holes, the soldiers said, were telling: The bomb was one of the potent projectile-emitting weapons that the U.S. military says HYPERLINK "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/w
And in Sadr City, militia means one thing: Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's formidable Mahdi Army.
As part of a nearly eight-week-old plan to temper violence in Baghdad, U.S. forces last month set up a permanent base and resumed security sweeps in the enclave for the first time in three years. Sadr's black-clad fighters -- who battled U.S. forces in the past -- have appeared to stand down, even as Sadr publicly condemns the U.S. presence.
But soldiers with a U.S. military police unit that has provided police training and patrols in Sadr City for most of the past 10 months said the Mahdi Army disrupts their efforts every day. Most of the Iraqi police they train are either affiliated with the militia or intimidated by it, the soldiers said. At worst, they said, militia infiltration in the police might be behind attacks on Americans, even though Iraqi officials offered assurances that the Mahdi Army was lying low.
"I don't really think there is an end or a beginning. I think it's all intermingled," Staff Sgt. Toby Hansen, 30, said about the Mahdi Army's relationship to the police trained by his unit. "Eventually, when we leave, they're going to police their own city. They're going to do it their way."
Soldiers of the 118th Military Police Company, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., had worked in Sadr City from last summer until November, when the security situation was deemed too precarious. The unit has returned to train police officers and back up their checkpoints, patrols and neighborhood outreach efforts. It is a fragile cooperation, but U.S. soldiers said they stay motivated because they know some policemen are good.
The soldiers also help police collaborate with the rest of the Iraqi security forces. That is one idea behind the new so-called joint security station on the edge of Sadr City, one of several that have opened across Baghdad in the past two months.
"I think they've got the concept down. The trick is going to be to get them to continue after we leave," said 1st Lt. Mike Mixon, 32, the platoon's leader. "I'm just trying to make them see that they can all live with each other without killing each other."
Many soldiers said that since the troop buildup in Sadr City, residents seemed happier to see them -- and more willing to deal with Iraqi police.
Still, as the American Humvees patrol dusty streets bearing posters and billboards of a scowling Sadr, their gunners often carry rocks, to defend against the stones they know will be thrown at their vehicles along the way.
Hints of the Mahdi Army
The convoy pulled up to al-Thawra police station, a beige building in a walled-off complex that houses three Sadr City police stations responsible for different districts. Trash littered the dirt lot.
In the office of the station commander, Col. Saad Abbas Hussein, the soldiers sipped tea from tiny glasses. Above them were new whiteboards listing patrols and the station's chain of command, the results of some of the Americans' training.
As he sprayed air freshener in the room, a distracted Hussein told Mixon he had had no problems with the militia. Col. Salim Muhsin, the station's liaison to the Interior Ministry, piped up from the corner, saying Sadr had ordered his fighters to avoid the Americans.
"We received that information," Mixon said. "But we are still seeing some lower-level activity, possibly rogue or outside, that might be Mahdi militia, still affecting the coalition forces."
No, Muhsin continued, the only problem is that Sunni insurgents slaughter families every day -- in other neighborhoods.
"They all say that," Mixon said after the meeting.
The soldiers said they do not know which police officers are involved with the Mahdi Army. Their Iraqi interpreters, who also serve as cultural barometers, tell the soldiers that all the police officers are.
"That's why they're still alive," said interpreter "Adam" Abdul Kareem, 29, who uses a false first name and covers his face to conceal his identity while working.
Outside, the U.S. soldiers asked some policemen to accompany them on a patrol. The Iraqis initially refused, saying they would be kidnapped by the Mahdi Army if seen with the Americans. Mixon insisted. So they tagged along in a beat-up SUV -- placed second in the convoy, Hansen explained, so they could not lead the Americans into a trap.
On a quiet residential street, a flock of giddy children swarmed as the Americans and Iraqis passed out T-shirts and Iraqi flags. "Sadr, no," one said in English, pointing off in the distance. "Iran."
"This area good," said an old man with a white beard. "All area with the government."
Later, after the blasts interrupted their second meeting, the squad checked out a possible mortar launch site identified by U.S. soldiers. The site was well inside Sadr City.
Hansen's Humvee turned down narrow streets lined with staring people. Mixon's voice crackled over the radio: "We're getting a lot of 'You're-not-going-to-catch-us' smiles." Finding nothing, the convoy headed toward the joint station, passing a poster of Sadr.
Frustration and Fear
Inside the two-story building covered in peeling blue paint, Iraqi soldiers and police and U.S. soldiers gathered in separate clusters.
No one had been injured in the earlier attack on the outpost. But the soldiers at the station -- many of them infantrymen from the 2nd Brigade, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, out of Fort Bragg -- were clearly shaken. All the building's front windows had shattered.
"We need to bring a bunch of troops into Sadr and [expletive] this place up," said Spec. Josh Saykally, 25, of Minocqua, Wis., meaning soldiers should be living in the center of the district, not just on the edge.
Staff Sgt. Jesse Benskin, 24, fumed. The car bomb, he said, was the work of Mahdi militiamen fed information by Iraqis at the station. Benskin said they all made phone calls right after the blast, which he read as a sign they were reporting results to the attackers. "In my opinion, they're not really holding back," Benskin said of the Mahdi Army.
"I see a whole lot of money and a whole lot of American lives on the line," he said. "Two weeks after we leave, it's going to go back to the way it was."
In a nearby conference room, the joint station's newfound collaboration was on display: whiteboards showing who was on patrol and where, a mission statement in Arabic and English. As Mixon and others looked on, Col. Shaker Wadi Hamoud al-Maliki, the officer in charge, approached a map. The mortars were launched from here, he said, pointing to a Sunni neighborhood outside Sadr City.
His launch sites were completely different from those U.S. soldiers had identified. Mixon shrugged.
"There are no militias in Sadr City now," the colonel said.
The next morning, two more mortars hit near the joint station. Again, the U.S. soldiers' analysis determined they were launched inside Sadr City.
U.S. soldiers marveled at the damage done by the previous day's car bomb. The hot projectiles had traveled at least 200 yards, past the overturned blast barriers and through two concrete walls.
Later, the convoy headed to the police station complex to meet with another commander, Maj. Mohammed Lefta Flaih -- a man Sgt. Dennis Gurney, 38, the squad's jovial leader, deemed a "good cat."
After a conversation about training, emergency response and Flaih's need for whiteboards, Gurney jokingly asked whether Flaih would host a going-away party for the unit at his house, with whiskey and beer. Flaih did not laugh.
"I'd love to, but you know what the consequences would be," Flaih said. Making a stabbing motion, he whispered: "Militia."
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washingtonpost.com:
Six U.S. Attorneys Given 2nd Posting in Washington
By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 10, 2007; A03
A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records.
Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer, for example, has been effectively absent from his job as U.S. attorney in Montana for nearly two years -- prompting the chief federal judge in Billings to demand his removal and call Mercer's office "a mess."
Another U.S. attorney, Michael J. Sullivan of Boston, has been in Washington for the past six months as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is awaiting confirmation to head the agency permanently while still juggling his responsibilities in Massachusetts.
The number of U.S. attorneys pulling double duty in Washington is the focus of growing concern from other prosecutors and from members of the federal bench, according to legal experts and government officials.
The growing reliance on federal prosecutors to fill Washington-based jobs also comes amid controversy over the firings of eight other U.S. attorneys last year. One of them, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, was publicly accused by the Justice Department of being an "absentee landlord" who was away from his job too much.
"I can't think of a time when there's been this many U.S. attorneys doing double duty at one time," said Dennis Boyd, executive director of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, which represents current federal prosecutors.
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse characterized the fact that U.S. attorneys were filling other Washington-based Justice jobs as both unremarkable and beneficial. He cited four examples of chief prosecutors who also served stints in the deputy attorney general's office during the George H.W. Bush administration, and two similar examples during the Clinton years.
"Having U.S. attorneys serve at the department ensures that a local perspective is brought to policy-making decisions," Roehrkasse said in a statement. ". . . U.S. Attorneys assigned to the Department's headquarters also gain a national perspective and can bring this perspective and national focus to their districts."
But Boyd said the prolonged absence of a chief prosecutor can lead to a lack of direction and leadership in U.S. attorneys' offices. The Justice Department made a similar argument in defending the firing of Iglesias, alleging that he had entrusted too much responsibility to his first assistant.
"Quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office, not their first assistants," William E. Moschella, the principal associate deputy attorney general, told the House Judiciary Committee last month.
Iglesias filed a complaint with federal investigators last week, alleging that his dismissal amounted to discrimination based on his status as an officer in the Navy Reserve, which took him away from the job for 40 to 45 days a year. Alleged absenteeism has been the Justice Department's main public criticism of Iglesias, although officials have more recently added concerns about his handling of voter fraud and immigration cases to their arguments about him.
"It's a double standard and it's hypocritical," Iglesias said. "Not one judge from my district wrote a letter to main Justice saying I was gone too much. . . . Most of my absences were military-related."
At the moment, at least six sitting U.S. attorneys, including Mercer and Sullivan, also hold senior spots at Justice. Each prosecutor continues to draw a regular U.S. attorney's salary and is not paid extra for the executive position, Roehrkasse said.
The most prominent example is Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who was named special prosecutor in the CIA leak case in December 2003. Others include U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh, also the acting director of the Office of Violence Against Women, and U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor of Connecticut, who is also an associate deputy attorney general in Washington coordinating anti-gang policies.
The most recent addition is U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria, who was named last month as the new chief of staff to the attorney general. Gonzales's previous chief aide, D. Kyle Sampson, resigned in the fallout over the U.S. attorney firings, which he coordinated.
Mercer currently wears two hats as the U.S. attorney in Montana and as third-in-command at Justice, behind Gonzales and his deputy, Paul J. McNulty. Mercer has been pulling double duty since June 2005, when he was first appointed to a different executive position at Justice headquarters.
His regular absence from the U.S. attorney's office in Billings has caused severe friction between Mercer and U.S. District Chief Judge Donald W. Molloy, a Clinton appointee. Molloy wrote a letter to Gonzales in October 2005 demanding that Mercer be replaced.
Molloy wrote that Mercer's absence had led to "a lack of leadership" in the Montana office and created "untoward difficulties for the court" and for career prosecutors. The judge also questioned whether Mercer complied with residency requirements.
Gonzales wrote back the next month that Mercer was handling both jobs admirably, and suggested that Mercer's absence would be short-lived.
Relations between Mercer and Molloy have not improved since. Molloy berated Mercer during a court hearing last year, accusing him of bringing weak cases to court to pump up statistics and telling him: "You have no credibility -- none."
"Your lawyers are not getting their briefs in on time," Molloy said. "You're in Washington, D.C., and you ought to be here in Montana doing your work. Your office is a mess."
Molloy declined to comment last week.
Mercer has figured prominently in the U.S. attorney firings, in part because he told prosecutors in Arizona and Nevada they were being removed to make way for new Republican loyalists.
Roehrkasse said Mercer has "effectively served" in his simultaneous postings but that "Congress should move forward quickly to confirm his nomination, which has been pending for eight months." Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated they will not proceed on the appointment until after the panel's probe of the U.S. attorney firings is completed.
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The next few entries are going to be a little sloppy - for they're transferred from HSHS, which disallowed journal access this morning. . .
Well. . . seems Manly’s computer doesn’t want to allow me access to LiveJurnal. . .
Jan showed last night – chatted with a man most of the evening (I forget his name); called Eddie Al, which makes me question so much. . . Ronnie’s Kevin’s gone – and I wrote of them recently. . . many in here know Jan – see previous entries. ..
The middle computer’s down here (easier to monitor two anyway – and with only days to go, they’ve monitored out the preds I guess they south. . .). .. Prattler’s on the other computer.
Bostonherald.com horoscope: “TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Your self-concept is a delicate web, woven by your curiosities and your take on your life experience. Friends complement and contribute to this dream catcher. Their belief in you carries you higher.”
See previous entries on this. . .
Boston.com:
College freshmen wealthier, study says
By James M. O'Neill, Bloomberg | April 10, 2007
US college freshmen are wealthier than at any point in the past 35 years, and the income gap is widening between their families and the rest of the nation, a study shows.
This academic year's entering class came from families with income 60 percent greater than the national median, as tuition increases shut out lower-income students, the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a report yesterday. The gap was 46 percent in 1971, according to the study of more than 8 million students compiled over 40 years.
The findings, based on the biggest and longest-running survey of college students, may buttress criticism from members of Congress over the increasing cost of a college education. Tuition and fees have risen 35 percent so far this decade at public four-year institutions and 11 percent at their private counterparts, the researchers said, citing College Board figures.
"Students from wealthier families can endure greater fluctuations in 'sticker price' than poorer students," Jose Luis Santos, a UCLA professor and co author of the report, said in a statement. "As a result, more students entering college come from homes that are increasingly wealthier than the national median income."
While federal aid has helped broaden access to higher education since the 1970s, state cuts in appropriations for public universities and colleges have helped lead to tuition increases that affect lower-income students most, the researchers said.
The federal government also has turned more to loans in its offerings of assistance, according to the report, "American Freshmen: Forty-Year Trends 1966-2006."
"The study highlights the growing divide in our society and strongly affirms the need for both the federal government and states to re invigorate their investment in need-based student financial aid," Daniel J. Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the Washington-based American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said in an e-mail.
The report also shows the need "for states in particular to provide increased operating support to their higher education institutions in order to keep tuition costs down," Hurley said.
President Bush and members of Congress are proposing increases in grants and loan aid to students while calling on colleges and universities to keep down tuition increases.
A growing number of private colleges have raised their spending on financial aid. Elite universities including the Ivy League's Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania have replaced loans with grants in their aid packages for students from lower-income families.
Last month, Davidson College followed the Ivies' lead. The shift will cost the school, located near Charlotte, N.C., almost $2 million in the first year.
Universities now dedicate 68 percent of their own budgeted aid for need-based rather than merit-based aid, up from 60 percent in 2001, said Tony Pals of the Washington-based National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
"Enhancing access for low-income students is a challenge that faces every one of America's 3,500 college presidents," Pals said by e-mail.
The report was compiled by the Higher Education Research Institute, part of UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. INCLUDEPICTURE "http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Fil
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Boston.com:
Doctor, nurse, or student? Consult the white coat
By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | April 10, 2007
White coats are everywhere in Boston's academic medical centers, a universal sign that the wearer is a medical professional. But look closer, and you will notice that not all white coats are alike.
There are long coats, and there are short coats. And who wears what is sometimes a sign of their position within a hospital's hierarchy.
Most medical students, who are sometimes called "short white coats," wear hip-length coats that are bestowed upon them in a solemn ceremony when they begin medical school. The short coats indicate they are not yet doctors, who at most of the city's teaching hospitals wear knee-length white coats.
If patients notice the difference, they typically don't know what the lengths mean. But attire has a significant history within the profession. At some hospitals, doctors have held meetings about coat length. And occasionally residents -- junior doctors who have graduated from medical school but have not completed on-the-job training -- protest the short coats they are expected to wear.
"These are byzantine and complex decisions," said Dr. Mark Zeidel, physician in chief at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but it matters to some people."
Adding to the complexity is that the practices regarding white coats differ among hospitals and even within hospitals, because there are few rules, just traditions. At every hospital, there are physicians who break from tradition, for reasons of fashion, practicality, or something deeper. Many nurses, technicians, and other staff now wear long coats, too. Of course, all staff must wear nametags that identify their job.
Residents generally wear short coats at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, but knee-length coats at Tufts-New England Medical Center. Even at these hospitals, however, some residents have started wearing scrubs, the loose-fitting, pajama-like outfits once used mostly by surgeons, rather than coats. Most senior doctors, called attending physicians, wear long coats, except at Massachusetts General Hospital. There, the strong tradition for doctors is short coats just like those worn by medical students; older physicians theorize that this unusual formulation was adopted to symbolize that Mass. General doctors are learners for life. The eminent institution buys nearly 9,000 white coats a year.
Dr. Mark Aronson, one of the few attendings in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess who wears a short coat, said he received a note from one of his residents a year ago complimenting his choice, saying it set an example of a doctor always being a student.
Senior doctors said the white-coat custom, of any length, probably developed because physicians at academic medical centers traditionally have done research in addition to treating patients, and needed the coats to protect their clothing from laboratory chemicals.
The dress codes for residents and doctors at the nation's teaching hospitals used to be far stricter, and as recently as the 1970s residents at some Boston hospitals were required to wear white coats and white pants starched in the hospital laundry.
Dr. Eugene Braunwald, now a distinguished senior physician, required residents to wear white coats at meetings during the 1980s, doctors who trained under him said.
Braunwald "felt it was part of professionalism," said Dr. Richard Schwartzstein, a resident then and now a pulmonologist who is vice president of education at Beth Israel Deaconess. The chief resident kept several extra short white coats in his closet for those who forgot theirs, he said.
In the 1990s, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, a nonprofit started by a physician and his wife to promote "humanism in medicine," popularized the white-coat ceremony at medical schools, during which the dean or hospital president personally places the short white coat on the shoulders of each student "to carry on the noble profession of doctoring." Now, more than 90 percent of US medical schools hold the ceremony.
Coat length matters for Siqin Ye, 27, a first-year resident at the Brigham who wears a short coat, but not because of the status it might suggest. He went to medical school in Chicago, where residents wore long coats.
"I have actually thought a great deal about this," he said. "When I came here, it was very confusing. What we [residents] object to about short coats is that they're not very fashionable. It doesn't even cover the hip. When I switch to a long coat, I won't feel different in terms of being a doctor or not, but I will feel like I look better."
Some residents have had stronger objections to wearing the short coats of medical students, rather than the long coats of a full-fledged doctor.
Dr. Debra Weinstein, who oversees graduate medical education at Mass. General, said she was surprised several years ago when a few medical students who applied to the hospital's residency programs wrote on a questionnaire that they objected to wearing short white coats. "Some people actually look forward to an expected change in coat length as a symbol of status or achievement and object if they don't get it," she said in an e-mail.
Similar comments from a resident in emergency medicine at Mass. General prompted that department to change its policy four years ago. Dr. Eric Nadel, program director for the emergency medicine residency at Mass. General and the Brigham, said he spoke to other attending physicians in the emergency rooms and decided there was no reason not to allow residents to wear long coats; many emergency medicine attending physicians at Mass. General break from the short-coat tradition themselves.
"I don't think I'm breaking any great laws of this institution, but I am breaking with tradition," he said. "But given the choice, most of my residents went to long coats."
Sandy Shea -- senior area director of the Committee of Interns and Residents, a union with a chapter at Boston Medical Center -- said she has received similar complaints. At Boston Medical Center, while most residents wear long coats, first-year surgical residents, called interns, wear short coats, she said.
"They tell me [their objections] in an embarrassed whisper," she said. "They would never bring it up to their attending."
Two years ago, one intern said he felt wearing a short coat was "infantilizing" and asked if there was anything the union could do about it. Shea said the union would not get involved in the issue unless there was a groundswell of protest.
Some attending physicians said they choose their coat length based on comfort, rather than the tradition at their particular hospital. Dr. Mitchell Rabkin, former president of Beth Israel Deaconess, has always worn a short coat at the hospital, even though long coats are traditional. "They drag on the floor when you're sitting down, they're hot, and they get in the way," he said. "It would be like trying to do your job with a dress that goes down to the floor."
Others said they like the tradition. "Medicine is a long process of training," said Dr. Akshay Desai, a cardiologist at the Brigham. The long coat "is a symbol for many of us of having completed our training and some sense of pride at being an attending. It's the signature of the attendings here." INCLUDEPICTURE "http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Fil
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Thecrimson.com:
Allston Plans Continue To Meet Resistance
Residents voice concerns over proposed complex at Task Force meeting
Published On 4/10/2007 3:54:17 AM
By HYPERLINK "http://www.thecrimson.com/writer.aspx?I
Crimson Staff Writer
Allston residents continued to voice concerns about the impact of Harvard’s proposed science complex and questioned the University’s relationship with the neighborhood at a meeting of the Harvard Allston Task Force last night. Allston residents at the meeting showed signs of disagreement with the task force, which is staffed by neighborhood residents and is intended to represent the area’s interests as Harvard expands its campus across the Charles River. Residents criticized the task force’s chair for supporting Harvard’s plan to build a science complex whose height would exceed the guidelines set by the North Allston Neighborhood Strategic Plan, a 2004 scheme set out by Harvard and the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “It’s very offensive to me to listen to the chair of the task force saying that he’s okay with a building that violated the North Allston Strategic Plan,” Allston resident Paul Alford said. The task force chair, Ray Mellone, urged residents to “be a little bit more mature about these subjects,” noting that building designs change over time to accommodate new needs. “We can’t say that height alone is the only determining factor,” he said of the planned complex. Last month, task force meetings dents said Harvard was not giving them enough time to weigh several of the University’s proposed construction projects. Also in March, smaller subcommittee meetings were held to address more specific issues—such as design components of the proposed science complex and the impact that construction would have on surrounding roadways. Despite those meetings—and the slight ameliorating effect they appear to have had on relations between University officials and Allston residents—the height of the science complex has remained a point of contention. Task force member Brent Whelan, who said he lives 100 yards from the Western Avenue location of the future three-building complex, said that he worried about a “towering” structure close to his home. “We said that we all hoped that the heights would be 55 feet and that they might rise to 75 feet,” he said of the design, which shows buildings that range in height from 88 to more than 200 feet. “How can this building considerably be thought of to honor that agreement?” Kathy Spiegelman, the chief planner for Harvard’s Allston Development Group, said that Harvard had been taking the community’s concerns to heart. “Every time that Stefan has come back, his design has gotten lower and lower,” she said, referring the Stefan Behnisch, the designer of the science complex. “I do want to acknowledge that it’s not that we haven’t heard you,” she added. Task force member Millie McLaughlin agreed that there was still a long way to go in the planning process. “We’re just like you, we’re trying to listen to all of it before we can make a final decision,” she said.
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thecrimson.com:
College Uses Web Plagiarism Checks
Admissions office catches a ‘handful’ of plagiarists each year with online programs
Published On 4/10/2007 4:06:04 AM
By HYPERLINK "http://www.thecrimson.com/writer.aspx?I
Crimson Staff Writer
As college applicants face escalating competition to get accepted to selective colleges, admissions offices—including Harvard’s—are increasingly using internet resources to catch plagiarism in application essays. According to Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, the admissions committee tends to catch a “handful” of would-be plagiarists each year using electronic sources in addition to admissions officers’ judgment. Occasionally, he said, attempts are “clearly obvious” to application reviewers, as when students copy college essay books word for word. “There may well be instances that get by us every year. There’s no way to know for sure,” he said in a phone interview. According to Fitzsimmons, students can, and a few likely do, purchase essays from various private sources. Electronic scanning sources cannot detect these works, since while they are not the students’ own, they are not technically unoriginal. Fitzsimmons said that the College has been using online resources since they became available over a decade ago. But the admissions committee also depends, as it has since before these online resources became available, on admissions officers’ intuition. Fitzsimmons said that the committee is generally prompted to check the originality of application essays for a variety of reasons, such as when a reader assigned to a specific geographic region finds similarities between essays from that region. Admissions officers also take notice when familiar passages from well-known pieces published in essay books appear in applicants’ essays, or when essays contain writing that doesn’t seem to match the rest of the student’s profile, Fitzsimmons added. “Certainly there are times when there is an essay that seems much, much better than what a student would have been able to produce,” he said, citing the gap between essay quality and grades or test scores as indicators of this incongruity. In the event that plagiarism is detected, the committee contacts the student and allows him or her the opportunity to provide an explanation. If the student’s response does not suffice, the application is rejected. Fitzsimmons did not say which online resources the admissions office uses to catch plagiarists. But at least one specific resource has been used to detect plagiarism at Harvard. This past fall, the instructors in Sociology 189, “Law and Social Movements,” used Turnitin.com to scan students’ work as part of a plagiarism-detection pilot program run by Harvard’s Instructional Computing Group (ICG). The nine-year-old Web site, which added an admissions-essay service in 2004, has screened 27,000 admissions essays and found 11 percent to contain at least one-quarter of un-original material, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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nytimes.com:
April 10, 2007
Sex Offenders Test Churches’ Core Beliefs
By HYPERLINK "http://topics.nytimes.com/top/referenc
CARLSBAD, Calif. — On a marquee outside and on a banner inside, Pilgrim United Church of Christ proclaims, “All are welcome.” Sustained by the belief that embracing all comers is a living example of Christ’s love, Pilgrim now faces a profound test of faith.
In late January, Mark Pliska, 53, told the congregation here that he had been in prison for molesting children but that he sought a place to worship and liked the atmosphere at Pilgrim.
Mr. Pliska’s request has plunged the close-knit congregation into a painful discussion about applying faith in a difficult real-world situation. Congregants now wonder, are all truly welcome? If they are, how do you ensure the safety of children and the healing of adult survivors of sexual abuse? Can an offender who accepts Christ truly change?
“I think what we have been through is a loss of innocence,” said the Rev. Madison Shockley, Pilgrim’s minister. “People think of church as an idyllic paradise, and I think that is a great part of that loss.”
Pilgrim’s struggle mirrors those of other congregations, of various faiths, across the country.
Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the HYPERLINK "http://topics.nytimes.com/top/referenc
The Rev. Debra W. Haffner, director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing in Norwalk, Conn., said she received one or two calls a month from congregations facing a crisis similar to Pilgrim’s.
Having a policy to deal with sex offenders before a crisis occurs is the best way to avoid turmoil, Ms. Haffner said. But such a policy still may force a congregation to decide under what circumstances an offender can attend, a discussion that can shake many churches to their core.
“They are conflicting ministries,” the Rev. Patricia Tummino said about reaching out to sex offenders, to children and to adult survivors of abuse. Since the late 1990s, Ms. Tummino’s congregation, the First Unitarian Universalist Society in Middleboro, Mass., has dealt with two known sex offenders. “You can’t be all things to all people,” she said.
Congregations have always had sex offenders, largely unknown to others, Ms. Haffner said.
Parole officers have encouraged offenders who have been jailed to seek congregations as a source of community and support, Ms. Haffner said.
States have computerized registries of sex offenders that let anyone check on a new congregant. Local news media often report on a sex offender’s arrival from prison, making it hard for a parolee to remain anonymous.
After being released in mid-2006, Mr. Pliska ended up at First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Santa Cruz, Calif.
“My spiritual growth is very important to me,” Mr. Pliska said in an interview in Mr. Shockley’s office. “I went looking for an open and affirming church and attended a U.C.C. church and liked it.”
The United Church of Christ takes pride in its liberalism, and it has led other Protestant denominations in the ordination of women and on civil rights issues.
In Santa Cruz, Mr. Pliska agreed to avoid children and to always be escorted by another adult. The church has two services, which made it easier for those uncomfortable with him to still worship.
But business was slow and he lost his job as a mechanic, Mr. Pliska said, and in December, he moved to Carlsbad, an affluent seaside town 30 miles north of San Diego.
Mr. Shockley received an e-mail message from Santa Cruz about Mr. Pliska’s search for a new congregation. He said he thought that if Pilgrim established the same limits as Santa Cruz had, Mr. Pliska’s presence would be as uneventful.
Before introducing Mr. Pliska to the congregation, Mr. Shockley spoke to a few congregants who had been abused as children and to parents, and none objected to Mr. Pliska’s inclusion.
But Mr. Pliska’s introduction unlocked a flood of emotions among the 300 members.
“The scariest moment,” Mr. Shockley said, “was when I got the feeling in the congregation about whether Mark could attend or not, and we needed more time, yet people were saying ‘If he stays, I leave,’ or ‘If he leaves, I leave.’ ”
The church has pulled back from that edge, and most people seem to be listening respectfully to one another. A few families have stopped attending. Some new people have started to come, impressed by local news accounts of the congregation’s willingness to consider having Mr. Pliska.
Tristan Green attends with her three sons, and is torn about having Mr. Pliska in the congregation. She believes he should be welcome but she wonders how she might keep track of the boys during the social hour, whether they would enjoy the freedom to play, whether Mr. Pliska would get the church’s pictorial members’ directory.
“I’d feel uncomfortable,” said her oldest son, Sebastian, 9, “but we’re supposed to let everybody come.”
Samantha Peterson, 21, said she believed Mr. Pliska should attend. “I feel that those who are fearful have a very valid opinion, but we have a unique opportunity to be really tested and to make the right decision,” she said. “I don’t think this guy is a danger. He’s asking for help.”
Her mother, Missy Peterson, who also has a 10-year-old son, said she felt guilty about her wariness. But she could not ignore it.
“Why should I reserve judgment and not listen to the bells and whistles in my gut that say ‘No’?” Ms. Peterson asked.
Adult survivors of sexual abuse are also shaken by the possibility of worshipping with a sex offender.
“There are people who feel that if we don’t welcome Mark, we lose who we are,” said David Irvine, 48, who was sexually abused as a child. “But what do you say to one member who was abused for 10 years, several times a week? By welcoming one person, are we rescinding our welcome to some of the survivors among us, people in pain and healing, members of our family?”
An ad hoc committee at the church is trying to develop a “safe church” policy that would apply to sex offenders and would also create programs to prevent sexual abuse through education and screening of anyone working with children.
The policy is expected to be ready for discussion in early May, Mr. Shockley said. Mr. Pliska has been asked not to attend worship services for now, but he meets weekly with a small group from Pilgrim.
In the meantime, publicity over his arrival at Pilgrim led to Mr. Pliska’s eviction and the loss of his job. He is homeless and unemployed. Yet he said he does not regret being open with the church, after spending years hiding who he was.
“So far, there is no upside,” he said. “But there will be later on. God makes miracles in different ways.”
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ah – then if not science and religion the sexpred laydown and relighion testing. . . ? still – absolutely wrong of the HUMF. . .
washingtonpost.com:
Learning to Live With the Mahdi Army
By Karin Brulliard Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 10, 2007; A01
BAGHDAD -- No, there have been no problems, the police commander was telling the armor-laden American soldiers squeezed into his office in the vast Shiite enclave of Sadr City. Except, he said, for the text-messaged death threats he often received from militia members.
Suddenly the meeting was interrupted by a loud mortar blast, followed by another explosion. A third, thunderous boom rattled the room, sending ripples through the yellow curtains and bringing the U.S. soldiers to their feet.
The soldiers later learned the target was a nearby outpost they had recently established with Iraqi security forces on the edge of Sadr City. The third explosion was a car bomb that upended a blast barrier and punched three neat holes through a concrete wall 50 yards away. The holes, the soldiers said, were telling: The bomb was one of the potent projectile-emitting weapons that the U.S. military says HYPERLINK "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/w
And in Sadr City, militia means one thing: Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's formidable Mahdi Army.
As part of a nearly eight-week-old plan to temper violence in Baghdad, U.S. forces last month set up a permanent base and resumed security sweeps in the enclave for the first time in three years. Sadr's black-clad fighters -- who battled U.S. forces in the past -- have appeared to stand down, even as Sadr publicly condemns the U.S. presence.
But soldiers with a U.S. military police unit that has provided police training and patrols in Sadr City for most of the past 10 months said the Mahdi Army disrupts their efforts every day. Most of the Iraqi police they train are either affiliated with the militia or intimidated by it, the soldiers said. At worst, they said, militia infiltration in the police might be behind attacks on Americans, even though Iraqi officials offered assurances that the Mahdi Army was lying low.
"I don't really think there is an end or a beginning. I think it's all intermingled," Staff Sgt. Toby Hansen, 30, said about the Mahdi Army's relationship to the police trained by his unit. "Eventually, when we leave, they're going to police their own city. They're going to do it their way."
Soldiers of the 118th Military Police Company, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., had worked in Sadr City from last summer until November, when the security situation was deemed too precarious. The unit has returned to train police officers and back up their checkpoints, patrols and neighborhood outreach efforts. It is a fragile cooperation, but U.S. soldiers said they stay motivated because they know some policemen are good.
The soldiers also help police collaborate with the rest of the Iraqi security forces. That is one idea behind the new so-called joint security station on the edge of Sadr City, one of several that have opened across Baghdad in the past two months.
"I think they've got the concept down. The trick is going to be to get them to continue after we leave," said 1st Lt. Mike Mixon, 32, the platoon's leader. "I'm just trying to make them see that they can all live with each other without killing each other."
Many soldiers said that since the troop buildup in Sadr City, residents seemed happier to see them -- and more willing to deal with Iraqi police.
Still, as the American Humvees patrol dusty streets bearing posters and billboards of a scowling Sadr, their gunners often carry rocks, to defend against the stones they know will be thrown at their vehicles along the way.
Hints of the Mahdi Army
The convoy pulled up to al-Thawra police station, a beige building in a walled-off complex that houses three Sadr City police stations responsible for different districts. Trash littered the dirt lot.
In the office of the station commander, Col. Saad Abbas Hussein, the soldiers sipped tea from tiny glasses. Above them were new whiteboards listing patrols and the station's chain of command, the results of some of the Americans' training.
As he sprayed air freshener in the room, a distracted Hussein told Mixon he had had no problems with the militia. Col. Salim Muhsin, the station's liaison to the Interior Ministry, piped up from the corner, saying Sadr had ordered his fighters to avoid the Americans.
"We received that information," Mixon said. "But we are still seeing some lower-level activity, possibly rogue or outside, that might be Mahdi militia, still affecting the coalition forces."
No, Muhsin continued, the only problem is that Sunni insurgents slaughter families every day -- in other neighborhoods.
"They all say that," Mixon said after the meeting.
The soldiers said they do not know which police officers are involved with the Mahdi Army. Their Iraqi interpreters, who also serve as cultural barometers, tell the soldiers that all the police officers are.
"That's why they're still alive," said interpreter "Adam" Abdul Kareem, 29, who uses a false first name and covers his face to conceal his identity while working.
Outside, the U.S. soldiers asked some policemen to accompany them on a patrol. The Iraqis initially refused, saying they would be kidnapped by the Mahdi Army if seen with the Americans. Mixon insisted. So they tagged along in a beat-up SUV -- placed second in the convoy, Hansen explained, so they could not lead the Americans into a trap.
On a quiet residential street, a flock of giddy children swarmed as the Americans and Iraqis passed out T-shirts and Iraqi flags. "Sadr, no," one said in English, pointing off in the distance. "Iran."
"This area good," said an old man with a white beard. "All area with the government."
Later, after the blasts interrupted their second meeting, the squad checked out a possible mortar launch site identified by U.S. soldiers. The site was well inside Sadr City.
Hansen's Humvee turned down narrow streets lined with staring people. Mixon's voice crackled over the radio: "We're getting a lot of 'You're-not-going-to-catch-us' smiles." Finding nothing, the convoy headed toward the joint station, passing a poster of Sadr.
Frustration and Fear
Inside the two-story building covered in peeling blue paint, Iraqi soldiers and police and U.S. soldiers gathered in separate clusters.
No one had been injured in the earlier attack on the outpost. But the soldiers at the station -- many of them infantrymen from the 2nd Brigade, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, out of Fort Bragg -- were clearly shaken. All the building's front windows had shattered.
"We need to bring a bunch of troops into Sadr and [expletive] this place up," said Spec. Josh Saykally, 25, of Minocqua, Wis., meaning soldiers should be living in the center of the district, not just on the edge.
Staff Sgt. Jesse Benskin, 24, fumed. The car bomb, he said, was the work of Mahdi militiamen fed information by Iraqis at the station. Benskin said they all made phone calls right after the blast, which he read as a sign they were reporting results to the attackers. "In my opinion, they're not really holding back," Benskin said of the Mahdi Army.
"I see a whole lot of money and a whole lot of American lives on the line," he said. "Two weeks after we leave, it's going to go back to the way it was."
In a nearby conference room, the joint station's newfound collaboration was on display: whiteboards showing who was on patrol and where, a mission statement in Arabic and English. As Mixon and others looked on, Col. Shaker Wadi Hamoud al-Maliki, the officer in charge, approached a map. The mortars were launched from here, he said, pointing to a Sunni neighborhood outside Sadr City.
His launch sites were completely different from those U.S. soldiers had identified. Mixon shrugged.
"There are no militias in Sadr City now," the colonel said.
The next morning, two more mortars hit near the joint station. Again, the U.S. soldiers' analysis determined they were launched inside Sadr City.
U.S. soldiers marveled at the damage done by the previous day's car bomb. The hot projectiles had traveled at least 200 yards, past the overturned blast barriers and through two concrete walls.
Later, the convoy headed to the police station complex to meet with another commander, Maj. Mohammed Lefta Flaih -- a man Sgt. Dennis Gurney, 38, the squad's jovial leader, deemed a "good cat."
After a conversation about training, emergency response and Flaih's need for whiteboards, Gurney jokingly asked whether Flaih would host a going-away party for the unit at his house, with whiskey and beer. Flaih did not laugh.
"I'd love to, but you know what the consequences would be," Flaih said. Making a stabbing motion, he whispered: "Militia."
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washingtonpost.com:
Six U.S. Attorneys Given 2nd Posting in Washington
By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 10, 2007; A03
A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records.
Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer, for example, has been effectively absent from his job as U.S. attorney in Montana for nearly two years -- prompting the chief federal judge in Billings to demand his removal and call Mercer's office "a mess."
Another U.S. attorney, Michael J. Sullivan of Boston, has been in Washington for the past six months as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is awaiting confirmation to head the agency permanently while still juggling his responsibilities in Massachusetts.
The number of U.S. attorneys pulling double duty in Washington is the focus of growing concern from other prosecutors and from members of the federal bench, according to legal experts and government officials.
The growing reliance on federal prosecutors to fill Washington-based jobs also comes amid controversy over the firings of eight other U.S. attorneys last year. One of them, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, was publicly accused by the Justice Department of being an "absentee landlord" who was away from his job too much.
"I can't think of a time when there's been this many U.S. attorneys doing double duty at one time," said Dennis Boyd, executive director of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, which represents current federal prosecutors.
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse characterized the fact that U.S. attorneys were filling other Washington-based Justice jobs as both unremarkable and beneficial. He cited four examples of chief prosecutors who also served stints in the deputy attorney general's office during the George H.W. Bush administration, and two similar examples during the Clinton years.
"Having U.S. attorneys serve at the department ensures that a local perspective is brought to policy-making decisions," Roehrkasse said in a statement. ". . . U.S. Attorneys assigned to the Department's headquarters also gain a national perspective and can bring this perspective and national focus to their districts."
But Boyd said the prolonged absence of a chief prosecutor can lead to a lack of direction and leadership in U.S. attorneys' offices. The Justice Department made a similar argument in defending the firing of Iglesias, alleging that he had entrusted too much responsibility to his first assistant.
"Quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office, not their first assistants," William E. Moschella, the principal associate deputy attorney general, told the House Judiciary Committee last month.
Iglesias filed a complaint with federal investigators last week, alleging that his dismissal amounted to discrimination based on his status as an officer in the Navy Reserve, which took him away from the job for 40 to 45 days a year. Alleged absenteeism has been the Justice Department's main public criticism of Iglesias, although officials have more recently added concerns about his handling of voter fraud and immigration cases to their arguments about him.
"It's a double standard and it's hypocritical," Iglesias said. "Not one judge from my district wrote a letter to main Justice saying I was gone too much. . . . Most of my absences were military-related."
At the moment, at least six sitting U.S. attorneys, including Mercer and Sullivan, also hold senior spots at Justice. Each prosecutor continues to draw a regular U.S. attorney's salary and is not paid extra for the executive position, Roehrkasse said.
The most prominent example is Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who was named special prosecutor in the CIA leak case in December 2003. Others include U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh, also the acting director of the Office of Violence Against Women, and U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor of Connecticut, who is also an associate deputy attorney general in Washington coordinating anti-gang policies.
The most recent addition is U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria, who was named last month as the new chief of staff to the attorney general. Gonzales's previous chief aide, D. Kyle Sampson, resigned in the fallout over the U.S. attorney firings, which he coordinated.
Mercer currently wears two hats as the U.S. attorney in Montana and as third-in-command at Justice, behind Gonzales and his deputy, Paul J. McNulty. Mercer has been pulling double duty since June 2005, when he was first appointed to a different executive position at Justice headquarters.
His regular absence from the U.S. attorney's office in Billings has caused severe friction between Mercer and U.S. District Chief Judge Donald W. Molloy, a Clinton appointee. Molloy wrote a letter to Gonzales in October 2005 demanding that Mercer be replaced.
Molloy wrote that Mercer's absence had led to "a lack of leadership" in the Montana office and created "untoward difficulties for the court" and for career prosecutors. The judge also questioned whether Mercer complied with residency requirements.
Gonzales wrote back the next month that Mercer was handling both jobs admirably, and suggested that Mercer's absence would be short-lived.
Relations between Mercer and Molloy have not improved since. Molloy berated Mercer during a court hearing last year, accusing him of bringing weak cases to court to pump up statistics and telling him: "You have no credibility -- none."
"Your lawyers are not getting their briefs in on time," Molloy said. "You're in Washington, D.C., and you ought to be here in Montana doing your work. Your office is a mess."
Molloy declined to comment last week.
Mercer has figured prominently in the U.S. attorney firings, in part because he told prosecutors in Arizona and Nevada they were being removed to make way for new Republican loyalists.
Roehrkasse said Mercer has "effectively served" in his simultaneous postings but that "Congress should move forward quickly to confirm his nomination, which has been pending for eight months." Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have indicated they will not proceed on the appointment until after the panel's probe of the U.S. attorney firings is completed.
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