GUEST COMMENTARY: A New Campaign for the New School Year

By Sara Dogan

Special to DavidKinchen.com

Dear Students and Supporters,

Welcome back to campus! As the summer winds to a close, we are excited to kick off the new school year with the announcement of a major victory that occurred during the summer break: Temple University instituted a Student Bill of Rights that paves the way for all our chapters across the country to call for the adoption of similar Bills for their universities. Read on for all the details on how you can make this a key issue on your campus this semester.

Temple University Adopts Student Bill of Rights

Spurred by the academic freedom hearings we inspired in Pennsylvania last year, Temple University in Philadelphia this July became the first university to adopt an academic freedom policy which specifically addresses student rights and not just faculty privileges; protects students from ideological abuses in the classroom; and provides a grievance machinery to handle violations of students’ academic freedom.

Titled “Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities,” the new Temple policy took effect on August 1 of this year. It reflects the concerns and recommendations of Students for Academic Freedom, which has promoted David Horowitz’s proposal for an Academic Bill of Rights, and which played an important role in the academic freedom hearings of the Pennsylvania House, which were held at Temple on January 9 and 10, 2006.

The policy emphasizes that students as well as professors are entitled to academic freedom: “Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The freedom to learn depends upon appropriate opportunities and conditions in the classroom, on the campus, and in the larger community. The University and the faculty have a responsibility to provide students with opportunities and protections that promote the learning process in all its aspects. Students similarly should exercise their freedom with responsibility.”

Equally important is a provision creating grievance machinery for students whose rights have been infringed. The policy specifies that this new grievance procedure is distinct from existing policies for handling grading disputes, and specifically addresses the student’s right to learn, free from political harassment and indoctrination. It outlines a procedure whereby a student can take a series of informal and then formal steps to challenge violations of academic freedom within the administration hierarchy.

The policy further provides for a reporting system that includes the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees, thereby lessening the chance that professors will dissuade students through intimidation from filing grievances.

Unlike the existing academic freedom policies at Temple, the new policy will be included in the university catalogue that is distributed to all students. It has already been posted in the Policies and Procedures section of the university website so that all students will be made aware of their rights. This has been a prominent demand of the academic freedom campaign.

Bringing the Temple Bill of Rights to Your Campus

The new Student Bill of Rights at Temple University can become a powerful weapon in building the student movement for academic freedom at campuses across the nation. It presents a tremendous opportunity for us to challenge the political abuse of university classrooms by academic radicals by instituting a policy that specifically gives students the right to file a grievance with their board of trustees if their professors abuse them for their political, religious, or ideological views or attempt to use the classroom as a bully pulpit. We urge all our chapters to make the adoption of the Temple Policy a central focus of your academic freedom efforts this year.

You can find the Temple Policy here, and future letters will discuss strategies for bringing the Temple Student Bill of Rights to your administration, and will explain why we are recommending that one additional clause be included in the policies to be adopted at other universities.

How to Get Involved

If you’re not already active in Students for Academic Freedom, the new semester is the perfect time to start up a chapter of SAF on your campus. Deliver the message to your campus administration that abuse of students for their political, intellectual, or religious beliefs is unacceptable.

We have a great variety of printed SAF materials to give you, including a new pamphlet featuring testimony from the Pennsylvania academic freedom hearings held this past year and another pamphlet documenting David Horowitz’s testimony before the Kansas State Legislature. Many of these materials are also available online including our organizational handbook which details how to start a chapter and bring the academic freedom movement to your campus. Simply send me an email at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org and I will be happy to send you whatever quantities you need.

For more information on how you can get involved and start up a chapter on your campus or if you wish to report an abuse of your academic freedom, please contact me at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org or at my new toll-free number here in St. Louis at 888-527-3321. You can also find more information on our website at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org.

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Sara Dogan is National Campus Director of Students for Academic Freedom

Mexican National Described as One Man Crime Wave

By Jim Kouri

A Mexican national, described by federal law enforcement as a “one man crime wave,” was sentenced in federal court on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, for his role in a conspiracy to distribute 15 kilograms or more of methamphetamine in southwest Missouri.

Roy Rodriguez, 22, US address unknown, was sentenced by United States District Judge Richard E. Dorr to 21 years and 10 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Rodriguez to pay $9,000 in restitution to a witness whom he assaulted.

On January 31, 2006, Rodriguez pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to distribute at least five kilograms, but less than 15 kilograms, of methamphetamine from August 2002 to September 20, 2004, in Jasper County and elsewhere in southwest Missouri. Rodriguez also pleaded guilty to being in possession of a Titan .25-caliber handgun and five rounds of ammunition on January 14, 2004, in connection with the drug trafficking offense.

Rodriguez also admitted that he assaulted a federal grand jury witness, for which he has been charged in a separate case. Rodriguez assaulted the witness, stole his car, and stole property from his car in retaliation for that witness’s testimony about the drug trafficking conspiracy.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Rodriguez agreed to pay restitution to that victim and agreed that he should be subject to a sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice. In exchange, the government has dismissed the federal indictment in that separate case.

Rodriguez also agreed that he should be subject to a sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice because he led law enforcement officers on a high-speed pursuit on May 19, 2005, as he fled to avoid arrest.

Rodriguez also attempted to flee from officers attempting to arrest him on June 17, 2005, when he struck an officer’s patrol car with his vehicle, thereby causing damage to the patrol car.

Rodriguez is among 10 co-defendants who have been convicted on charges contained in an October 14, 2004, federal indictment.

Operation Ice Storm was a long-term investigation into the illegal distribution of large quantities of methamphetamine in southwest Missouri.

Methamphetamine and Ice a highly potent form of methamphetamine were transported into Missouri from Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Texas by female couriers who were paid to fly between the states with the drugs strapped under their clothes. This drug trafficking conspiracy had ties to the Mexican Mafia.

* * * *

Jim Kouri is fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s a former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. Kouri has appeared as on-air commentator for more than 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book “Assume The Position” is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.U.S.

Arthur Koestler’s Centennial Prompts Assessment of Puzzling Intellectual Giant

Originally published July 8, 2005

by David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network

Hinton, WV  –The year 2003 saw a massive outpouring of writing as the world celebrated the centennial of the birth of Eric Arthur Blair, much better known as George Orwell. Christopher Hitchens wrote a best–selling 2002 book entitled “Why Orwell Matters” and everybody was reminded of the importance of the author who lived from 1903 to 1950 and who is most famous for two novels attacking totalitarianism: “Nineteen Eighty–Four” and “Animal Farm.”

The year is more halfway gone and I’m awaiting comparable appreciations of three intellectual giants who were born 100 years ago, in 1905: Jean Paul Sartre, Ayn Rand and Arthur Koestler.

Arthur Who?

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) was born to a middle–class Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest. Like his friend Orwell – Koestler wrote a moving obituary/appreciation of Orwell following the British author’s death on Jan. 21, 1950 – Koestler was a journalist, novelist, man of action and intellectual icon.

Both were in Spain at the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Spain was a catalyst for Ernest Hemingway (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”) and many others of the turn–of–the–20th Century generation. Both Orwell and Koestler became disillusioned with the left in Spain and wrote movingly of their experiences: “Homage to Catalonia,” by Orwell, “Spanish Testament” and other books by Koestler.

Koestler used his experiences as a prisoner of the Franco forces in Spain to write the novel he’s probably best known for: “Darkness at Noon,” published in 1940 and written in German before he became fluent in English. Daphne Hardy, his girlfriend of the time – Koestler was a legend in his own time for the quantity and quality of his female companions – translated “Darkness at Noon” into English and it has never been out of print. “Darkness,” the suspenseful account of a communist commissar imprisoned and on trial for his life during the Soviet Union show trials in the 1930s, was an obvious influence on Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty–Four.”

In “Why Orwell Matters” Hitchens says Orwell was right about the three big issues of the 20th century–imperialism, fascism, and communism: something almost none of his contemporaries can claim. As a matter of fact, Arthur Koestler was also right about those issues and left the Communist party in 1938 after seven years as an active communist. Orwell flirted with the left, and became an anti–communist during his fighting alongside communists in the Spanish Civil War.

Of the two, Koestler ranged wider in his writing. He was an autodidact, although he studied at the University of Vienna for three years. Orwell never attended college, but he was a 1921 graduate of Eton, one of the country’s major Public (i.e. private) prep schools. An Eton education in the 1920s is the equivalent of a college education today.

Koestler anticipated many of today’s writers in his exploration of the so–called “two cultures”: science and the humanities. This subject was mined by Edward O. Wilson and, perhaps most famously by another author born in 1905, C.P. Snow, who is credited with coining the phrase the “two cultures.” British author and intellectual Snow is almost entirely forgotten by what I call a post–Literate age, but his work was very influential in the 1950s and 1960s. He died in 1980. At one time in my life, I devoured every C.P. Snow “Strangers and Brothers” novel I could get my hands on.

Koestler, who became a British citizen in 1945, also anticipated today’s writers on globalization such as Thomas L. Friedman (“The World is Flat,” “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”) and Clyde Prestowitz (“Three Billion New Capitalists”). All told, Koestler wrote six novels, five memoirs, 21 non–fiction books or essay collections and one play. This tally doesn’t include his newspaper and magazine journalism.

David Cesarani in “Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind” (The Free Press, 1998) summing up Koestler writes: “If home connotes a certain kind of sovereignty we are all more or less displaced, our cities and countries locked into transnational associations and economic networks over which we have no control.” Cesarani adds in this useful but often maddingly judgmental biography: “Unlikely as it may seen, Koestler’s apocalypticism is not so far removed from today’s Zeitgeist …Koestler personified a condition that is now too familiar. Globalization has turned us into nomads without having to leave our living–rooms.”

Even some of Koestler’s book titles prefigure authors like Friedman: “The Yogi and the Commissar” (1945); “The Lotus and the Robot” (1960). When it came to making a living at writing, Koestler was creative in the extreme. He used his on–the–job–training in sex – so to speak – to contribute articles to a massive encyclopedia of sexology in pre–World War II Germany. He could be said to have anticipated Kinsey and Masters and Johnson!

Koestler also deeply influenced an English teacher in Britain named Gordon Sumner, who devoured everything he could find on Koestler. Sumner, born in 1951 in Newcastle, was to gain fame as Sting – for the bumblebee striped T–shirt he wore – and he named one of The Police’s early albums, “Ghost in the Machine,” after a 1967 Koestler book “The Ghost in the Machine.”

Cesarani states in his biography that Koestler was ambivalent about his Jewish heritage, that Koestler didn’t want to be typecast as just another Central European Jewish intellectual. Many Jews are similarly ambivalent about their heritage, without being a self–hating Jew as Cesarani seems to characterize Koestler–incorrectly, in my view.

After reading “Darkness at Noon” many years ago – I’m rereading it now – I acquired a Koestler book, “The Thirteenth Tribe” (Random House, 1976), which tells the story of the Khazar Empire north of the Caucasus from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea in present–day Ukraine and Russia. The Khazars were a Turkic people whose leaders converted to Judaism about 740 A.D., much to the mystification – and mortification – of newly converted Christians in neighboring countries.

The Khazars were very successful for hundreds of years and, Koestler asserts, blocked the Muslim invasion of Europe through their defeat of invading Muslims from the south. When the Khazar Empire was broken up by Mongol invaders in the 12th and 13th Centuries, Koestler says, its population sent “offshoots” to the west, to Ukraine and Poland and Lithuania, becoming the basis for most of the Ashkenazic Jewish community of Eastern, Central and much of Western Europe (excluding the Sephardic Jews of North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, Spain, Portugal and later Holland).

“The Thirteenth Tribe” generated a firestorm of criticism and became a popular book for Middle Eastern Muslims and anti–Semites of all varieties, Cesarani says. The reason: Koestler’s thesis is that most of European and North and South American Jewry had its origins on the Volga, not the Jordan and were not Semitic at all. By this reasoning, Zionist Jews – virtually all of whom were Ashkenazic in origin – had little or no claim to biblical Palestine, since they weren’t Semites. This assumes that Jews are a race or ethnic group, something I don’t go along with. There are Jews of ethnic Indian (from India) origin and Jews of African (Ethiopian, in particular) origin, just as there are Muslims and Christians of all ethnic groups and races.

I think the critics of “The Thirteenth Tribe” got it wrong: Koestler was writing as much about the clash of civilizations – Christian, Turkic, Jewish, Muslim – as about the origins of European Judaism. In this respect, Koestler anticipated historian Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” a 1996 book that also generated a great deal of controversy. Huntington was attacked as racist, among other faults, for daring to tell the truth about militant Islam and other strong beliefs confronting a Europe or North America afraid to be seen as anything less than Politically Correct.

Also, I think Koestler got a kick writing about the fighting Jews of Khazaria. Their enemies described them as being much like the pillagers in the Capital One credit card commercials. Most accounts, including the entry on the Khazars in my 1962 Encyclopedia Britannica, describe Jewish ruling class Khazars as tolerant of Christianity and Islam among their subjects, much like the tolerance of the Ottoman Empire.

Before he became a communist, Koestler spent time in Palestine in the late 1920s and was an ardent Zionist, a faith he abandoned – much as he discarded communism. In “The Thirteenth Tribe” – the reference is to the traditional 12 tribes of ancient Israel – Koestler doesn’t deny the Old Testament so much as update it to the time of the Khazars. Anyone reading “The Thirteenth Tribe” – as opposed to reading about it – will be struck by Koestler’s knowledge of the Bible, which he cites numerous times. He discusses the widespread intermarriage of various ethnic groups during biblical times and later, including the Khazar era.

Cesarani – as well as the excellent Wikipedia entry on Koestler – devotes much space to Arthur Koestler’s love life. He was married three times: to Dorothy Asher from 1935 to 1950, Mamaine Paget from 1950 to 1952 and Cynthia Jefferies from 1965 to 1983. In fact, the suicide of Cynthia Jeffries Koestler at the same time Koestler killed himself, stirred up still more controversy about a man already steeped in notoriety. Although Koestler was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and was an advocate of euthanasia, Cynthia was in her 50s and in good health. During, before and after his marriages, Koestler had countless affairs. Despite his often bullying, cavalier treatment of women, he was never short of female companionship. To paraphrase the Mel Brooks character in “History of the World Part I” : It’s good to be an intellectual in Europe – at least during Koestler’s heyday!

In common with Vladimir Nabokov (“Lolita”, “Pale Fire”, etc.) and Joseph Conrad (“The Heart of Darkness”), Koestler was one of those Europeans who adopted English as a second or third language and became masters of a difficult tongue, even for native speakers of English. Cesarani quotes George Steiner on Koestler and his adoption of English from his native German and Hungarian: “A great writer driven from language to language by social upheaval and war is an appropriate symbol for the age of the refugee.”

Summing up: Arthur Koestler is not only an important figure in 20th Century intellectual history, he’s an outstanding, very readable writer on a wide variety of subjects. We should follow the advice of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Chapter 44, Verse 1: “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.”

PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Gray Lady Story Recognizes ‘Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity’

By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network

Hinton, WV  – Just as a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day, so does the mainstream media sometimes gets things dead-on right. Such was the case with a story in the Aug. 28, 2006 New York Times by Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt bearing the headline:

‘Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity.’

The story, which can be accessed here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/business/28wages.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin, says that the median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, factoring in inflation. This is something tens of millions of American workers – universally regarded by economists as the most productive in the world – have known all along.

Here’s how the reporters at the Gray Lady of W. 43rd Street put it: “The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period. As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as ‘the golden era of profitability.”’

It may be a golden age for the rich, but it sure as heck is a cardboard one for workers struggling to keep their head above water as real inflation – not the phony variety offered up by the Federal government that excludes “volatile food and energy costs” – head butts them like the soccer player in the recent World Cup match in Germany.

Several people I know, including retirees and those working full-time jobs, have taken on part-time jobs at discount stories and supermarkets – making barely above minimum wage for physically hard work – to somehow attempt to make ends meet.

The two reporters, calling it as it really is, note that: “With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.”

Trade in your hammer for a horn, indeed!

One group that’s worried about this trend is the Republican Party, the authors note. People tend to vote pocketbook issues, I’ve learned in 40-plus years in journalism. If voters this November decide that the GOP is the party of the rich that doesn’t give a damn about the poor, GOP incumbents and challengers may be in a world of woe come Nov. 7.

Not only have wages failed to keep pace with inflation, but so have benefits – especially health insurance, the two reporters note in a story that’s worth reading in its entirety. They write that: “Since last summer, however, the value of workers’ benefits has also failed to keep pace with inflation, according to government data.”

Of course in America – where the motto seems to be “Socialism for the rich and free enterprise for everybody else” – workers at the “very top of the income spectrum…have continued to receive raises that outpace inflation, and the gains have been large enough to keep average income and consumer spending rising,” note Greenhouse and Leonhardt. I’m willing to bet that these two Timesmen are feeling pretty strapped themselves, what with all the poor-mouthing going on in the media business. Not a day goes by that I don’t read of massive buyouts and/or layoffs at the nation’s premier newspapers and magazines.

The writers of the Times story add that the nation’s top economic guru, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday, Aug. 25, 2006 warned in a speech “that the unequal distribution of the economy’s spoils could derail the trade liberalization of recent decades. Because recent economic changes ‘threaten the livelihoods of some workers and the profits of some firms,’ Mr. Bernanke said, policy makers must try ‘to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared.’”

Let me attempt a translation: Memo to overpaid CEO’s: Start sharing some of your obscene profits or workers won’t be able to afford your big-ticket products. This is showing up everywhere from Wal-Mart, which showed a first-time-ever decline in profits, to automakers like Ford and GM who are making big cutbacks in the wake of few buyers for their products. I also note that the new generation Camaro will be built in a Canadian factory, where GM doesn’t have to pay for health benefits thanks to Canada’s single-payer government health coverage – something Harry Truman proposed for the U.S. in 1949.

Here are some other points made by the two Times reporters in this excellent story:

* “Economists offer various reasons for the stagnation of wages. Although the economy continues to add jobs, global trade, immigration, layoffs and technology — as well as the insecurity caused by them — appear to have eroded workers’ bargaining power.

* “Trade unions are much weaker than they once were, while the buying power of the minimum wage is at a 50-year low. And health care is far more expensive than it was a decade ago, causing companies to spend more on benefits at the expense of wages.

“Together, these forces have caused a growing share of the economy to go to companies instead of workers’ paychecks. In the first quarter of 2006, wages and salaries represented 45 percent of gross domestic product, down from almost 50 percent in the first quarter of 2001 and a record 53.6 percent in the first quarter of 1970, according to the Commerce Department. Each percentage point now equals about $132 billion.”

Add to the gloomy news – not for nothing has economics been called the “dismal science” – that consumer confidence is where it was in 1992 and 1993, when the nation was coming out of a major recession, and politicians can join the vast majority of Americans making use of a crying towel.

Iranian President to German Chancellor: Holocaust Concocted by WWII Allies

By  Jim Kouri

 
Special to DavidKinchen.com

In a note to the German Chancellor, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews had been concocted by the victorious Allied nations following World War II to embarrass war-torn Germany.

The Iranian-controlled news agency Mehr disclosed the contents of their President’s letter on Monday, Aug. 28, 2006, although  it reportedly was delivered to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In his letter, Ahmadinejad asked Merkel: “Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people … to bar their progress?”

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied the veracity of reports on the Holocaust, specifically denying there were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi death camps.

The Iranian president called for an international probe, under the auspices of his government, to again examine the evidence. He continues to insist that Nazi’s genocide of six million Jews is a myth created to help the Jews establish the state of Israel.

During a CBS “60 Minutes” interview with Mike Wallace, Ahmadinejad said the Europeans and other nations should re-absorb Israel‘s Jewish population. Wallace was criticized for his own comments such as he did not believe Ahmadinejad is anti-Semitic, and that the Iranian tyrant is an honest and sincere man.

Chancellor Merkel refused to reply to the letter, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, last week on Israeli radio, Israel‘s Minister of Pensioner Affairs Rafi Eitan warned Israeli citizens , “We are liable to face an Iranian missile attack. The Iranians have said very clearly that if they come under attack, their primary target would be Israel.”

Iranian officials have repeatedly said that should the US or the European Union launch an attack on them, they will include Israel in their retaliation. The Iranian president has often called for the total annihilation of the Jewish State.

An Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post this week that if things continue like this for much longer, Iran‘s nuclear program will [enter] a critical phase, compelling Israel to “go it alone.”

                                                               * * * *

Jim Kouri is  fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s a former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. Kouri has appeared as on-air commentator for more than 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.  His book “Assume The Position” is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.U.S.

 

Harold Payne Defeats Zambos in Playoff to win WV Senior Amateur Stroke Play Championship at Esquire CC

By  Staff

Barboursville, WV   – Harold Payne of Hurricane on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006 won his first Senior Championship and added to his five WV Amateur and four WV Open titles. Payne beat Phil Zambos of Huntington in a 4-hole playoff at Esquire Country Club here.

Zambos went birdie, Ace and eagle over a three-hole stretch. He had a hole in one on #14.

Below are the results. The match play portion of the Senior Amateur begins September 22-24, 2006 at Greenhills in Ravenswood, WV.

Senior Flight (Championship)
Harold Payne, Hurricane, W.Va., 73-69--142
Philip Zambos, Huntington, W.Va., 73-69--142
Steve Fox, Huntington, 73-70--143
Al Estepp, St. Albans, 70-76--146
Jack Forbes, Morgantown, 73-74--147
Dick Robinson, Barboursville, 75-73--148
Joel Davis, Oak Hill, 74-74--148
Jim Mason, Mineral Wells, 73-75--148
Thomas Brown, Beckley, 75-75--150
J.A. Roy, Barboursville, 72-78--150
Larry Haddad, Charleston, 74-78--152
Charles Persinger, Scott Depot, 75-78--153
Rollie Erwin, Barboursville, 75-78--153
Tom Foxworth, Hurricane, 75-79--154
John Duty Sr., Hurricane, 79-75--154
Ray Smith, Scott Depot, 77-79--156
Chuck Starcher, Scott Depot, 74-82--156
John Varda, Spencer, 79-77--156
Richard Vincent, Elizabeth, 76-81--157
Joe Ramella, Huntington, 74-83--157
Michael Childers, Charleston, 78-79--157
Carl Bailey, Hurricane, 78-80--158
Carl Hedrick, Belle, 76-83--159
Wally Edgell, Elkins, 81-78--159
Terry Johnson, Scott Depot, 78-82--160
James Chapman, Hurricane, 84-76--160
Butch Freeman, Daniels, 80-80--160
William Nichols, Institute, 83-79--162
Tom Spriggs, Crosslanes, 84-78--162
David Wilson, Parkersburg, 87-76--163
Steve Hiener, Parkersburg, 81-82--163
Roy Hughes, Hurricane, 79-84--163
Reid Carroll, Barboursville, 86-79--165
Samuel Corey, Beckley, 83-82--165
Ernest Fox, Calvin, 82-83--165
David Sword, Charleston, 82-84--166
David Wolfe, Sr, Lavalette, 84-83--167
Dink Winnell, South Charleston, 82-86--168
Tom Dotson, Pt. Pleasant, 87-82--169
Joe Tagnesi, South Charleston, 82-87--169
Mike White, Chapmanville, 80-93--173
Tony Menello, St. Albans, 84-90--174
Bob Browning, Charleston, 88-87--175
Greg Bailey, Scott Depot, 91-84--175
Scott Pierson, St. Albans, 95-82--177
Boyce Jarrett, Scott Depot, 88-89—177
John Shea, S.Charleston, 93-85--178
Pat Hinchman, 92-91--183
Allen Wilt, Parkersburg, 92-93--185

Silver Flight
James Bartsch, Charleston, 71-71--142
Ron Ray, Huntington, 73-72--145
Kirk Nolte, Wheeling, 74-72--146
Gary Roush, Mason, 73-77--150
Richard Chenoweth, Vienna, 77-74--151
Allen Bailes, Hurricane, 75-77--152
Corky Layman, Glenwood, 78-76--154
Tom Turner, Hurricane, 77-77--154
Jack Richards, St. Albans, 77-78--155
Mel Mattison, Hurricane, 78-78--156
Harold Harris, Hurricane, 81-76--157
Tom Salango, Hurricane, 79-81--160
Jim Stewart, Barboursville, 83-81--164
Tom Holland, Hurricane, 80-85--165
Shozo Kurusu, Charleston, 79-87--166
Harold White, Charleston, 83-83--166
Charles Smith, Alum Creek, N.C., 80-86--166
Terry Fogarty, S.Charleston, 84-84--168
Joe Funderburk, Charleston, 87-84--171
Robert Byron, Huntington, 93-86--179
William Maloney, Bridgeport, 91-90--181
Vernon Withrow, 94-90--184
Gary Edgell, Hurricane, 91-95--186
Boyce Wade, Hurricane, 85-WD--WD

Gold Flight
Darrel Jameson, 73-74--147
Bert Keys, St. Albans, 75-78--153
David Bush, Scott Depot, 76-79--155
James Hager, Hurricane, 78-78--156
Eugene Spot Leach, Shady Spring, 81-87--168
Robert Pollack, Huntington, 80-98--178
Wayne Dawson, Pinch, 88-93--181
James Williams, St. Albans, 88-95--183
Paul Saler, Huntington, 102-99--20

NEWS ANALYSIS: Russia Tells UN Security Council: Don’t Fret Over Iran

By  Jim Kouri

Special to DavidKinchen.com

As the Iranians are moving closer and closer to developing a viable nuclear weapons program, our Russian friends (?) are telling the world not to worry. A Russian official is being quoted as saying the centrifuges available to Iran are not sufficient to launch industrial uranium enrichment. Another Russian, a nuclear expert concurred.

“Uranium enrichment in Iran is not arousing concerns in Russia.There is nothing unexpected in this. The availability of 164 centrifuges in Iran is a fact that has been known for a long time,” Russian Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko told China‘s communist party-controlled news agency.

“These centrifuges allow Iran to conduct laboratory uranium enrichment to a low level in insignificant amounts. The acquisition of highly enriched uranium is unfeasible today using this method,” Kiriyenko said.

However, a senior Iranian official and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani told the Kuwait News Agency that Iran had operated the first unit of 164 centrifuges and successfully enriched uranium.

And then there’s Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragging that Iran had “joined the world club of nuclear technology.”

However, in order for the Iranian scientists to produce their own fuel at least for the initial loading of a nuclear reactor, “one needs to have not some hundred-and-a-half centrifuges, but thousands of times more,” Viktor Mikhailov, ex-minister of the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy who leads the ministry’s Institute for Strategic Stability.

But why should the United States and the United Nations believe the Russian government? After all, US intelligence agencies have for years known about Russian duplicity in Iraq. In fact, recent declassified reports indicate that Russian intelligence gave Iraq‘s military leaders US war plans for the 2003 invasion. Former Iraqi General Georges Sada claims there were Russian intelligence agents and military advisors in Iraq right up to the start of the US-led invasion.

Today, Iran and Syria are cash cows for the Russians and it’s in their best interest to prop up the current regimes. Sanctions on Iran would cut off the Russian weapons sales such as a recent purchase by the Iranians of  state-of-the-art anti-aircraft systems.

According to officials at the Arms Control Association, “Russia has become Iran‘s main source of advanced conventional arms, an alleged supplier of know-how and technology for its ballistic missile and chemical and biological warfare programs, and its sole source of civilian nuclear technology.”

The ACA maintains that Iran also wants to be able to deter potential threats from the United States, Israel, and, more recently, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan. Tehran‘s efforts to modernize its armed forces and acquire weapons of mass destruction are driven by a desire to bridge the gap between its military weakness and its image of itself as a regional power and the standard bearer of revolutionary Islam. To these ends, Tehran has turned to Russia — the only country that can provide it with arms in the quantity and the quality that it desires.

And the Russians are more than happy to accomodate the Iranians with high-priced weapons systems that would be aimed at the West, including the United States.

Tehran cherishs this relationship with Moscow. One need only look at how the Iranians have remained silent over Moscow‘s bloody suppression of a Muslim separatist movement in Chechnya. These are Iran‘s fellow Jihadists, yet the Iranians defer to the Russian government in order to keep the relationship in tact. Iran wants access to sophisticated weaponry and the Russians want to buttress their unstable economy with Iranian cash.

Russia’s arms and technology transfers to Iran have created diplomatic and security headaches for Washington, as Tehran develops some fairly sophisticated military niche-capabilities and builds ballistic missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that threaten US interests and allies in the region. Even more troubling for Washington, it has been able to do very little about it and its options seem limited, according to ACA.

In addition, intelligence experts believe — as with the Saddam regime in Iraq — Russian intelligence officers are assisting the Iranians. Jane’s Intelligence Review reports that while the KGB was dismantled, the Russians are continuously growing a huge intelligence network that is deeply entrenched in the Middle East.

It’s believed that Russia is hosting Iranian intelligence officers at their training facilities and academies in order to upgrade their training in intelligence gathering and analysis, covert actions, and strategic planning.

So when Russia tells the world that Iran is basically no threat at this point in time, should we really believe them?

 

                                                               * * * *

Jim Kouri is  fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He’s a former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. Kouri has appeared as on-air commentator for more than 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.  His book “Assume The Position” is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.U.S.

                

PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Israel, French Mayor, Jewish Leaders Condemn Iran Holocaust Cartoon Exhibit; Rioting Fails to Break Out Across the World

By David M. Kinchen

 

Hinton, WV   – Have you heard about all the rioting by Jews in the wake of an exhibit in Tehran, Iran of cartoons mocking the Holocaust? Of course you haven’t because it hasn’t happened, unlike the major worldwide Muslim uproar several months ago in the wake of the Danish newspaper publishing cartoons mocking Islam.

Several months after the Danish paper in September 2005 published the cartoons lampooning the founder of Islam, Muhammad, rioting broke out all over the world, with 139 people killed and several European embassies burned.

What HAS happened, according to Reuters is that the Israeli government, Jewish groups and the mayor of Paris on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006 “condemned an Iranian exhibition of cartoons on the Nazi Holocaust, accusing Tehran of spreading hatred and trivializing the murder of six million Jews.”

I first read about the exhibit in an online story in the New York Times, which quoted exhibition organizers as saying the show was created to challenge Western taboos about the Holocaust – an event that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed as a “myth” – for which he has drawn international condemnation. Holocaust deniers like Mel Gibson’s dad notwithstanding, the meticulous Germans  documented everything on the slaughter of six million European Jews of all nationalities as part of the Nazi regime’s “Final Solution.”

 Times reporter Michael Slackman interviewed Iran’s sole Jewish member of Parliament, Morris Motamed, who expressed disgust with the exhibit. Yes, Iran still has a few thousand Jews resident in the violently anti-Semitic country. The vast majority of Iran’s once large and ancient Jewish community – which lived in peace with their Muslim countrymen under the late Shah —  are refugees living  in the greater Los Angeles area or in Israel.

Reuters: “Israeli government spokesman Gideon Meir called on the international community ‘to express disgust from such an anti-Semitic and inhuman event.’

“Yosef Lapid, chairman of the council of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, said: ‘The exhibit not only is horrific propaganda that supports Holocaust denial, it also paves the road to justifying genocide of the Jews in Israel.’” 

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel‘s destruction, saying he wants to “wipe the Zionist regime off the map.” 

According to Reuters, “Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe condemned the display in a letter to Iran‘s ambassador, saying it ‘intended to mock the tragedy of the (Holocaust) and to trivialise a new anti-Semitic bid under the false pretext of art and freedom of speech’”. 

The news service, which was in the news itself a few weeks ago for distributing a doctored digital photograph of bomb damage in Lebanon, noted that “France is home to western Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities. It is a crime in European countries such as France, Germany and Austria to deny the Holocaust.” 

This forthright expression of disgust from France, a country that has displayed anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiments in recent times, is a welcome sign that Europe may be waking up to reality.

Radical Islamists of the kind found in Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are against Christians as much as they are against Jews and it’s to Delanoe’s credit that he seems to recognize this.

Here’s a link to the Reuters story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060817/wl_nm/iran_holocaust_reaction_dc_1

Investor’s Business Daily, a widely read and respected Los Angeles-based publication, has an excellent editorial on the exhibit: http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=241398849503517

The New York Times story can be accessed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html

 

KINCHEN AT THE MOVIES: ‘Beowulf & Grendel’ Brings New Twist to Ancient Epic Poem; Grendel’s Rage Explained in Limited-Release Canadian-Icelandic Flick

By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network

Hinton, WV  – The distribution of independent movies will always remain a mystery to me. Why, for example, has the outstanding Canadian-Icelandic film “Beowulf & Grendel” had such a limited release?

I saw the 103-minute, R-rated movie in mid-July in Chicago; according to all the sources I’ve checked, the 2005 film, directed by Icelandic born Canadian Sturla Gunnarsson and written by Andrew Rai Berzins – based on the Epic Old English poem dated anywhere from 700 to 1000 C.E.—has been in “limited” release in the U.S. since mid-June 2006. “Limited” usually means L.A.-Chicago-NYC. According to Amazon.com, the DVD will be available for sale Sept. 26, 2006.

If you liked the “Lord of the Rings” movies, the various adaptations of the King Arthur Legend and “Harry Potter,” you’ll probably enjoy this movie, starring Gerard Butler (“The Phantom of the Opera”) as Beowulf, Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson as Grendel, Stellan Skarsgard as King Hrothgar and Sarah Polley as Selma the witch. Hringur Ingvarsson is Young Grendel and Spencer Wilding is Grendel’s father.

Here’s a plot synopsis, written by Roundstound Communications, found on IMDb.com: “Beowulf & Grendel” is a medieval adventure that tells the blood-soaked tale of a Norse warrior’s battle against the great and murderous troll, Grendel. Heads will roll in this provocative take on the first major work of English literature. Out of allegiance to the King Hrothgar, the much respected Lord of the Danes, Beowulf leads a troop of warriors across the sea to rid a village of the marauding monster. The monster, Grendel, is not a creature of mythic powers, but one of flesh and blood – immense flesh and raging blood, driven by a vengeance from being wronged, while Beowulf, a victorious soldier in his own right, has become increasingly troubled by the hero-myth rising up around his exploits. Beowulf’s willingness to kill on behalf of Hrothgar wavers when it becomes clear that the King is more responsible for the troll’s rampages than was first apparent. As a soldier, Beowulf is unaccustomed to hesitating. His relationship with the mesmerizing witch, Selma, creates deeper confusion. Swinging his sword at a great, stinking beast is no longer such a simple act. The story is set in barbarous Northern Europe where the reign of the many-gods is giving way to one – the southern invader, Christ. Beowulf is a man caught between sides in this great shift, his simple code transforming and falling apart before his eyes. Building toward an inevitable and terrible battle, this is a tale where vengeance, loyalty and mercy powerfully entwine.”

Old English — “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien was one its all-time greatest authorities – needs translation to modern English. Although it’s one of the foundations of modern English, it’s a foreign language, unlike the Middle English of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” which can be deciphered by modern readers with a little assistance (OK, a lot of assistance!).

Here’s a sample from “Beowulf,” along with a modern English translation: “Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.” In modern English: “Lo! We the Spear-Danes, in days of yore, have heard of the glory of the people’s kings how the noble ones did deeds of valor.” Don’t worry, this is no Mel Gibson production; the language in “Beowulf & Grendel” is modern English.

The movie opens with a flashback explaining why Grendel is so obsessed with Hrothgar and his entourage. Spoiler alert: I’m not going to give it away! This is a perfect DVD movie, because you’ll have to see it several times to nail the details of the plot.

When I entered the theatre on North Clark Street in Chicago not far from Wrigley Field, I noticed a group of middle-aged women in the auditorium. In my inimitable manner, I called out “You’re either English majors or Gerry Butler fans.” In the ensuing laughter I could tell that the answer was the latter. Scottish-born Butler, who played the hunky Phantom in the 2004 movie, has attracted female fans of all ages. With his beard and Viking getup, you’ll be hard-pressed to recognize Butler as the mad genius of the Opera Populaire but he more than holds his own with the other veteran actors of the cast.

You don’t have to be an English major (like the reviewer) to enjoy “Beowulf & Grendel.” I still can’t understand why the movie wasn’t released widely in the States. It hasn’t even been released in Europe, as far as I can determine.

If you’re interested in seeing it, the DVD is probably your best choice.

Here’s the web site for “Beowulf & Grendel”:
http://www.beowulfandgrendel.com/site/framestestvertical.html

For more about “Beowulf”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf

Rahall Joins GOP – Grand Ole Pappas – with Birth of First Grandchild

From Nick J. Rahall Press Release

Washington, DC  – U.S. Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) joined the GOP on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2006 — the Grand Ole Pappas, that is.

Madison Kaylee Brown was born to Suzanne Rahall Brown and Christopher Brown on Aug 26, 2006 at 11:02 a.m., weighing in at nine pounds, 18 ounces, and measuring 19.25 inches long. She is Rahall’s first grandchild.

“I never thought I’d say it, but I am proud to be the newest member of the GOP,” Rahall said. “I look forward to being a grandpa to this little bundle of joy for many, many years to come.”

Suzanne Rahall Brown is the youngest daughter of Rep. Nick Rahall and Helen McDaniel of Atlanta. Proud father Machinist Mate Second Class Christopher Brown is currently stationed on the USS Enterprise out of Norfolk, VA.