Blending key research with best practices

THE 27th Annual BioCycle National Conference in Philadelphia will bring together leading compost researchers from around the world, as well as a great many project managers whose experiences help solve problems confronting organics recyclers. One session that the editors here at BioCycle are especially enthusiastic about focuses on the impact of three individuals whose careers have so greatly changed the direction of their professional fields. Harry Hoitink of Ohio State University has come to symbolize the role of compost in suppressing plant disease. At a time when so many search for transitional steps to achieve sustainable agriculture, Harry, his colleagues and former students are …

Eddie Johnson leaves U.S. training camp

U.S. forward Eddie Johnson, who has been linked to a possible move to Fulham in England's Premier League, has left the American national team's training camp.

Johnson left Sunday, team spokesman Michael Kammarman said Monday. Johnson had been practicing for this weekend's friendly against Sweden.

The Washington Post …

For sale: 'Governor had some nice stuff'; Blagojevich

The governor's office went on sale to the highest bidder Thursday -- literally.

It wasn't state contracts or a Senate seat on offer, but the dusty contents of storage units Rod Blagojevich failed to pay rent on for a year.

A ragtag group of 50 bargain hunters braved the sun and a pair of Elvis impersonators at Boyer-Rosene Moving and Storage in Arlington Heights to bid on mementos ranging from $5 boxes of the disgraced former governor's paperwork, through office furniture, to a statue of The King that fetched $20,500.

Boyer-Rosene CEO Paul Lombardo set up the auction when Blagojevich failed to pay $3,300 rent. He'll donate the proceeds to Children's …

Issue du jour: Responsibility

Stakeholders want a kinder, gentler corporate world and -- judging from a spate of recent studies - businesses are getting that message loud and clear.

According to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 41 % of US multinational companies have expanded their corporate reporting to include a "triple bottom line," measuring social and environmental performance in addition to financial data. …

Column: Subplots Make Series Interesting

ST. LOUIS - Pitching to Albert Pujols, chasing Christy Mathewson, and Smudgegate. Hey, this ain't so bad!

Turns out, the World Series that nobody wanted has been pretty entertaining so far. In the first two games alone there was enough controversy, questionable strategy and conspiracy talk to keep Oliver Stone AND Michael Moore happy.

Plus, it won't be a sweep, which is a major step up from the past two years.

All right, so the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers aren't exactly the sexiest teams in baseball. They're short on stars, they never wear pinstripes and they don't believe in age-old curses.

But there's all kinds of intriguing stuff going on …

Official says seven South Korean Web …

Official says seven South Korean Web …

Brother Rice Surprises Marist // Gleason Debuts With Win

So what will Brother Rice coach Bill Gleason do for an encore?

The replacement for legendary coach Tom Mitchell, Gleason guidedhis team to a 14-10 nonconference victory over visiting Marist beforean overflow crowd in the Crusaders' season opener Saturday.

It was an extraordinary victory for Gleason, and not justbecause it was his first.

Ranked No. 3 in the area, Marist had beaten Brother Rice fourconsecutive years. And Marist, located only 12 blocks south of Ricealong Pulaski Road on the Southwest Side, is an archrival of thehighest magnitude.

"It was a big game," said junior linebacker Joe Carroll, who hadtwo interceptions, including one run …

NYC's Rat Island, 2 acres of rock, sells for $160K

NEW YORK (AP) — As far as private islands go, New York City's Rat Island isn't exactly luxurious. It's really just a pile of rocks that once housed quarantined typhoid patients.

But the island sold at auction Sunday for $160,000. …

GOP members to Fla. Gov. Crist: Return our money

Twenty prominent Republicans demanded That Gov. Charlie Crist return every penny that some of them gave to his Senate campaign, saying he broke donors' trust when he decided to run as an independent.

The Republicans, including former state GOP chairman Al Cardenas, noted that Crist had $7.6 million in his campaign account at the end of March and said anyone who wants their money back should have it returned.

"We helped to support, and yes to bankroll, your political career. For years you have been asking us for money. And for years we have put our names and credibility on the line by asking our friends to donate to you. Those days are over," the …

[ MORNINGLINE ]

RESULTS Is "Them Sopranos" disrespectful to Italians?

YES: 24%

NO: 76%

TODAY'S …

Amtrak prepares for Thanksgiving travel rush

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amtrak is preparing for Thanksgiving, the rail service's busiest travel period of the year, with extra trains and rail cars added to routes through Chicago, the Midwest and other regions.

The two busiest travel days are expected to be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Nov. 23, and the Sunday after, Nov. 27.

Amtrak saw record ridership last year with more than 700,000 …

Ireland 20, Australia 20

Ireland drew 20-20 with Australia at Croke Park on Sunday:

___

Scorers:

Ireland 20 (Tommy Bowe, Brian O'Driscoll tries; …

That's unbelievable; What is? After seeing the investigation results, just about everything connected with baseball during Steroid Era

First thing I did was jump into a cab in the Loop. I had watchedon TV as Glenallen Hill's home run flew over the left-field wall atWrigley Field, over the bleachers, over the back fence, overWaveland and onto one of the rooftops.

Some guy in a corporate outing had dived for the ball, and downbelow the ball hawkers already were arguing over whether this wasthe longest homer ever at Wrigley, or whether Dave Kingman's orBilly Williams' went farther. Or maybe Jim Hickman's, RobertoClemente's or Swish Nicholson's.

"I hit one to the trees by the Torco sign," said Williams, a Cubscoach that day, May 11, 2000. "But this was the longest ball I'dever seen hit at Wrigley Field."

In the stadium, players past and present, and fans, too, werebuzzing. Ron Santo and Mark Grace, though, both told of baseball'sdirty secret, that the ball was juiced.

"Not to take anything away from Glenallen," Grace said at thetime, "but no human being can do that."

Hill was named in the Mitchell Report on Thursday. Sen. Mitchellcompleted his steroid investigation into baseball and named morethan 80 names. At some point in his career, Hill allegedly boughttwo kits of human growth hormone from New York Mets clubhouseattendant Kirk Radomski. A signed check for $3,200 is in thereport's appendix. Hill, now a coach for the Colorado Rockies, saidhe bought steroids but never used them.

Do you believe him? And more important, do you still believe inhis home run? I don't. Remember what Grace said. No human being cando that.

CUBS, SOX FAR FROM EXEMPT

Hill was never a great Cub, but he had a great Cub moment. Andyou can take all great moments now and try to figure how they blendtogether. It's Clemente and Hill and Williams all in the samesentence. What's real?

Thursday was a big day in baseball history. Chicago is a bigbaseball town. How did the city do? Not well. But no one did.

Former Cubs and Sox pitcher Matt Karchner tells in the report ofthe time he watched two Cubs teammates, his roommates, do steroidsin their apartment. Ex-Sox pitcher Scott Schoeneweis allegedly hadsix shipments of steroids sent right to Sox Park. Then there's JimParque, Rondell White, Todd Hundley, Jerry Hairston Jr., GaryMatthews Jr.

Do you still want Baltimore's star second baseman, Brian Roberts?The Cubs are said to be talking trade for him. His name is in thereport as having told someone he had tried steroids.

That report was more than 1,000 names short of being complete.Still, the Cubs shouldn't bring in anyone on the list.

So it's the past, the present, the future. It's hard to believein any of it.

The report didn't add a whole lot or say much that hadn't beenwritten a million times already. The cheating players are hurtingthe kids who are watching. Commissioner Bud Selig looked the otherway when steroids started taking over, more concerned withbaseball's revenues than its conscience.

But seeing it all together like that, one story after another,what can we actually believe in sports?

Frank Thomas, maybe. Look at Chicago's two baseball icons fromthe era, Sammy Sosa and Thomas. Sosa was mentioned in the reportjust once, where it said that he didn't respond to a letter askingquestions. Thomas was the only current player who voluntarily talkedto Mitchell.

Thomas and Sosa always will be connected in this town. Sosa wasthe smiley human Beanie Baby, while Thomas was about brooding self-interest. Which one do you believe now?

When they went to the congressional steroid hearings, Sosasomehow forgot how to speak English. No one ever pins anything onhim. But I don't believe.

Thomas said he'd be willing to be a part of solving the problem.Not long ago, some people were wondering what happened to that vow.

In the report, Mitchell says that Thomas was "very helpful."

Other players will see him as a snitch now.

QUITE A STORY FROM KARCHNER

Do you still believe in the White Sox' World Series title?Players from that team weren't named. But it's hard to think thatany championship has been won without cheats.

When Karchner tells of his teammates together in his apartment,the problem doesn't sound isolated. It's a culture.

"He said that one of the players brought the steroids to theapartment but was afraid of needles and therefore asked the secondplayer to administer the shot," the report says. "The second playerinjected the first player with steroids in the buttocks and theninjected himself. Later that season, Karchner was offered steroidsby certain of his Cubs teammates."

Hill said in the report that he didn't use the steroids he hadbought because he was having marital problems. There is noexplanation for whatever that means.

Hill's famous homer is gone now. It was measured at 490 feet, butwho knows how far it would have flown if that rooftop hadn't been inthe way. Kingman's had a chance to fly down Kenmore into someone'syard.

"I kind of think they shortchanged me a little bit," Hill saidthat day.

He also said this: "The ball is not juiced."

Maybe something else was.

Send e-mail to inbox@suntimes.com with name, hometown and daytimephone number. Letters run Sunday.

Just a Gigolo

Just a Gigolo

JAMES QUANDT ON THE FILMS OF JACQUES NOLOT

IN THE FILMS OF JACQUES NOLOT, weakness of the flesh implies bodily decline as much as unbidden desire. Nolot's unflinching camera looks with equal asperity and tenderness on the corpse of an old woman with its hairless vagina, spreading breasts, and wizened skin; aging drag queens in erratic mascara and tortuously extruded bosoms prowling the periphery of a porn theater; and the filmmaker's own naked corpulence, its mottled sag blue-lit and afflicted in a nighttime kitchen. While Nolot's protagonists, acted by the handsome director as obvious versions of himself, gloat that "other people's troubles exhilarate me" or "I don't believe in happiness, especially other people's," his films never succumb to schadenfreude. Their vision of human triviality and carnal chagrin may depend on disgust or ridicule, but Nolot's directness and self-implicating wit avert the baleful. Absently wiping ass lube into his hair during sex with a young hustler, or confiding to a traffic cop that he just shit himself, Nolot maintains his dignity by accepting that each new day brings fresh ruin and humiliation, but also the possibility of fugitive pleasure.

In person that rare thing, the reticent libertine, Nolot allows no such discretion in his art. His autobiographical trilogy-L'Arri�re Pays (Hinterland, 1998), La Chatte � deux t�tes (Porn Theatre, 2002), and Avant que j'oublie (Before I Forget, 2007)-unabashedly chronicles Nolot's life over the past two decades, his body waning but his persona remaining essentially the same: tamped, watchful, mordantly amused at frailty when not exasperated by his own. (In a bildungsroman way, the story of his youth is backfilled in two earlier films written by Nolot and directed by Andr� T�chin�-La Matiouette [1983] and J'embrasse pas [I Don't Kiss, 1991]-which encompass his flight from his rural birthplace, his arrival in Paris after living rough in the provinces, his life as a young gigolo whose clientele included Roland Barthes, and his first return home, hair tinted blond, at the age of twentytwo, in a Mercedes convertible: "a malicious pleasure of provocation," according to Nolot.) Each of his three films laments the passing of a way of existence, memorializing, respectively, his mother, his adopted son who died of AIDS, his own failing life.

L'Arri�re Pays, one of the most remarkable feature debuts of the past decade, was shot in Marciac, the village in southwestern France where Nolot was born. Encouraged by Agn�s Godard, the cinematographer who has also worked miracles for Claire Denis, Nolot took great risks as a neophyte director, especially in using nonprofessionals for almost all the supporting roles. (He did the casting in a village caf�.) The locals' raw authenticity, what Nolot calls their "maladresse," or clumsiness, stands in contrast to his urbane, gay outsider, Jacques Pruez, a minor television celebrity who returns to his hometown from Paris to see his dying mother. Revealing its origins in a novel unfinished by Nolot, Pays consists of three chapters: Jacques's arrival, up to his mother's death (and the shocking sequence of the washing and dressing of her corpse, which culminates in a reverse piet�); the funeral and various encounters and confrontations with family and villagers, in which secrets are revealed that overturn Jacques's grasp of his past; and, finally, Jacques's delayed leavetaking, including the sudden interjection of a remembered adolescent fantasy involving rugby players and bullfighters, locked in homoerotic rites, their tight pants revealing what French alliteratively elides as Ia queue et les couilles, otherwise known as cock and balls. (Nolot once remarked that if Jacques Rivette could show Emmanuelle B�art naked for four hours in La Belle Noiseuse, he could indulge his own proclivities.)

The film's early sequences seem made under the sign of Bresson: no nondiegetic music; elliptical imparting of information; a materialist sound track and cutting style that places images side by side like objects; and Nolot's own stoppered walk, frugal and indrawn, like that of a Bresson "model." Nolot recalled "a fear of feeling" during the film's making, and the occasional derisiveness and overall stylistic concision seem ramparts against unwanted sentimentality. Nolot's regard is sec, rigorous, even as his characters-Jacques's hedonistic father; his brother, a policeman imploding in long-nurtured rancor; an aunt who blithely admits to pro-German sympathies during the war-challenge his detachment. Pays is bracingly edited, its final section accelerated to imply a sense of imminent escape, though the film relies overall on extended takes and protracted pans within constricted space-shots whose length serves less an aesthetic of duration than a practical function, emphasizing the emotional connections between characters (and relying on a boggling amount of memorization as Nolot's amateur actors deliver copious dialogue without benefit of edits).

L'Arri�re Pays reminds one of Maurice Pialat's La Gueule ouverte (The Mouth Agape, 1974) and Jean Eustache's Mes petites amoureuses (1974) and La Rosi�re de Pessac (The Virgin of Pessac, 1979), but Nolot rejects any notion of cinematic influence or reference-despite the poster for Raul Ruiz's G�n�alogies d'un crime at a local gas station in the film. Pays, however, did follow immediately on such harbingers of an emerging rural naturalism in French cinema as Sandrine Veysset's Y aura-t-il de la neige � No�l? (Will It Snow for Christmas?, 1996) and Bruno Dumont's La Vie de J�sus (1997), much as Nolot's second film, La Chatte � deux t�tes, seemed to reflect the New French Extremity of its time-the strenuously transgressive cinema of such provocateurs as Catherine Breillat and Caspar No�. Though ultimately too sweet, endearing, and humane to align with that trend, Chatte clearly shares the aim to shock and unsettle, with its hard-ons and cum shots, its salty talk ("I need cock," huffs a Christian Schad-looking transvestite) and dank environs: This cinema calls for nonskid shoes and doesn't Scotchgard its seats. (The film's English title, Porn Theatre, captures nothing of the piquant smuttiness of its French original, itself a sly dig at Cocteau's two-headed eagle.)

The closed world of L'Arri�re Pays becomes even more contracted in Chatte, a chamber drama that derives quite conspicuously from a theater production. The porn cinema, already an anachronism and soon to disappear, becomes an arena of indeterminacy under Nolot's telling eye. The porn on its screen may be straight, but the trysting in the loges is anything but-all male and of every persuasion. Gays, straights, trannies, don't knows, and not sures mix it up and get it off with one another, though more often not: Many are left alone or smoldering, some resorting to unhinged persistence, like the butterball in tawny wig and electric blue blouse who sings the habanera from Carmen between hapless attempts at seduction. Nolot, his usual reserved, intent self, plays a character identified only as "the fifty-year-old man," who waits in the midst of this maelstrom, bills of various denominations tucked in socks and pockets should any encounter require payment. Alibis, lying, and self-delusion prevail: A soldier, determined to maintain his straight identity, demands fifty francs before cumming on his own tummy. One thinks of Genet (the aura of ritual) and Cocteau (the Orphic journey), and, oddly, of Jean Renoir. Chatte turns out to be, amid the flying jizz and wonky wigs, a Renoirian social comedy, presided over by a seen-it-all, done-it-all, whiskey-tippling Mamma Parigi (Vittoria Scognamiglio), the cinema's philosophical cashier. Chatte ends as Nolot, cashier, and projectionist-a sweet, straight young kid from Auch, where, he says, "everyone is normal"-head off for a shared assignation, proving that two heads are better than one and three is never a crowd.

The black hole that enlarges to eventually swallow the screen's white field before the credits in Nolot's masterpiece, Before I Forget-a morose variation on the iris-out with which Jacques Demy often began his films-suggests many things: le trou de m�moire, or blackout (literally, "memory hole"); the anus, to which the film frequently refers; and, more drastically, the nothingness that threatens to consume Nolot, here called Pierre. The French word for forgetting suggests oblivion, and Nolot's sepulchral comedy, which opens in a cemetery, concentrates on loss, decline, abandonment, the imminence of death. An unsentimental requiem for a generation of gay men and its clandestine culture of hustlers, rent boys, kept men, and fleeting lovers, Forget finds Pierre, who has lived twenty-four years with HTV, nauseous, insomniac, lonely, suicidal, unable to write, and incapable of routine sex-breathing during fellatio difficult, fucking too painful, a visit to his old cruising grounds ruined by loose bowels. Pierre's lover has left him ("I'm very unhappy," he tells the bailiff come to collect on his ex's parking ticket), his days now punctuated less by sex than by mittfuls of pills.

Bristling with malicious wit and stinging aper�us"You can go down a floor," someone once warned Pierre's boyfriend about the young gigolo, "but not to the basement"-Before I Forget rivals the logorrhea of Rohmer. Crisply photographed in slow pans and locked shots in even, precise light-cinematography that seems an emanation of French rationality-the film consists of a series of conversations between Pierre and old acquaintances, mostly about sex, decrepitude, and money. "I sublimate," Pierre jokes to a friend who is increasingly "greedy" for rent boys though he owes four hundred thousand francs in back taxes on his ancien r�gime digs. Sums stipple dialoguethirty thousand francs for rent, eighty euros for the shrink, and amounts paid in various currencies for Slavic tricks, Brazilian boys, the Moroccan delivery man who desultorily allows Pierre to fellate him in a barber's chair-the talk preoccupied with matters of inheritance and commerce. (The film could well be called L'Argent.)

Containing rage with formal refinement, Nolot returns to the materialism of L'Arri�re Pays: an emphatic sound track (birdsong, traffic, footsteps, the cracking of tablets), straight-cut shots, and a camera that sometimes lingers a beat or two after actors have exited the frame. Aside from a couple of mismanaged moments-a clumsy flashback of a dash through Paris streets interpolated into a lunchtime discussion, a showy Resnaisian tracking shot-Nolot soberly holds back, so that when he finally does let go, in a closing sequence of reckless beauty, the effect is of inundation. His mustache shorn, Pierre arrives in full drag at a Pigalle porn theater accompanied by his young trick Marc, who has convinced him to act out their shared fantasy. Loosed from the bonds of his being, Pierre leans against the foyer wall, lights a cigarette, toys with his wig, and contemplates his fate while a mournful trombone from the first movement of Mahler's Third Symphony slowly wells on the sound track-an oblique invocation, perhaps, of Visconti's Death in Venice. Hesitantly, as if deferring his embrace of the end, Pierre enters the cinema, his arms and legs glimmering in the obscurity, the darkness consuming him, counterpart of the ingestive void at the film's beginning. Apotheosis and surcease, a blaze of splendor before oblivion.

Jacques Nolot's Before I Forget opens at the /FC Center in New Yort on July 18.

[Sidebar]

In person that rare thing, the reticent libertine, Nolot allows no such discretion in his art. His autobiographical trilogy unabashedly chronicles his life over the past two decades, his body waning but his persona remaining essentially the same: tamped, watchful, mordantly amused at frailty when not exasperated by his own.

[Author Affiliation]

JAMES QUANDT IS SENIOR PROGRAMMER AT CINEMATHEQUE ONTARIO IN TORONTO.

Gaza medics face war's carnage daily

The medics who brave Israel's assault on Gaza have come under fire from tanks and faced days-long delays in getting to the scene of attacks, sometimes finding animals gnawing at corpses when they finally reach the dead and wounded.

Few are more exposed to the carnage of Israel's two-week military offensive than Gaza's medics, who number around 400 including volunteers. They work long hours, get little sleep and risk their lives daily. Many have lost friends and family, but the overwhelming workload leaves no time to process what they've seen.

Awaiting coordination with Israel often delays access to the injured, medics said. Some reported finding people stranded in their homes for days, or bodies lying in the streets uncollected.

"Disgusting is not the word," said Shawki Saleh, 24, a volunteer medic at Kamal Adwan hospital. "If it's not a dog, it's rats around the bodies. ... I've been doing this volunteer work for two years but I never imagined I'd see this. Who knows how many people are still under the rubble. We were carrying them out screaming."

In one long workday, medic Haitham Adgheir carried five corpses, saw six more at a Gaza hospital, and his medical convoy took Israeli tank fire that showered a driver with glass.

"My mind is like a video of body parts and injured people," said Adgheir, 33.

Israel launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27 and sent in ground troops a week later in an attempt to halt years of Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel. More than 800 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinians medical officials. Thirteen Israelis have also been killed.

Israel says it targets only Hamas sites, but has hit mosques and apartment buildings throughout the crowded seaside territory. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields and launching attacks from schools, mosques and homes.

Since the fighting began, 21 Palestinian medical staff have been killed, 30 have been injured and 11 ambulances have been damaged, according to the World Health Organization.

The International Committee of the Red Cross made a rare public criticism of Israel this week, saying there were "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach the injured. And Gaza staff say soldiers sometimes fire on ambulance crews.

Earlier this week, after waiting four days for coordination, ambulance crews entered the Zeitoun neighborhood and found at least 12 bodies and four small surviving children next to their dead mothers, the Red Cross has said.

Ahmed Abu Sal, 26, a volunteer medic who responded to the scene, recalled finding a young girl still clutching her dead mother. The girl, who was perhaps 9, was unable to speak from dehydration, her lips shrunken and dry, he said Saturday. He carried her from the building.

Elsewhere in the rubble he found a woman quietly weeping and still holding the bodies of two young men who appeared to be her sons, he said.

Red Cross officials working with ambulance crews coordinate with the Israeli military by cell phone before moving, said Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno in Geneva. At other times, fighting breaks out near authorized crews, putting them at risk.

The Red Cross has similar lines of communication with Palestinian militants, Schorno said, though they are less organized. He knew of no recent run-ins with Palestinian militants.

An army spokesman said Israel works hard to coordinate with aid crews and that soldiers don't fire at clearly marked medics.

"The area is a combat zone, and obviously the risk of any medic working in a combat zone is that there is fire from all sides," said Capt. Benjamin Rutland.

But many medics say they are deliberately targeted, though ambulances in Gaza are clearly marked.

Adgheir, a medic with the Palestine Red Crescent at al-Quds hospital, said Israeli soldiers fired toward him four times in the past week, despite Red Cross coordination.

On Tuesday, he waited more than 12 hours for coordination with Israeli forces before he could reach a car full of people who had been shot at by an Israeli tank along the beach road near the town of Khan Yunis.

The tank fire sent shards of glass into the driver's eyes. Only able to reach the car after dark, Adgheir said Israeli soldiers shot at his ambulance as he approached.

He also said an Israeli tank fired Thursday at an ambulance convoy that he was part of at the Netzarim crossing in central Gaza. One of the ambulance drivers, who was showered with glass, was lightly injured and the convoy aborted its mission.

The medics say they have no time to deal with the psychological toll of their job. They report nightmares, short tempers and feelings from numbness to rage.

The fighting allows little time to pause _ even to pray. On Friday, doctors and medics at Gaza City's Shifa hospital joined relatives of the injured in a communal prayer outside the emergency room. In blood-spattered smocks, the medics prayed for the dead.

Moments later, an ambulance rushed in with the body of a man killed by shelling and the medics rushed back to work.

Mohammed Azayzeh, a central Gaza medic, said the hardest thing to handle is not seeing the dead but rescuing the wounded, some of whom have horrific injuries such as missing limbs that leave them screaming for help.

"What can you do?" he said. "I want to smash my head against a wall."

___

Hubbard reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press Writer Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Mercados Libres, Prosperidad y Desarrollo

Se va uno de viajes y la mesa de trabajo se llena de cartas y tarjetas, mientras que la m�quina telef�nica y la computadora se abarrotan de mensajes que casi, por as� decirlo, se desbordan por el teclado de la misma. Sin los servicios de un secretario lleva tiempo arar por entre toda este campo para dar repuesta a los que as� lo piden. Hay que ir poco a poco descartando lo inocuo o lo innecesario, que es mucho, como bien sabe el lector. De cada diez llamadas de tel�fono 4 o 5 son de alguien tratando de venderle a uno lo invendible. Si esta gente supiera que nosotros por tel�fono, sin verle la cara al que llama, o sin saber bien de lo que se trata jam�s compramos nada... �Ah! �Y todo esto es sin contar los peri�dicos y magazines acumulados!

En fin, pasando papeles y cartas nos encontramos la copia de un art�culo publicado hace ya alg�n tiempo en el Wall Street Journal, que tan amablemente nos ha enviado el fraterno amigo Bertie S. Bustamante. El art�culo en cuesti�n, calzado con la firma de Mar y Anastasia O'Grady, aparecido en enero del corriente, se refiere a lo que ha sucedido econ�micamente en aquellos pa�ses que tienen o no mercados libres y tambi�n a los que otrora estaban detr�s de la cortina de hierro y que de pronto, e inesperadamente, se vieron libres del la dominaci�n comunista.

Como recientemente todos los cubanos, los de a cada lado del muro de agua, vienen discutiendo el camino a seguir despu�s que el r�gimen de "oprobio y afrenta" que aterroriza a Cuba deje de existir, creemos que es, no solo interesante, sino necesario difundir esta informaci�n como forma de orientaci�n a lo que pudi�ramos hacer en la post-gangster�a en Cuba.

Entre las cosas que se vienen discutiendo entre nosotros los nacidos en la "isla hermosa del ardiente sol," es aquella de como arrancar de nuevo en el camino de la civilizaci�n, o sea, si rompiendo total y completamente con todo el aparato constitucional y el r�gimen econ�mico de la gangsteria comunista o usar, con modificaciones, la constituci�n comunista y mantener, por un periodo moderado la econom�a planificada bajo la centralizaci�n existente. Como se sabe, los que mantienen la primera tesis, dicen que hay dos caminos: redactar una nueva constituci�n, cosa que ser�a en esos momentos cruciales impracticable, o restaurar instant�neamente y sin modificaciones el llamado "Bill of Rights" de la Constituci�n de 1940 y poner en efecto el resto de la misma con las modificaciones que sean necesarias.

En estas pocas lineas, no vamos a discutir una u otra cosa [ya lo hemos hecho junto a otros sesudos constitucionalistas cubanos]. Lo que queremos hacer en este art�culo es citar las experiencias por las que han asado los paises que se liberaron del comunismo de acuerdo con lo que nos cita el art�culo del Journal. Sabemos muy bien que no hay dos experiencias ni dos pa�ses iguales. Sin embargo, no debemos olvidar, la vieja sabidur�a de aquello de "el que no oye consejos, no llega a viejo" que nosotros los cubanos, desgraciadamente, pocas veces hacemos... es decir o�mos los consejos. Veamos:

Pongamos el caso de la rep�blica de Estonia donde una vez libre del comunismo y desde los a�os 90 se ha experimentado una rapid�sima y casi espectacular reconstrucci�n econ�mica. Por ejemplo, en el 2001 el ingreso per capita del estonio era de $3,951, mientras que apenas tres a�os m�s tarde, en el 2004, este se hab�a casi duplicado al monto de $7,500. �Y como se pudo lograr este rotundo progreso? Pues, como dice Mart Laar, quien fuera primer ministro en el periodo post-sovi�tico, "la reacci�n contra todo lo que fuera comunista fue tan grande que sus pol�ticos y gobernantes, casi por instinto, escogieron marchar en direcci�n opuesta y r�pidamente legislaron en contra de todo lo existente." Entre sus reformas, ineludiblemente, se hallaba el r�gimen econ�mico de libertad en el funcionamiento de los mercados.

La experiencia de Estonia, [si es que esto fuera necesario] ha sido, una vez m�s, probar que hay una estrech�sima relaci�n directa entre la libertad econ�mica y la prosperidad en un pa�s. De los pa�ses con una econom�a de mercados libres Estonia salt� del 14 lugar al s�ptimo en cuatro a�os. Por delante de Dinamarca, Australia, Nueva Zelandia y otros 19 m�s.

Si los que se hagan cargo del gobernale en Cuba despu�s del castrismo quieren perpetuar en nuestra patria su desastre econ�mico del presente, o provocar un largo periodo de atraso econ�mico, lo �nico que tienen que hacer es continuar con el presente r�gimen econ�mico, que peque�as curitas no lo har�n funcionar correctamente. Esto ser�a dejar en pie la constituci�n castrista y ponerle parches aqu� y all�. Por otro lado, si se quiere desarrollar a la isla r�pidamente, recuperando todo el terreno perdido en los �ltimos 50 a�os, y mantener una econom�a vibrante la soluci�n es restaurar el andamiaje constitucional prexistente al r�gimen actual, que es lo que nuestra constituci�n de 1940 garantizaba. Esto significa establecer el ineludible eslab�n que restaure la ecuaci�n de libertad pol�tica absoluta y mercados libres que para el desarrollo de una naci�n es la mejor f�rmula.

Por �ltimo, para remachar lo de los mercados libres, el art�culo de Ms. O'Grady saca a relucir la experiencia de Chile, que bajo el gobierno de Lagos comenz� a producir una erosi�n o lentitud en su desarrollo al introducir trabas o reformas al liberalismo econ�mico instaurado por el r�gimen de Pinochet. Chile que deber�a estar por delante de Estonia hoy est� en el d�cimo catorce lugar el mismo que antes ocupaba la rep�blica del B�ltico.

En fin, es aconsejable pensar y meditar estas cuestiones pues nuestro pa�s en cualquier momento en un futuro cercano se encontrar� frente a este ser o no ser econ�mico-pol�tico.

Fuel-bearing ship arrives near iced-in Alaska city

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A fuel tanker that departed Russia in mid-December has arrived at Alaska's western coastline and is waiting for daylight near the iced-in city of Nome.

The tanker is hauling 1.3 million gallons (4.92 million liters) of fuel for the town, which didn't get its pre-winter fuel delivery because of a storm.

The tanker was shepherded through hundreds of miles (kilometers) of sea ice by a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker. Coast Guard official Adam De Rocher says the vessel was 6 miles (10 kilometers) offshore Friday morning.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has been working with the fuel supplier on a plan to transfer the fuel through a more than mile long tanker hose.

But that won't begin until after the sun rises. Daylight doesn't come to that part of Alaska until 11:30 a.m. local time.

METEOROLOGY AND LITERATURE

FROM THE ARCHIVES

A Librarian's Perspective

As a librarian and archivist, my stock in trade consists of books and the information presented in them. Books are the finished product, while archives reveal piecemeal the sources of these published ideas, arguments, research, theories, and conclusions. Meteorology is a science and scientific discipline that has evolved from the accumulation of specific-and sometimes minuscule-written observations and measurements into powerful computer models for prediction and satellite-generated depictions of natural phenomena and patterns. Unlike scientific disciplines that seem to glorify immutable properties or the once-and-for-all-time proof of natural laws, meteorology has long rewarded the collection, examination, and reexamination of data, observations, and measurements from the field to define the history of past conditions and help predict future events.

Several collections in the AMS archives illustrate that the tradition of such data acquisition remained virtually unchanged through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Most extensive are the notebooks and scrapbooks of Abbott Lawrence Rotch, founder in 1885 of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory as a private scientific center for the study and measurement of the atmosphere. Rotch was an indefatigable observer and traveler who chronicled his meteorological experiences in his own notebooks and collected published accounts of meteorological events in scrapbooks that date from his time at Blue Hill. He turned these pieces of information into detailed and lively memoranda, often published in Monthly Weather Review. These have been of continuing use to researchers constructing the history of turn-of-thecentury scientific cooperation and communication.

Rotch's manuscript notebooks, recently "discovered" while the AMS staff was packing archival materials to be stored off-site during renovation of our Boston Headquarters, consist of meticulous notations of observations of local conditions from wherever he happened to be, and notes of conversations with his counterparts at other observatories and at meetings. This constitutes a fascinating account of the beginnings of an organized discipline.

Scholars and researchers regularly return to previous publications with improved technological methods that allow for reassessment or far more sophisticated analysis. A very timely example, in this year of the 50th anniversary of numerical weather prediction, is the return to the calculations of Lewis Fry Richardson to show how the reapplication and initialization of his data will produce more likely and reasonable forecast results. Richardson's monograph, published in 1922 as Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, relied on manual calculations, yet anticipated the effectiveness of computers for such hard work. Peter Lynch, assistant director of the Irish Meteorological Service, will present an explication of how Richardson's forecast can be properly worked out at the AMS-sponsored Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of Operational Numerical Weather Prediction at College Park, Maryland in June (see http:// wwwt.ncep.noaa.gov/nwp50/Agenda/Monday/ for more information). Another recent example of building on previous publications is the new monograph on snowflakes, The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty, by Kenneth Libbrecht, which uses the work of Wilson Bentley, the "Snowflake Man," as a point of departure.

While many disciplines have virtually abandoned literature-based research and communication, this method is alive and flourishing in meteorology. From the rime-encrusted observers on Mount Washington manually recording measurements with paper and pen, to paleoclimatologists who mine ever-expanding and surprising sources of ancient data and information, the literature of meteorology and climate is consistently being enriched. Library builders Abbott Lawrence Rotch and his successor and AMS founder, Charles Franklin Brooks, were wise to build strong collections that will continue to serve AMS staff and researchers in their ongoing work.

For more information on the AMS library and archives, please contact me at jnathans@ametsoc.org.

-JINNY NATHANS

Puppeteers give serious, superb show for adults

Those who think puppet plays are for children had better guessagain.

Hystopolis Puppet Theater, in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood,has demonstrated its ingenuity in the past with such fairy-tale fareas "Rapunzel." Now, Hystopolis has turned its talents to a playthat's definitely for thinking adults: Elmer Rice's "The AddingMachine."

The youthful actor-puppeteers at Hystopolis still demonstratetheir flair for goofy grotesquerie. But rarely has a humorous mediumbeen put to the service of such a troubling message.

The subject of "The Adding Machine," written in 1923 but all toorelevant today, is the oppression of the common man by the forces oftechnological progress and moral superstition.

The adding machine in Rice's play isn't a mechanical device;it's the human hero, Mr. Zero, a little nobody who finds himself laidoff from his accounting job after 25 years - in the name of"efficiency." Afraid to bring the news to his wife - a coarse,nagging slob who berates her husband for "pushin' a pencil" - Zerokills his boss. Convicted and executed for the crime, he findshimself in an afterlife that's far different from the rigidreward-and-punishment system he had been trained to expect.

Rice's expressionistic fantasy, which digs deeply into moraland theological notions of free will and reincarnation, ischallenging in its epic scale, with its cast of 25 and its rapidlychanging series of locations in this world and the next. Because ofthat it's seldom performed. And that's a shame, considering itswealth of provocative ideas and the stinging richness of its1920s-vernacular dialogue.

The folks at Hystopolis, reducing the play to puppet scale,literally handle the characters and settings with fascinatinginventiveness. The leading characters in this three-dimensionalcartoon are cubistic, Picasso-style caricatures.

Zero's face is a perpetually scrunched question mark. And themouth of his overly gabby wife comes flying off her face to harassher hubby.

Hystopolis players Larry Basgall, John Gegenhuber, Cindy Orthaland Michael Schwabe enhance visual creativity with strong vocalacting. They are supported by director Jim Ostholhoff andtechnical-effects creators Timm Reinhard and Jim Rossow.

This superb production is one of the most interesting shows intown - funny and moving in a special way. The open run will continueat 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 441 W. North. Ticketsare $10. Reservations: 787-7387.

Mexico wins 11-2, eliminates Germany from LLWS

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, broke open a scoreless game with four runs in the third inning on its way to a 11-2 victory Sunday over Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, in an elimination game at the Little League World Series.

Eduardo Mata singled home a run to open the scoring in the third. Enrique Penaloza followed with a sacrifice fly. Ricardo Puga capped the scoring with a two-run homer to give Mexico a 4-0 lead.

Mata had three hits and Penaloza added two home runs in a four-RBI day.

Kaleb Stokes and Tyler Ullmann each had solo home runs for Germany, a team comprised mainly of children of U.S. military or base workers. Germany fell out of contention for the title.

Spintronics doctors create more spin

Spintronics may sound like a science practiced by political spin doctors. But spintronics-or spin electronics-is actually a growing branch of electronics in which the spin of electrons is manipulated in a magnetic field to allow for information storage. Electrons rotate in one of two directions, up or down.

A magnetic field can be used to exploit and control the spins, and information is written in the Os and ls of digital language by assigning a value to an up or down spin. The spinning electrons attach themselves to mobile electrons and are carried along a wire and read at a terminal. Laptops have gotten smaller, and today's computer hard drives hold more than 100 gigabytes of memory because of spintronics. The read heads in computers are now all giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sandwich structures, constructed of alternating ferromagnetics and nonmagnetic metal layers. As a hard drive spins, magnetized areas flip the electrons in the read head to transmit data. These read heads can detect weak magnetic fields, a process that allows for smaller bits of data.

Scientists are now working to create spintronic semiconductors. But Sankar Das Sarma, director of the Condensed Matter Theory Center at the University of Maryland, says "semiconductor spintronics, where spin plays an active role, is still a research subject and has not gone into any use, but there are many novel ideas which may eventually allow semiconductor memories to do processing and storage on the same chip." M-- RAM, or magnetic random access memory, would use the same technology, only putting magnetic sandwiches on a chip stitched with wires through which an electric current flows that can flip the spinning electrons to either up or down. The amount of electricity used in M-RAM is minute, which means it requires less power that today's chips. Once M-- RAM is perfected for commercial use, all of today's chip-enabled devices, from cell phones to personal digital assistants, will gain enormous amounts of memory storage capacity Das Sarma says the delay in releasing M-RAM commercial products comes from unanticipated fabrication and manufacturing problems, which should soon be solved. "IBM is working hard on the manufacturing problems," he says. And, if the industry spin doctors are right, the first M-RAM computers should be available in about two years.

Giants Rap, Cubs Nap // Late Arrival Hurts As San Francisco's Pitchers Dominate

The Cubs sported the groggy look at foggy Wrigley Field Friday.

The Giants, who hiked their major league-best record to 78-38with a 4-1 victory, put Cubs bats into a deep slumber. San Franciscopitchers held the Cubs to four hits and dropped them a game below.500.

The Cubs had an excuse. They arrived in Chicago from Miamiearly Friday after completing a 3-4 road trip. Many players didn'tget to bed until 2 or 3 a.m.

"How do you think we feel?" said catcher Rick Wilkins, one ofeight Cubs hung with an oh-for-Friday against Trevor Wilson (6-4),Jeff Brantley and Rod Beck (36th save). "We don't feel very good.It's tough to not get any sleep and do anything that requiresphysical and mental intensity like this game does."

Especially against the Giants, who came in fresh after a dayoff. If there's a pregame meal that should include an extra cup ofcoffee, it's the day the Giants come to town.

"They're a very imposing group right now," Cubs manager JimLefebvre said. "They're at the top of their game. There's an awfullot of talk about Matt Williams, Barry Bonds and Will Clark, but thisteam plays excellent defense with great speed in the outfield. Andnow they have the pitching."

Wilson, making his first appearance since July 2 because of ashoulder injury, allowed two hits in six innings, a double and singleby Steve Buechele.

The Cubs finally put a charge into the 39,533 fans, who watchedmost of the game in the midst of an unusual summer fog, by gettingMark Grace (single) and Sammy Sosa (single) on base against Beck inthe ninth inning. That brought Derrick May to bat as the tying runwith two outs. But May rolled out to second baseman Robby Thompsonto end the game.

The Cubs' run came in the fourth, when Buechele's double toleft center scored Ryne Sandberg (leadoff walk) from first. Even onthat lone highlight, Sosa forgot to move from the on-deck circle tohelp Sandberg, who made an unnecessary slide at home plate.

The Giants, who beat Cubs starter Greg Hibbard (9-9) for thesecond time in three decisions, scored one run in each of the second,fifth, sixth and eighth innings. Williams (2-for-4, RBI, one run)doubled and scored on Willie McGee's groundout in the second. KirtManwaring belted his fifth home run in the fifth and Hibbard walkedMcGee on four pitches with the bases loaded in the sixth.

Hibbard had walked Bonds intentionally to load the bases forMcGee, prompting a smattering of boos from fans who came to see theGiants superstar hit. It was Bonds' 34th intentional pass and 90thwalk overall. After Hibbard walked McGee to give the Giants a 3-1 lead, reliever Shawn Boskie, on his first pitch, retired RoyceClayton on an inning-ending double play.

Thompson singled and scored on Williams' single to centeragainst Boskie in the eighth.

"I thought we pitched good enough to win," Lefebvre said. "Wejust didn't get anything going with the bats. I think the jet laghad something to do with it."

Even Lefebvre said he was tired.

"From my standpoint, I'm beat," he said.

But Buechele, who had the Cubs' only two hits through eightinnings, said the fatigue factor was "no big deal."

"Sometimes that's the day when you come out and really playwell," Buechele said. "We just didn't swing the bats real well. Wehaven't exactly been swinging the bats well at all lately."

NOTES: The Giants' Will Clark left the game in the eighthinning after fouling a Shawn Boskie pitch off his right kneecap. Clark, in considerablepain, needed assistance leaving the field. His status is day-to-day. In the next three weeks, the Cubs play four teams who entered Fridaywith a combined 279-182 record - the Giants (three games), the Expos(seven), the Braves (six) and Phillies (three). Giants manager Dusty Baker doesn't buy into baseball's new-ageapproach to preparation.

"We don't use radar guns or eye in the sky (camera)," Bakersaid. "Modern-day baseball sometimes takes the game away from theplayers. We try and take the game back to the players." Today's Giants starter, former Cub and Glenbrook North graduateScott Sanderson, hasn't pitched against the Cubs since Sept. 13,1983. Acquired on waivers from the Angels Aug. 3, Sanderson is 0-1in one start with the Giants.

St Paul's to reopen, but protest standoff goes on

LONDON (AP) — The senior St. Paul's Cathedral priest who welcomed anti-capitalist demonstrators to camp outside the London landmark has resigned, saying he feared moves to evict the protesters could end in violence.

Other senior clergy and politicians on Thursday urged the campers to leave peacefully, as the cathedral announced it would reopen to the public Friday after a weeklong closure triggered by the demonstrators' tents.

"In the name of God and mammon, go," London Mayor Boris Johnson said, using a Biblical turn of phrase to evoke the conflict between the spiritual and the material.

Resigning Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser said on Twitter that he had handed in his notice "with great regret and sadness."

He told The Guardian newspaper that he had quit because he believed cathedral officials had "set on a course of action that could mean there will be violence in the name of the church."

"I cannot support using violence to ask people to clear off the land," said Fraser, adding that he would have preferred to have "negotiated down the size of the camp" with the protesters.

Fraser's departure reveals divisions among cathedral clergy over how to handle the protest on their doorstep. Dean of St. Paul's Graeme Knowles said he was sorry to see Fraser go and regretted that he "is not able to continue to his work ... during these challenging days."

Several hundred protesters have been camped outside the building since Oct. 15. When police tried to move them the next day, Fraser said the demonstrators were welcome to stay and asked police officers to move instead.

He later issued a statement stressing that "the Christian gospel is profoundly committed to the needs of the poor and the dispossessed. Financial justice is a gospel imperative."

Days later, cathedral officials shut the building to the public, saying the campsite was a health and safety hazard. It was the first time the 300-year-old church, one of London's best-known buildings, had closed since World War II.

Police officers were deployed to the camp late Thursday, following an anonymous phone call reporting that a firearm had been spotted. Police and protest organizers both confirmed that no weapons were found, and no arrests made.

Earlier Thursday, the cathedral said it would reopen after changes to the layout of the protesters' tents.

In a statement, St. Paul's said the church would open to worshippers and visitors with a special midday Eucharist service on Friday — though the soaring dome and galleries will stay shut for now amid concerns about how long it would take to evacuate them.

Rev. Michael Colclough, Canon Pastor of St. Paul's, said Friday's service would "be remembering all those involved in the events of the past week and praying for a peaceful outcome."

The protesters say they plan to stay put, but senior church officials and politicians repeated calls Thursday for them to go. Bishop of London Richard Chartres promised to take up the demonstrators' cause if they left.

Writing in the Evening Standard newspaper, he asked them to "pack up your tents voluntarily and let us make you heard."

Similar camps have sprung up across the U.S. and around the world since activists took over a plaza near New York's Wall Street last month to protest corporate greed and social inequality. Many have withered or been dismantled, sometimes by force.

The cathedral and the protest tent city lie within London's traditional financial center, which is called the City.

The local governing authority, the City of London Corporation, says it is taking legal advice on the best way to evict the protesters — but that could be a long process, complicated by the tangled ownership of the medieval patch of London on which the cathedral stands.

The cathedral has said it is considering all its options in response to the protest — including legal action.

The protesters say they will fight eviction and have hired high-profile lawyer John Cooper, who has said he will defend the group for free.

In a statement, the Occupy London protesters called Fraser a "man of great personal integrity."

The protesters said Fraser had "ensured that St. Paul's could be a sanctuary for us and that no violence could take place against peaceful protesters with a legitimate cause challenging and tackling social and economic injustice in London, the U.K. and beyond."

Fraser, 46, a high-profile and liberal Anglican clergyman, was appointed chancellor of the cathedral in 2009. The role involves overseeing the work of the St. Paul's Institute, which "seeks to bring Christian ethics to bear on our understanding of finance and economics."

Fraser, a former Vicar of Putney in south London whose father came from a prominent London Jewish family, is well known through his newspaper and magazine columns and frequent appearances on BBC radio.

He has criticized the effects of the government's austerity measures.

"Should the church get stuck into the mucky world of politics? How ridiculous, of course it should," he wrote in the Guardian in June, going on to quote the late Brazilian bishop Helder Camara: "When I give to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."

___

Robert Barr contributed to this report. Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless

___

Online:

St. Paul's Cathedral: http://www.stpauls.co.uk/

Occupy London: http://occupylondon.org.uk/

Juan Bermúdez Toranzo

A continuaci�n reproduzco mis palabras del Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de fecha 28 de febrero de 2008 sobre el valiente preso pol�tico Juan Berm�dez Toranzo.

Se�ora Presidente, hoy tomo la palabra para hablar sobre Juan Berm�dez Toranzo. un preso pol�tico en la Cuba totalitaria.

El se�or Berm�dez Toranzo es vicepresidente de la Fundaci�n Cubana de Derechos Humanos. El 21 de noviembre de 2007 el se�or Berm�dez estaba participando en una huelga de hambre pac�fica en su hogar en apoyo a los presos pol�ticos que est�n encarcelados bajo condiciones infrahumanas en las erg�stulas de Cuba. Esa noche 30 porristas de la seguridad de estado y la polic�a de la tiran�a arremetieron contra la residencia del se�or Berm�dez y lo arrastraron a un autom�vil de la polic�a.

Seg�n Amnist�a Internacional el arresto del senor Berm�dez fue parte de una ola cada vez m�s represiva y arbitraria contra los disidentes debido a su participaci�n en manifestaciones pac�ficas. Los injustificados arrestos por parte de los porristas del r�gimen totalitario est�n dise�ados para desanimar las demostraciones contra el r�gimen, en particular el 10 de diciembre, el D�a Internacional de los Derechos Humanos. El D�a Internacional de los Derechos Humanos conmemora el d�a en que la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas adopt� y proclam� la Declaraci�n Universal de los Derechos Humanos, la primera declaraci�n mundial sobre los derechos humanos.

Tan recientemente como el mes pasado una farsa de tribunal de la tiran�a llev� a cabo un supuesto proceso judicial en secreto, "condenando" al se�or Berm�dez por "revelar secretos del Estado" y lo "sentenci�" a 12 a�os en prisi�n. Pero los porristas del r�gimen no estaban contentos con la sentencia de 12 a�os en prisi�n.

Ellos quer�an enviar un mensaje a los opositores pol�ticos del futuro y colocaron al se�or Berm�dez en una celda de castigo y le negaron ropa y agua. Tambi�n sometieron al Se�or Berm�dez a tortura psicol�gica repetidamente.

Las condiciones inhumanas de las c�rceles del r�gimen totalitario han dejado huella en el se�or Berm�dez y supuestamente �l intent� suicidarse.

Esta no es la primera vez que el Se�or Berm�dez ha enfrentado la brutalidad del r�gimen totalitario y gangsteril. En marzo del a�o pasado cuando �l se alejaba de la Biblioteca Independiente Rosa Parks en la Secci�n de Intereses de Estados unidos, la polic�a secreta del r�gimen lo arresto. Despu�s de su excarcelaci�n �l dijo que continuar�a su oposici�n a la tiran�a y su lucha por los derechos humanos.

Despu�s del arresto del se�or Berm�dez por porristas del r�gimen conocidos como una "Unidad de la polic�a Nacional Revolucionaria", entre 15 y 25 activistas de derechos humanos llevaron a cabo una manifestaci�n pac�fica frente a la sede de dicha "Unidad de la polic�a Nacional Revolucionaria" exigiendo la liberaci�n de Juan Berm�dez Toranzo. La manifestaci�n inclu�a a la se�ora Nery Castillo, la esposa del se�or Berm�dez Toranzo. Debido a su participaci�n, ella ha sido victima de repetidos hostigamientos por parte de los porristas del r�gimen. Estos individuos la amenazaron que si no dejaba la manifestaci�n le quitar�an sus hijos.

Se�ora Presidente, es condenable que seres humanos est�n encerrados en erg�stulas infrahumanas porque creen que todos los hombres y mujeres tienen el derecho de vivir libres y en democracia. Colegas, tenemos que exigir la libertad y los derechos humanos para todos los pueblos, incluyendo a los que sufren bajo la oscuridad del totalitarismo. Tenemos que exigir la incondicional e inmediata liberaci�n de Juan Berm�dez Toranzo y de todos los presos pol�ticos en la Cuba totalitaria.

China pollution crackdown targets drug maker

SHANGHAI (AP) — Foul waste emitted by one of China's biggest drug makers has become the latest target in a widening campaign to crack down on the country's severe pollution problems.

Harbin Pharmaceutical Group in northern China said Thursday it is rushing to upgrade its equipment and reduce discharges from its antibiotics factories after drawing intense criticism in national media for a stench residents have been complaining about for years.

Levels of hydrogen sulfide gas near the factories were found to be over 1,000 times the legal limit while ammonia levels were 20 times the allowed limit.

China has been stepping up efforts to close down or clean up heavily polluting industries that have left many communities contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants.

Try to read health-care bills

Before you say that you want government-run health care, please have a look at the thousand-plus pages of what our elected representatives are considering in the House and Senate. It is like trying to read the tax code.

Do you want an IRS-type agency making decisions about when and where you go and the treatment you will get upon arrival?

Can't get through the tax code or the 1018 pages of "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009"? Try starting with Animal Farm or 1984. Then slowly work your way into Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn. Our present system may not be perfect, but then Utopia is a fiction.

Michael Butz,

Bartlett

Australian Charged Under New Terror Law

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration filed charges Thursday against an Australian captured in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and held ever since without trial, the first terror-war suspect to face prosecution under a new system of military tribunals.

David Hicks, a 31-year old former kangaroo skinner now held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, was charged with providing material support for terrorism and could face life imprisonment if convicted. Court challenges are certain before any trial.

Hicks' case, which has attracted broad attention in the U.S. and overseas, could well become the one that opponents of the new military tribunal system use to challenge the system at the Supreme Court. Opponents of the military commissions say they are illegal because they do not afford many legal rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

"It all seems to be an intermingling of politics and pressure," said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for Amnesty International. "But none of it screams to me to be in the interest of justice."

Proponents of the new system say they expect the federal courts to rule in favor of the military commissions.

"I trust the system to judge Mr. Hicks fairly," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a co-sponsor of the commissions legislation. "It's long overdue this case be brought forward."

Meanwhile, Australia, a steadfast U.S. ally in the war on terror, has been pressuring the Bush administration to send Hicks back to his native country. But that apparently wouldn't come until after a trial, at Guantanamo.

Last month, Sandra Hodgkinson, the State Department's deputy director for war crimes issues, told reporters that "it's certainly believed that Mr. Hicks may be able to carry out his incarceration, after the appeals process is complete, in Australia."

President Bush and Congress established the new legal system last fall. Lawmakers set up the tribunals after the Supreme Court ruled an older version established by Bush was unconstitutional because it lacked Congress' blessing and violated international agreements.

"This is an important milestone for military commissions," said Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

There are an estimated 385 detainees remaining at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. None of the men held there on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban has ever gone to trial.

Hicks was among 10 detainees who had been charged with crimes under the earlier law that the court struck down. Then, he had been charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.

Another of the 10 was Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen, whose case ended up being the one the Supreme Court used to throw out the previous tribunal system.

According to Pentagon documents, Hicks went to Afghanistan in January 2001 to attend al-Qaida terrorist training camps. He also traveled to the southern city of Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold, and stayed in an al-Qaida guest house where he met "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and other al-Qaida associates.

The Pentagon says that for about a year starting around December 2000, Hicks provided "support or resources to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, an act of terrorism" and that he "knew or intended" for the support to be used for terrorism.

Last month, military prosecutors recommended that Hicks be charged with attempted murder for fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan and with providing support for terrorism.

On Thursday, Susan Crawford, the head of the military commissions, formally charged Hicks only with providing material support for terrorism.

The Pentagon announcement did not explain why the attempted murder charge was dropped. But a package of talking points written for officials to answer questions on the announcement suggested Crawford didn't believe the evidence warranted it.

Hicks' Pentagon-appointed lawyer, Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori, said in Australia that the charge of providing support for terrorism was a fabrication that had not previously existed under the laws of war, and he said Australian officials should not accept it.

"The Australians should demand that David be treated the same as an American citizen and that retrospective legislation should not be applied to him and he should be returned," Mori told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

The military eventually hopes to charge 60 to 80 of the Guantanamo detainees. Once formal charges are filed, a timetable requires preliminary hearings within 30 days and the start of a jury trial within 120 days at Guantanamo.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard discussed Hicks' case with Vice President Dick Cheney when Cheney visited Australia last month. Under growing public pressure and with elections due later this year, Howard has begun pushing U.S. officials to deal with Hicks' case more quickly.

Howard said Thursday he did not know if the charges were the result of his complaints.

"I think what the news overnight indicated is that the Americans have certainly speeded up the process. Whether that is the result of representations I've made to both President Bush and Vice President Cheney, I don't know," Howard told the Across Australia radio program.

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Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

Iraqi PM Fears for Nation's Sovereignty

NEW YORK - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki walked a fine line Sunday: confronting his American backers over what he sees as violations of Iraq's sovereignty while stressing that his relations are rock solid with the country on whose support he still relies.

"Success is shared," he said in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to his deeply intertwined partnership with President Bush and the U.S. government. "God forbid, failure is also shared."

In a half-hour talk conducted in his Manhattan hotel suite, the 57-year-old politician from Iraq's Shiite heartland said it is unacceptable that U.S. security contractors would kill Iraqi civilians, a reference to …

Mexico throttles Francis Canada's loss enables U.S. to advance - if it beats South Africa.(Sports)

Byline: Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News

PHOENIX -- Team USA was the beneficiary Thursday of a meltdown by Jeff Francis, a forgettable outing that could have been shrugged off in the Cactus League but carried a high price for Canada in the World Baseball Classic.

Mexico strafed Francis, knocking him out in the second on the way to a 9-1 victory before 15,744 at Chase Field. That win enabled Team USA to advance to Round 2 of the WBC, barring the unthinkable - a loss against South Africa in the final Pool B game at 1 p.m. today.

A victory against South Africa would leave the United States, Canada and Mexico with 2-1 records in the tournament. Based on the runs allowed per inning in games involving these three teams, the United States and Mexico will move on to Anaheim, Calif., where Mexico will play South Korea, winner of Pool A, on Sunday, and the United States - if it beats South Africa - will play Japan.

In all probability, the loss against Mexico eliminated Canada and sent Francis back to spring training with the Colorado Rockies. He gave up six runs and six hits - all for extra bases - in 1 1/3 innings.

Francis began the game by retiring Juan Castro and Jorge Cantu on a total of four pitches. After hitting Vinny Castilla in the left arm with a 3-2 pitch, Francis yielded four consecutive two-out doubles, all of them hit hard.

He surrendered a leadoff double in the second inning and walked dejectedly to Canada's dugout after Cantu walloped a 460-foot home run to left on his 36th pitch.

"I left pitches up," Francis said. "Good hitters are going to hit pitches like that. The ball to Vinny got away, and after that, early in the count, they were swinging. I tried to throw strikes.

"It's a very disappointing feeling. The team put a lot of confidence in me to start a game like that."

Team USA will send Roger Clemens to the mound against South Africa, an extremely young team that is 0-2 in the tournament but has gained a reputation for partying .

At Team USA's workout Thursday, outfielder Johnny Damon was asked what he and his teammates knew about South Africa.

"We do not know much," Damon said. "We know there's a couple guys playing pro ball and some really young kids enjoying Scottsdale."

When those young players return home, they will have tales to tell about facing Clemens, winner of 341 games in what might be one of the final games in his storied career. A 17-year-old high school player stepping into the batter's box against Clemens, second all time with 4,502 strikeouts?

Putting himself in that position at the age of 17, Damon said, "I would be jacked up, but I would be worried about that high-and-tight pitch."

Francis' stumble ended the need for the Team USA players to worry about the higher math needed to determine which two of three 2-1 teams advance.

"We thought there was going to be a clear-cut winner and a clear-cut loser," Damon said. "This tiebreaking stuff - you got to go so school for it."

"One of the guys asked me, and I tried to regurgitate it," U.S. catcher Michael Barrett said. "That was a circus. Have you ever played Balderdash? That's what it was like when I was explaining it. It was like, 'OK, are you serious?' And I was like, 'No.' "

Once Mexico scored its third run, the tiebreaking rule swept the United States into Round 2, pending a miracle today by South Africa. Team USA manager Buck Martinez was at Chase Field watching Francis' early struggle and getting reports about the consequences.

"My son called me from New York when it was 1-0 and said, 'You guys are looking better.' He called me back when it was 3-0 and said, 'You're looking good now,' " Martinez said.

After the loss, Francis' look at the WBC became a retrospective, three games wearing the uniform of his country in global competition.

"It was awesome, especially that atmosphere out there (Thursday)," Francis said of the tournament. "It was something you don't experience playing in the major leagues. It was something special."

Something miraculous might be needed today against Clemens for South Africa, which will start right-hander Carl Michaels.

Michaels, 24, went 14-6 with a 2.02 earned-run average last year in the Cape Town League and Western Province Summer League. Clemens is using the WBC to gauge his future. He might retire. Or he might return to Houston, no sooner than May 1. In the interim, he's giving the WBC a whirl, and today will take the mound in what is expected to be a man-against-boys encounter.

"They might not even know who they're facing," Canada manager Ernie Whitt said. "It would be nice to give them a scare anyway."

Mexico......420201000-9140

Canada......000001000-142

Loaiza, Perez (6), De La Rosa (7), Rincon (9), Ayala (9) and Ojeda; Francis, Meyers (2), Quantrill (4), Myette (6), Cormier (6), Reitsma (7), Crain (8), Perkins (9) and Laforest. W - Loaiza. L - Francis. HR - Mexico, Cantu, Valenzuela.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Team Canada left-hander Jeff Francis, who also pitches for the Colorado Rockies, walks dejectedly off the mound Thursday after getting roughed up by Mexico in World Baseball Classic in Phoenix. MATT YORK / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mexico throttles Francis Canada's loss enables U.S. to advance - if it beats South Africa.(Sports)

Byline: Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News

PHOENIX -- Team USA was the beneficiary Thursday of a meltdown by Jeff Francis, a forgettable outing that could have been shrugged off in the Cactus League but carried a high price for Canada in the World Baseball Classic.

Mexico strafed Francis, knocking him out in the second on the way to a 9-1 victory before 15,744 at Chase Field. That win enabled Team USA to advance to Round 2 of the WBC, barring the unthinkable - a loss against South Africa in the final Pool B game at 1 p.m. today.

A victory against South Africa would leave the United States, Canada and Mexico with 2-1 records in the tournament. Based on the runs allowed per inning in games involving these three teams, the United States and Mexico will move on to Anaheim, Calif., where Mexico will play South Korea, winner of Pool A, on Sunday, and the United States - if it beats South Africa - will play Japan.

In all probability, the loss against Mexico eliminated Canada and sent Francis back to spring training with the Colorado Rockies. He gave up six runs and six hits - all for extra bases - in 1 1/3 innings.

Francis began the game by retiring Juan Castro and Jorge Cantu on a total of four pitches. After hitting Vinny Castilla in the left arm with a 3-2 pitch, Francis yielded four consecutive two-out doubles, all of them hit hard.

He surrendered a leadoff double in the second inning and walked dejectedly to Canada's dugout after Cantu walloped a 460-foot home run to left on his 36th pitch.

"I left pitches up," Francis said. "Good hitters are going to hit pitches like that. The ball to Vinny got away, and after that, early in the count, they were swinging. I tried to throw strikes.

"It's a very disappointing feeling. The team put a lot of confidence in me to start a game like that."

Team USA will send Roger Clemens to the mound against South Africa, an extremely young team that is 0-2 in the tournament but has gained a reputation for partying .

At Team USA's workout Thursday, outfielder Johnny Damon was asked what he and his teammates knew about South Africa.

"We do not know much," Damon said. "We know there's a couple guys playing pro ball and some really young kids enjoying Scottsdale."

When those young players return home, they will have tales to tell about facing Clemens, winner of 341 games in what might be one of the final games in his storied career. A 17-year-old high school player stepping into the batter's box against Clemens, second all time with 4,502 strikeouts?

Putting himself in that position at the age of 17, Damon said, "I would be jacked up, but I would be worried about that high-and-tight pitch."

Francis' stumble ended the need for the Team USA players to worry about the higher math needed to determine which two of three 2-1 teams advance.

"We thought there was going to be a clear-cut winner and a clear-cut loser," Damon said. "This tiebreaking stuff - you got to go so school for it."

"One of the guys asked me, and I tried to regurgitate it," U.S. catcher Michael Barrett said. "That was a circus. Have you ever played Balderdash? That's what it was like when I was explaining it. It was like, 'OK, are you serious?' And I was like, 'No.' "

Once Mexico scored its third run, the tiebreaking rule swept the United States into Round 2, pending a miracle today by South Africa. Team USA manager Buck Martinez was at Chase Field watching Francis' early struggle and getting reports about the consequences.

"My son called me from New York when it was 1-0 and said, 'You guys are looking better.' He called me back when it was 3-0 and said, 'You're looking good now,' " Martinez said.

After the loss, Francis' look at the WBC became a retrospective, three games wearing the uniform of his country in global competition.

"It was awesome, especially that atmosphere out there (Thursday)," Francis said of the tournament. "It was something you don't experience playing in the major leagues. It was something special."

Something miraculous might be needed today against Clemens for South Africa, which will start right-hander Carl Michaels.

Michaels, 24, went 14-6 with a 2.02 earned-run average last year in the Cape Town League and Western Province Summer League. Clemens is using the WBC to gauge his future. He might retire. Or he might return to Houston, no sooner than May 1. In the interim, he's giving the WBC a whirl, and today will take the mound in what is expected to be a man-against-boys encounter.

"They might not even know who they're facing," Canada manager Ernie Whitt said. "It would be nice to give them a scare anyway."

Mexico......420201000-9140

Canada......000001000-142

Loaiza, Perez (6), De La Rosa (7), Rincon (9), Ayala (9) and Ojeda; Francis, Meyers (2), Quantrill (4), Myette (6), Cormier (6), Reitsma (7), Crain (8), Perkins (9) and Laforest. W - Loaiza. L - Francis. HR - Mexico, Cantu, Valenzuela.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Team Canada left-hander Jeff Francis, who also pitches for the Colorado Rockies, walks dejectedly off the mound Thursday after getting roughed up by Mexico in World Baseball Classic in Phoenix. MATT YORK / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mexico throttles Francis Canada's loss enables U.S. to advance - if it beats South Africa.(Sports)

Byline: Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News

PHOENIX -- Team USA was the beneficiary Thursday of a meltdown by Jeff Francis, a forgettable outing that could have been shrugged off in the Cactus League but carried a high price for Canada in the World Baseball Classic.

Mexico strafed Francis, knocking him out in the second on the way to a 9-1 victory before 15,744 at Chase Field. That win enabled Team USA to advance to Round 2 of the WBC, barring the unthinkable - a loss against South Africa in the final Pool B game at 1 p.m. today.

A victory against South Africa would leave the United States, Canada and Mexico with 2-1 records in the tournament. Based on the runs allowed per inning in games involving these three teams, the United States and Mexico will move on to Anaheim, Calif., where Mexico will play South Korea, winner of Pool A, on Sunday, and the United States - if it beats South Africa - will play Japan.

In all probability, the loss against Mexico eliminated Canada and sent Francis back to spring training with the Colorado Rockies. He gave up six runs and six hits - all for extra bases - in 1 1/3 innings.

Francis began the game by retiring Juan Castro and Jorge Cantu on a total of four pitches. After hitting Vinny Castilla in the left arm with a 3-2 pitch, Francis yielded four consecutive two-out doubles, all of them hit hard.

He surrendered a leadoff double in the second inning and walked dejectedly to Canada's dugout after Cantu walloped a 460-foot home run to left on his 36th pitch.

"I left pitches up," Francis said. "Good hitters are going to hit pitches like that. The ball to Vinny got away, and after that, early in the count, they were swinging. I tried to throw strikes.

"It's a very disappointing feeling. The team put a lot of confidence in me to start a game like that."

Team USA will send Roger Clemens to the mound against South Africa, an extremely young team that is 0-2 in the tournament but has gained a reputation for partying .

At Team USA's workout Thursday, outfielder Johnny Damon was asked what he and his teammates knew about South Africa.

"We do not know much," Damon said. "We know there's a couple guys playing pro ball and some really young kids enjoying Scottsdale."

When those young players return home, they will have tales to tell about facing Clemens, winner of 341 games in what might be one of the final games in his storied career. A 17-year-old high school player stepping into the batter's box against Clemens, second all time with 4,502 strikeouts?

Putting himself in that position at the age of 17, Damon said, "I would be jacked up, but I would be worried about that high-and-tight pitch."

Francis' stumble ended the need for the Team USA players to worry about the higher math needed to determine which two of three 2-1 teams advance.

"We thought there was going to be a clear-cut winner and a clear-cut loser," Damon said. "This tiebreaking stuff - you got to go so school for it."

"One of the guys asked me, and I tried to regurgitate it," U.S. catcher Michael Barrett said. "That was a circus. Have you ever played Balderdash? That's what it was like when I was explaining it. It was like, 'OK, are you serious?' And I was like, 'No.' "

Once Mexico scored its third run, the tiebreaking rule swept the United States into Round 2, pending a miracle today by South Africa. Team USA manager Buck Martinez was at Chase Field watching Francis' early struggle and getting reports about the consequences.

"My son called me from New York when it was 1-0 and said, 'You guys are looking better.' He called me back when it was 3-0 and said, 'You're looking good now,' " Martinez said.

After the loss, Francis' look at the WBC became a retrospective, three games wearing the uniform of his country in global competition.

"It was awesome, especially that atmosphere out there (Thursday)," Francis said of the tournament. "It was something you don't experience playing in the major leagues. It was something special."

Something miraculous might be needed today against Clemens for South Africa, which will start right-hander Carl Michaels.

Michaels, 24, went 14-6 with a 2.02 earned-run average last year in the Cape Town League and Western Province Summer League. Clemens is using the WBC to gauge his future. He might retire. Or he might return to Houston, no sooner than May 1. In the interim, he's giving the WBC a whirl, and today will take the mound in what is expected to be a man-against-boys encounter.

"They might not even know who they're facing," Canada manager Ernie Whitt said. "It would be nice to give them a scare anyway."

Mexico......420201000-9140

Canada......000001000-142

Loaiza, Perez (6), De La Rosa (7), Rincon (9), Ayala (9) and Ojeda; Francis, Meyers (2), Quantrill (4), Myette (6), Cormier (6), Reitsma (7), Crain (8), Perkins (9) and Laforest. W - Loaiza. L - Francis. HR - Mexico, Cantu, Valenzuela.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Team Canada left-hander Jeff Francis, who also pitches for the Colorado Rockies, walks dejectedly off the mound Thursday after getting roughed up by Mexico in World Baseball Classic in Phoenix. MATT YORK / ASSOCIATED PRESS