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| Dave Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 39 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
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| Dave Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 39 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
The United States has denied a visa to a Cuban hoping to attend the funeral of her son, killed in a plane crash last week while trying to leave Cuba, a congresswoman said Thursday.
Aleida Martinez Paredes was denied a visa Monday because U.S. officials feared she would not want to return home, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said.
Paredes' son, Yudel Puig, 23, died after the vintage crop-duster ran out of fuel and was ditched into the Gulf of Mexico. Nine survivors, including Puig's brother, were picked up by a cargo ship, brought to Key West for medical treatment and eventually granted parole.
Yudel Puig's body also was brought to Florida. Paredes received a passport from the Cuban government but was denied a visa by the U.S. State Department, Ros-Lehtinen said.
The congresswoman said she was told by U.S. officials that the mother has no strong ties left in Cuba and would likely want to stay in the United States if allowed to come.
"We consider that absolutely ludicrous," said Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican. "She has other relatives in Cuba and she has strong family ties, including a 10-year-old son and a 1-year-old grandson, that will render her to go back.
"We expected to have these sort of problems from the Cuban government, not the U.S. government," she said.
Yudel Puig's father, Isidro Puig of Miami, said funeral arrangements are on hold.
"Each day it's worse," Puig said. "It doesn't get any easier for us. We've called everyone and we've gotten no response."
Ros-Lehtinen said she is asking the State Department to grant Paredes a humanitarian parole visa, instead of the standard tourist visa she sought.
[ AP ]
Al Gore has demonstrated that he will say or do whatever it takes to get elected. The latest maneuver along his low road to the White House involved asking President Clinton to tap our Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Below is the latest on what experts and politicians are saying about Gore's ploy and what you can do to make a difference.
WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING ABOUT AL'S LATEST MANEUVER....
"The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was established by Congress to address supply disruptions. It was not intended, and should never be used to manipulate prices" - The American Petroleum Institute (Behr, Washington Post, 9/22)
"Using the reserve for price manipulation is dangerous business. If they release enough of it, the price will go down. The problem is that you can't do this forever, and fairly soon you will want to rebuild the reserve." - Ian Shepherdson, chief domestic economist for High Frequency Economics' (Banerjee/Leonhardt, New York Times, 9/22)
"If it were only 5 million barrels, the market would just shrug that off" - John Lichtblau, oil specialist with PIRA Energy Group (Hill, Washington Times, 9/22)
"would send prices lower temporarily, but would do little to stabilize prices." - Ali Rodriguez, President of OPEC on releasing US reserves (Hill, Washington Times, 9/22)
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT AL GORE? KEEP READING
AND THE REPUBLICAN REACTION IS....
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX):
"It's not a good idea, it's not a policy at all. ...If he did too little, it wouldn't help affect the prices, and if he does too much, it really will affect our security. ...What we need to do is have domestic production, so that we control our own destiny" (IP," CNN, 9/21)
"The Vice President can't have it both ways. This administration has done everything it can to raise the price of gasoline, and to totally keep domestic production from increasing. At the same time, when prices are rising, they say, 'Oh gosh, I'm so surprised'" ("Mitchell Report," MSNBC, 9/21)
Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK):
"The problem with this administration is there's no energy policy. We've been knowing for seven years that this was coming. It's like a cancer. And suddenly, we're about to die. And we say: Well, why - how can this happen? It's been coming all the time" ("IP," CNN, 9/21)
"It sends a very dangerous signal. If you don't believe it ask Alan Greenspan, or Summers, who is the secretary of the Treasury. He said this is bad policy. ...Al Gore doesn't know a d___ thing about oil and gas" ("Equal Time," MSNBC, 9/21)
"Last winter, Al Gore thought tapping the oil reserves was bad policy, but now with the election just 47 days away, he's engineering an election-year ploy." - Bush spokesperson Dan Bartlett, noting that Gore had previously dismissed the idea of releasing the reserves. (Cain, Washington Times, 9/22).
"During the seven and a half years Al Gore has been working closely with President Clinton in this administration, as he likes to claim he does, the production of oil in this country has gone down 18%. ... During this whole seven and a half years, there has been a lot of bold talk about how we're going to increase energy independence in this country, and they have done nothing. ... Now, seven weeks before the election, Al Gore wants to release oil from the strategic oil reserve" - Lynne Cheney, on the Gore oil plan ("Mitchell Report," MSNBC, 9/21).
Gov. Tom Ridge (R-PA), on Gore's energy policy: "one thing that I'm worried about is there's a lot of people on my side of the aisle that say that Clinton-Gore don't have an energy policy; I think Al Gore does. If you've read 'Earth in the Balance' ... he likes BTU taxes. He'd like to tax energy. And I think in the long run, that is his energy policy, and that's kind of been lost in this debate."
Daily Oklahoman editorial: "If Gore really were interested in fighting for everyday Americans, who're having to pay upwards of $2 a gallon for gas, he'd quit grandstanding about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and take a hard look at thee way environmental regulations he enthusiastically supports have helped inflate fuel prices -- while only marginally improving air quality" (9/24).
[http://www.nrsc.org ]
The radical United Nations Population Fund is trying to blackmail heavily Catholic and staunchly pro-life Nicaragua to change its policies opposing abortion and homosexuality.
The rogue U.N. group is withholding $11 million in aid allegedly because Nicaragua refused to accept definitions of "gender" and "reproductive rights" which even the U.N. has consistently rejected. The definitions classified "gender" as a "social construct" and as a "right closely associated to health and reproductive rights."
In recent years, the "social construct" definition of gender has been promoted by homosexual and feminist activists as a term that includes homosexuality and bisexuality as legitimate, "socially constructed" sexual identities. However, no U.N. meeting has ever accepted the activists' definitions of "gender," "reproductive rights" or "reproductive health."
The genesis of the dispute arose from Nicaragua's attempt to obtain reductions of its crushing international debt following the 1998 hurricane that devastated the country and forced it to seek to have its heavy debt burden restructured by the World Bank.
A so-called "Consultation Council" was created by the bank that included representatives of such debtor nations as the United States, Japan and Western European countries, along with the Nicaraguan government and representatives of other Nicaraguan institutions, including the Catholic Church. Catholics constitute 89 percent of the country's 4.35 million inhabitants.
According to the U.S.-based weekly National Catholic Register, the council recommended a number of economic reforms but also added provisions concerning "gender rights" and "reproductive health," provisions having absolutely nothing to do with the nation's economy or its economic well-being.
"In July 1999, the donor countries made a set of proposals, mostly aimed at shrinking Nicaragua's bureaucracy, reducing spending, increasing revenues and strengthening democracy, as conditions for providing financial assistance," the Register reported.
"But in November, Nicaraguan pro-life organizations learned that the "Program of Reform and Modernization of the Public Sector" drafted by the government and the donor countries included projects to implement "gender rights" and "reproductive health" initiatives, as those terms are interpreted by feminist and pro-abortion organizations," according to the Register.
The initiatives, the register reported, had been included by "a German volunteer consultant appointed by the donor countries to the reform and modernization committee."
"We were immediately alarmed because this approach was totally at odds not only with the Nicaraguan culture, but even with the U.N. world conferences, where this terminology has never been accepted in a definitive way," said Elida Solórzano, director of family development for the ministry of family affairs.
Solórzano said the donor countries were trying to use their aid money to push "a type of language that was heatedly debated at both meetings, but always rejected by the Nicaraguan delegations and never accepted by consensus."
Earlier this year, a threat by donor countries to make aid contingent on policy changes by the pro-life Nicaragua government resulted in the forced resignation of the minister of family affairs, Max Padilla.
The donor countries' pressuring has also been linked to the reported withholding of $11 million in aid from the U.N. Population Fund, according to the Register.
Padilla responded to pro-lifers' concerns by creating a commission, composed mainly of pro-life experts, to reach Nicaraguan definitions of "gender" and "health rights." Its conclusions were sent to the reform and modernization committee last Feb. 12.
On March 1, Padilla received an "urgent fax" signed by diplomatic representatives of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Holland and the Central American coordinator of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
According to the Rome-based Zenit news agency, the letter stated, "We are surprised to learn of the changes the Ministry of the Family is contemplating to introduce regarding gender policy, which until now was based on the International commitments subscribed by Nicaragua."
It added, "As you know, our cooperation in general has a clear focus on gender and is based on the definitions agreed at the International Conferences."
The letter also demanded that Padilla's ministry "confirm to us Nicaragua's ratification of the Beijing Conference agreements."
"The letter sparked a wave of outrage not only within (the ministry of family affairs), but also within the chancery and other government levels," said a high-ranking Nicaraguan government official who asked to remain anonymous. "We felt they were acting like conquistadors."
Alex Marshall, a spokesman for the Population Fund, said he was unaware of the withholding of any funding to Nicaragua.
However, a Feb. 25 article in the Honduran newspaper La Prensa reported that Thomas Jiménez, the U.N. Population Fund's representative to Nicaragua, had announced aid to Nicaragua would be halted over "discrepancies" in the country's family planning programs.
Although Padilla was forced to resign his job, the government of Nicaragua is now considering the abolition of legislative provisions that permit abortion when the health or life of the mother is thought to be at risk. As well, a national March for Life was held in Nicaragua Aug. 31, led by President Alemán and his wife.
But Padilla predicted that the outside pressure on Nicaragua to abandon its pro-life policies would continue. Said Padilla, "Anti-life forces are moving and pulling strings in the same secretive, manipulative way as they do in the International arena. I hope we can raise public awareness before we suffer the consequences."
[ NewsMax.com ]
Is political correctness a "hate crime"?
The federal government defines hate crimes as "crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property."
Consider the case of Dr. Richard Zeller, formerly a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. After 25 years of teaching at the school, Dr. Zeller retired in protest. Why? He wanted to teach a course on political correctness.
From talking to students, Zeller learned that many felt pressured to adopt politically correct views in order to get a passing grade. One student told Zeller that, in order to get a good grade, a professor virtually forced the student to agree that all whites are racist.
Another student said that he felt pressured to adopt a "pro-choice" position on abortion, even though he considered himself staunchly pro-life.
Professor Zeller got an idea. What about a course on political correctness, on the tyranny within academia that forces students to conform to a prescribed set of views?
Zeller put together a proposed course curriculum. He included books like "Illiberal Education" by Dinesh D'Souza; "The Bell Curve" by R. Herrnstein and C. Murray; "Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police" by J. Leo; "Inside American Education" by Thomas Sowell; "A Nation of Victims" by C. Sykes; and "Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action" by S. Yates.
But Zeller's sociology colleagues said "no" to the course. Zeller protested, and ultimately the sociology department voted on whether or not he could teach the course. Zeller lost 9-5.
Zeller then attempted to teach the course in other departments, but no other department granted approval for the course. So much for academic freedom, for diversity of thought. Not only that, Zeller found friends few and far between.
For example, one newspaper quoted BGSU's Dr. Kathleen Dixon, the Director of Women's Studies, who said of Zeller's attempted course, "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech!" We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech?!
A BGSU ethnic studies professor said that Zeller's attitude would help students " ... feel good about the ruling paradigm, which since the inception of the United States, has said that genocide is good, racism is better, and exploitation of the women and poor is the best way to go." Gee, poor Zeller thought he was simply teaching a course on political correctness.
How about professor Gary Lee, the BGSU Sociology Department Chairman, who said, "Unfortunately, tenure protects the incompetent and malicious; Rich has tenure, so he cannot be fired without cause." Fired? For wanting to teach a course in political correctness? For good measure, Zeller also received death threats, and someone wrote "Zeller you die" on sanitary napkins left on the professor's front porch at home.
Weary of the battle, Dr. Zeller offered his resignation. In a letter to the school, Zeller expressed his frustration and anger. He directs his concern, said the professor, not at himself, but at the students deprived of an education that challenges assumptions and questions the status quo.
Zeller said, "But don't cry for me. I'm doing just fine, thank you. Cry out, instead, for the students who regularly get intellectually mugged on the BGSU campus"; "the traditionalist who believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, but can't say so for fear of failing"; "the conservative who believes in minimizing government interference in our lives and says so in a sociology class"; "the woman who believes that abortion is murder, but must write a pro-choice essay to pass English 111"; and "all of those who have 'adjusted' and 'self-censored' their ideas so that they can pass their classes."
Zeller also said, "BGSU has sold its soul to the thought police of political correctness. There was a time that ... honorable people could disagree honorably; now, any challenge to the campus sacred cows (feminism, affirmative action, and multiculturalism) is denounced as evil."
About Zeller's travails, the Christian Science Monitor's Sanford Pinsker said, "Amid all the self-congratulatory talk about diversity one hears on American campuses, it is not at all clear that intellectual diversity is alive and well. If the result of Zeller's pressing for a course that might expose students to controversial thinkers and books had been an honest debate -- rather than an exercise in character assassination -- all of us might well have benefited. As it stands, however, everyone at BGSU has lost."
Or, as BGSU's Women's Studies Director might have put it, BGSU prevents any discussion about any topic that suggests we prevent any discussion about any topic. Got that?
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