Another of institution of higher learning belies its liberal reputation in its atttitudes towards the employees who make it function.

Hundreds of thousands around the country and around the world converged today the protest the Bush Doctrine on the first anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Indymedia from San Francisco:

2:15pm: Police have formed a diagonal line through the crowd of thousands crowding into the intersection of Polk and Grove. It appears that they are trying to restrict anyone from the main march from breaking off and joining any breakaway marches.

12:35pm: A large Bikes Not Bombs contingent is forming at 16th/Mission and heading towards downtown in 10 minutes.

Indymedia New York:

1:25: The march has begun.

GETTING TO THE MARCH: According to UFPJ, “Flow south on Madison Avenue from 42nd Street until you join the crowd … Despite our best negotiating efforts with the police, it will NOT be possible to enter Madison Ave. from or around 23rd or 34th Streets, so please do not even try!)

IndyMedia Chicago:

1:31 PM Confirmation of one arrest, that of Superior and Wabash. Being held in wagon. Confirmed of numbers: about 5000 people.

3:32 PM A report has come in that there were actually three confirmed arrests, not two.

Bulatlat from the Phillipines:

More than six feet away from the police along T.M. Kalaw Street in Manila, the frontliners of the rally-mostly students and community-based youth-got a taste of the salty and sandy water from the fire hose. It did not matter to the police that between them and the demonstrators stood a number of mediamen who were covering the rally, held last March 20, in commemoration of the first anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq; some of them got their own dose of the water spray.

But the demonstrators, numbering more than a thousand, stood their ground and were able to hold a program less than 500 meters from the U.S. Embassy, notwithstanding occasional taunts by burly policemen in civilian clothes.

From CNN:

In Cairo, Egypt, protesters burned a U.S. flag and called Bush a liar, though riot police far outnumbered the protesters.

Thousands of Sunni and Shiite Muslims had come together to rally in Baghdad on Friday, one year after the beginning of the war.

Taiwan’s President, Chen Shui-Bian, narrowly wins re-election the day after being shot, and his opponent, Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party, more closely aligned with the Chinese government, responds by accusing him of faking the assassination attempt:

Addressing a cheering crowd of supporters of his Democratic Progressive Party on Saturday night, Mr. Chen asked Communist Party officials in Beijing to respect the election and cooperate with him.

“I urge the Chinese authorities to face the election and the referendum with a positive attitude and accept the choices of the Taiwanese people,” he said.

Another progressive realizes that Hillary Clinton is not, alas, the fellow traveller that Rush Limbaugh makes her out to be. Only this time it’s the leader of a campaign to draft her for President. Last week he called her on it:

…Kunst, who is gay, sent a letter to Clinton urging her to reconsider her position. “Daily, I have had to defend your lifestyle with Bill and why you didn’t throw him out of the house altogether. But love is stronger than anyone else’s politics, and it is your business and no one else’s,” Kunst wrote. Clinton’s camp had no comment.

The Clintons have too long gotten away with a two-ring circus bait-and-switch operation, in which the one in office (first Bill, now Hillary) is a hardened pragmatic moderate, and the one out of office (first Hillary, now Bill) is a sentimental bleeding heart. Whether the issue is Middle East Policy or Welfare Reform, the sheer ugliness of the conservative attacks on Hillary have largely insulated her from criticism for her betrayals of a segment of the Democratic base that insists, despite her record, on seeing her as the progressive icon the opposition makes her out to be.

Bush-Cheney 2004: Made in Burma.

Dan Frosch considers how John Ashcroft might have fared dealing with his recent medical condition with only the “universal health insurance” which his colleague in the cabinet, Secretary of Health and Human Services, claims America provides to all its poor.

The new White House Special Counsel moves to strip gay and lesbian federal employees’ benefits:

Bloch said gays, lesbians and bisexuals cannot be covered as a protected class because they are not protected under the nation’s civil rights laws. “When you’re interpreting a statute, you have to be very careful to interpret strictly according to how it’s written and not get into loose interpretations,” Bloch said. “Someone may have jumped to the conclusion that conduct equals sexual orientation, but they are essentially very different. One is a class . . . and one is behavior.”

Bloch’s position is a marked departure from how the previous special counsel, Elaine Kaplan, enforced the law. “The legal position that he is taking, that there is some distinction between discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on conduct, is absurd,” Kaplan told Federal Times.

From the Associated Press:

USA Today said Friday that an examination of the work of journalist Jack Kelley found strong evidence that the newspaper’s former star foreign correspondent had fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories. “As an institution, we failed our readers by not recognizing Jack Kelley’s problems. For that I apologize,” publisher Craig Moon said.

After spending seven weeks closely examining Kelley’s work, a team of journalists also found that Kelley had lifted quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he delivered for USA Today and conspired to mislead the investigation into his work. An examination of his computer unearthed scripts Kelley had written to help at least three people mislead reporters attempting to verify his work, the newspaper said.

Atrios points to the double standard in play:

Why oh why do we have affirmative action for white christian evangelical men? Why oh why do newspaper editors let their biases about such people cloud their judgment? I’m sure the brothers Hack, Glenn and Mickey, will spend weeks discussing how this guy’s race and religion allowed him to get away with things that other journalists couldn’t get away with…

And Roger Ailes explores why the self-appointed guru of US media seems less than gripped by this story:

In his Media Notes Extra column, Kurtz buries the Kelley story beneath a number of long, stale excerpts of Kerry bashing…So instead of headlining a story which is actually a media story (journalist fabricates news), the Putz gives top billing to a bunch of worthless clips on a non-media story (Hugh Hewitt slimes Kerry — now that’s newsworthy!)

Remember, Kurtz is the man who “ha[d] to” take time away from his honeymoon to report on the calls for Howell Raines’s resignation in the aftermath of the Jayson Blair scandal. According to the Washington Post’s online archives, Kurtz wrote at least 12 stories in which Blair was named in and/or the subject of the article’s headline, not including the multitude of stories about the resignation of Howell Raines in the aftermath of the Blair revelations. A cynic might wonder if the fact that Kelley’s a white evangelical Christian writing stories generally favorable to the Bush Administration instead of an African-American working for the supposedly left-wing NYT has anything to do with Kurtz’s lack of interest in the Kelley story.

You’ll recall the racialized narratives of the Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair scandals – “Brilliantly calculating reporter overcome with ambition becomes manical genius,” and “Incompetent affirmative action hire cracks under the pressure,” respectively.

More on those NewAlliance Bancshares: Tolland Bank shareholders stepped out of the way of the NewAlliance Bancshares machine in a vote yesterday. Meanwhile, Paul Bass reports on the movement to stop the NewAlliance Bancshares and keep New Haven capital at home, and on the foot soldiers one of the members of the unholy alliance behind the NewAlliance Bancshares – United Illuminated – sent to keep an eye on the opposition:

What were they doing there? They introduced themselves as members of a “community organization.” Hmm. Which one?

Speakers at the Varick press conference repeated the reasons that ECCO gave for opposing the bank’s plans in public hearings last year: The group feels the bank is abandoning the depositors who built up the institution’s wealth throughout its history as a depositor-owned, community-oriented bank. The deal enriches execs and insiders. And the bank already has a lousy record in lending to minorities. (The bank claims in response that the deal will help it grow and serve New Haven better. Bank spokesman Paul McCraven didn’t return calls for comment on the boycott.)

For those reconsidering a NewAlliance Bancshares purchase or investment, the Register reports on the report card that CCNE has put out on the alternatives.

Taiwan’s President and Vice-President, who tomorrow will face an election against challengers less willing to assert Taiwan’s autonomy, were shot today while campaigning but have both survived:

The injuries were not life-threatening and neither Chen nor Lu lost consciousness or required surgery, officials said. The Reuters news agency said they were released from the hospital several hours later…Authorities said there were no immediate arrests and declined to speculate on a possible motive for the attack. The apparent assassination attempt occurred as the crowds were setting off firecrackers in celebration…

Chen’s opponent in the presidential race, Nationalist Party leader Lien Chan, condemned the attack and also urged his supporters to remain cool. Both parties suspended campaign activities, canceling huge rallies that had been scheduled in various cities across Taiwan. But officials said the election was expected to proceed as scheduled on Saturday.

Nathan shares good news for workers in Wisconsin, where my mother’s parents lived and worked as immigrants from Lithuania after the Holocaust:

Governor Jim Doyle today vetoed legislation that would prevent the city of Madison or any other community in the state from setting a higher minimum wage than the standard set by the state. In vetoing Assembly Bill 633, the Governor said:

Governor Doyle has called for an increase in the minimum wage as part of his “Grow Wisconsin” plan. With strong support from business, labor, and community representatives, the Minimum Wage Advisory Council voted 16-2 on March 1, 2004 to increase the state’s minimum wage to $6.50 an hour over the next two years. The Department of Workforce Development estimates that 101,000 individuals will benefit in the first year and 150,000 in the second year by the increases in the minimum wage.

In the face of a lawsuit filed over its exploitation of poor patients, Yale – New Haven Hospital is announcing “discounts” for the poor.

Zach-SW to Joe-Zacc:

Sorry guys, not good enough. You receive massive amounts of public funding. You are a hospital, not Wal-Mart.