Truthout 4/6

Grand Iraqi Dreams - for Whom?
Nick Mottern, Truthout: "Engineers of Technital SpA, the Italian firm that designed the system to save Venice from flooding, are working on the future of Iraq as embodied in their plan for the 'New Al Faw Grand Port' at the southern tip of Iraq, a $6 billion major deep-water port on the Persian Gulf that will be the largest in the Gulf."
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Break Up the Banks
Robert Reich: "A fight is brewing in Washington - or, at the least, it ought to be brewing - over whether to put limits on the size of financial entities in order that none becomes 'too big to fail' in a future financial crisis."
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Wikileaks Releases Video Depicting US Forces Killing Two Reuters Journalists in Iraq
Dan Murphy, The Christian Science Monitor: "A video released on the Internet Monday by WikiLeaks, a small nonprofit dedicated to publishing classified information from the US and other governments, appears to show the killing of two Iraqi journalists with Reuters and about nine other Iraqis in a Baghdad suburb in 2007 that is sharply at odds of the official US account of the incident."
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The Market Colonization of Intellectuals
Lewis R. Gordon, Truthout: "In many forums over the past decade, public intellectuals seem unable to talk about pressing social issues without performing the equivalent of an academic literature review. Although reasons range from trying to inform their audiences of relevant debates to efforts to demonstrate erudition, that many public intellectuals present their work as the basis for rewards in academe and the entertainment industry suggests influences tantamount to the colonization of intellectuals by the ever-expanding market."
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The Invisible Ward 8
Eugene Robinson: "After President Obama and his family attended Easter services in the poorest, blackest, most crime-ridden quadrant of Washington, his 22-car motorcade sped back across the Anacostia River to the picture-postcard, cherry-blossomy part of town. Left behind was a heartbreaking crime scene - along with tens of thousands of people who have become as invisible as ghosts."
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Medicine Means Sometimes Having to Say You Are Sorry
Joanne Kenen, Miller-McCune: "Even before Barack Obama became president and nudged the Democrats to recognize the imperfections of the US malpractice system, he had a plan. Along with Hillary Clinton, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation in 2005 to encourage doctors and hospitals to 'disclose and apologize' for errors - a departure from the typical malpractice stance of 'defend and deny.'"
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The Mythical Concept of Trade War
Ian Fletcher, Truthout: "As Americans ponder how to get the US out of its current trade mess, we are constantly warned to do nothing - like impose a tariff to neutralize Chinese currency manipulation - that would trigger a 'trade war.' Supposedly, no matter how bad our problems with our trading partners get, they are less bad than the spiraling catastrophe that would ensue if we walked a single inch away from our current policy of unilateral free trade."
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Texas Says Hip-Hop Has No Stand in History
Tolu Olorunda, Truthout: "It's been 30 full years since the cultural force known today as hip-hop mushroomed out of the ghettos of South Bronx and spread over the surface of the earth, but nobody could have claimed, back then, to foresee the journeys hip-hop would take or the magnitude of a legacy it would build through those journeys. It was simply impossible for a gang of hopeless, crime-prone black and brown saps to set off a cultural explosion that in little over two decades boasted a multibillion-dollar empire."
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Rami Tabello: Canada's Legal Vigilante
Anne Elizabeth Moore, Truthout: "Rami Tabello, the guy behind the anti-billboard organization Illegal Signs in Toronto, Ontario, is the kind of laid-back dude who updates his social networking status with 'is getting ready for an exciting day at Planning and Growth Management where the billboard tax and signs by-law will be debated.'"
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The Governor and the Death Penalty
Dave Lindorff, Truthout: "Governor Rendell has a historic opportunity to honor a campaign pledge and put a stop to Pennsylvania's archaic, ineffective and profoundly cruel and unfair death penalty."
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The Creed of Objectivity and The New York Times
Barnabe F. Geisweiller, Truthout: "Many have recently questioned just how objective The New York Times' correspondent in Israel and Palestine, Ethan Bronner, can be when he has a son serving in the Israel Defense Forces - the Israeli army. In an article published March 28, Bronner showed readers there was cause for concern."
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Al-Qaeda Kills Dozens in Multiple Attacks in Baghdad
Kristen Chick, The Christian Science Monitor: "Al-Qaeda is blamed for a series of attacks Tuesday in Baghdad. Insurgents, who have killed more than 100 in the past week, seek to exploit the delay in forming a new Iraq government after last month's election."
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"Doing Better" Than One's Parents
Froma Harrop, Truthout: "If the new federal program to help homeowners pay their mortgage bugs you, read a Wall Street Journal article titled, 'Bank of Mom and Dad Shuts Amid White-Collar Struggle.' It will make you even madder."
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How Ted Turner Scored Yellowstone's Bison Herd
Joshua Frank, AlterNet: "Yellowstone buffalo, despite being on the verge of extinction, have virtually no protections in the West. And media mogul Ted Turner's going to cash in on it. It is just one more battle in the century-and-a-half-old range wars, where land and wildlife have come into direct conflict with selfish, private interests."
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