Flying REALLY High

New York Times: By MARIA NEWMAN and JOHN SCHWARTZ

NASA administrators promised fast action today in response to an internal investigation that said astronauts had flown after drinking heavily on at least two occasions.

The investigation, which relied on anonymous interviews, found “heavy use of alcohol” by the two astronauts within 12 hours of flying. The astronauts involved in the incidents were cleared for flying even after flight surgeons and fellow astronauts raised concerns with NASA officials that safety might be jeopardized, according to findings of the investigation, which were released today.

The investigation also found that flight surgeons felt their warnings about medical or behavioral problems among astronauts were routinely ignored....

The report recommended that NASA “ensure that specific policies, procedures, educational efforts, and disciplinary actions are in place to foster a culture that holds individuals and supervisors accountable for safe and responsible use of alcohol.”

No word on diaper use during drinking bouts prior to takeoff.

Specter to probe Supreme Court decisions

Politico.com: By: Carrie Budoff

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.

Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate.

'There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it,' Specter said, singling out Roberts. ...

Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who served as chairman during the hearings, said he wants to examine whether Roberts and Alito have "lived up" to their assurances that they would respect legal precedents.

Judicial independence is "so important," Specter said, but an examination could help with future nominations. "I have done a lot of analyzing and have come to the conclusion that these nominees answer just as many questions as they have to."

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), a Judiciary Committee member who voted against both nominees, said a review "could lead us to have a different approach." He said senators need to be "more probing" with their questioning of nominees.

"Certainly Justice Roberts left a distinct impression of his service as chief justice. And his performance on the court since, I think, has been in conflict with many of the statements he has made privately, as well as to the committee," said Durbin, who was unaware of Specter's idea.

"They are off to a very disturbing start, these two new justices. I am afraid before long they will call into question some of the most established laws and precedents in our nation."

The idea for a review came to Specter when he said he ran into Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. ..."I only noticed it in a couple of cases," Specter said of the court overturning or undermining precedents. But Breyer, in their Aspen conversation, said "there were eight."...

"The reality is, although John Roberts and Samuel Alito promised to follow precedent, they either explicitly or implicitly overruled precedent," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor.

"It is important to point out how the confirmation hearings were a sham. There is nothing you can do about it now; they are there for life. But it is important as we look to future hearings."

Duh.

The Sum of Some Fears: Economic Prospects and Denial

The Sum of Some Fears - New York Times: By Paul Krugman

So why did people seem so shocked by a few more bad housing and oil numbers? What I guess I didn’t realize was how deep the denial still runs.

Over the last couple of years a peculiar conviction emerged among some analysts — mainly, for some reason, among those with right-wing political leanings — that the housing bubble was a myth and that the real bubble was in oil prices....

I didn’t think many people believed this stuff, but the market’s sudden freakout over housing and oil suggests that I was wrong.

Anyway, now reality is settling in. And there’s one more thing worth mentioning: the economic expansion that began in 2001, while it has been great for corporate profits, has yet to produce any significant gains for ordinary working Americans. And now it looks as if it never will.

That is, perhaps, Krugman's oblique response to David Brooks' prior column. I was hoping for a more comprehensive response.

Why American Muslims don't care to legalize polygamy

Slate Magazine: By Andrea Useem

So, you're happily married to the Muslim man of your dreams when, suddenly, he drops the p-bomb: polygamy. For Aneesa Azeez, a 23-year-old Muslim convert and college graduate, her husband's announcement of his intention to marry a second wife devastated her. "I am shocked, hurt, angry and confused, all in one," she wrote in a letter to him.

Seems like a recipe for divorce, right? Polygamy is illegal, after all. But Azeez didn't play that card with her husband, 15 years her senior. Under the law that mattered to her—classical Islamic law—she accepted her husband's right to take up to four wives, as allowed by the Quran, as long as he could treat them equally. ...

But eventually, a peacefulness settled in her heart and a friendship with her co-wife blossomed: "I am in polygyny because I want to be," she wrote on her blog, Polygynous Blessings, whose initial entries are collected in a self-published book of the same title. (Polygyny is the more precise term for the type of polygamy in which a man marries more than one wife.) Azeez's blog is just one of several in which American Muslims write thoughtful, sometimes wry, but usually positive commentary about living polygamously; other notables include Thoughts of a First Wife and Big Faith. ...

For the tiny minority of American Muslims who engage in polygamy, its illegality is close to irrelevant. And for mainstream American Muslims, who are dealing with enough negative publicity as it is, let alone the fact that polygamy gives many of them the heebie-jeebies, the legal status quo suits them just fine....

Debra Mubashshir Majeed, a religious studies professor at Beloit College who is researching a book on American Muslim polygamy, estimates that less than 1 percent of American Muslims indulge in the practice—and these practitioners are most often African-American Muslims or recent immigrants from West Africa. That percentage may seem infinitesimal, given that the most recent estimate of the American Muslim population puts their numbers at 2.35 million, but it does mean there are perhaps as many as 20,000 American Muslim polygamists. In comparison, the current best guess about the number of fundamentalist Mormons involved in polygamy in the United States, Mexico, and Canada is only 37,500 ...

[P]rominent American Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was the first Muslim cleric to ever offer the invocation at the U.S. House of Representatives, was quoted in Paul Barrett's 2007 book American Islam as saying that he performs polygamous unions at his Al-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y. "If a man can have a hundred girlfriends, and it's legal, I don't say you can't have more than one wife," he reasons. Of course, Wahhaj is in the minority on this point; most mainstream imams would not condone the open flouting of the law. Tahir Anwar, imam of a well-established San Jose, Calif., mosque, writes in an e-mail that he would discourage any Muslims seeking a polygamous marriage and would not perform the ceremony: "It is not allowed in the land that we live in, a land to whom we have promised that we will follow all of its laws." ...

So, why aren't all American Muslim leaders jumping on the "legalize polygamy" bandwagon? After all, Muslim parents have banded together to call for public schools to recognize Muslim holidays, and Muslim cabdrivers are trying to protect their right to refuse alcohol-carrying passengers; shouldn't American Muslim leaders step in to secure the rights of their co-religionists to exercise their marital preferences?

As urban anthropologist Robert Dannin points out in his 2002 ethnography, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, some of the most intense and divisive feelings about polygamy are found within the Muslim community itself. Many Muslim women, of course, are frankly relieved that the law of the land forbids husbands from taking multiple wives. But Muslim religious leaders, who are by definition male, may have slightly different motivations in accepting the legal status quo. At a moment when leading presidential candidates can suggest the routine wiretapping of mosques and nearly half of the American public has a negative view of Islam, championing polygamy hardly seems like a winning strategy. ...

Understanding Gaps Among Asian Groups

Inside Higher Ed :

Many discussions about affirmative action or demographics in higher education start with the assumption that Asian American students are outperforming everyone else and don’t need any help. That view is frustrating to many Asian Americans and some educators who say that — even if true on average — it results in too little attention being paid to members of some groups that are not doing well at all educationally.


The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday that backs up those concerns. The report notes that by most measures Asian Americans have a higher educational attainment than other groups, with almost half of Asian Americans aged 25 or older having a four-year college degree, a percentage far greater than those for white adults (almost one third) or black or Latino adults (less than one fifth). But this overall success, the GAO found, “masks” the realities of many Asian subgroups in educational preparation and attainment.

For example, the report found that half of Southeast Asian high school students are not enrolled in college preparatory programs, more than half of Southeast Asian and Native American and Pacific Islander students are in the lower socioeconomic quartiles, and many Asian groups set aside less money for their children’s college education than do members of other racial and ethnic groups.

Educational Attainment and Average Income of Asian-American Groups, 2005

Group


% of Adults With at Least 4-Year Degree


Average Income

Asian Indian


68%


$66,000

Korean


54%


$52,000

Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan


54%


$48,000

Chinese


53%


$56,000

Filipino


48%


$46,000

Japanese


44%


$59,000

Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai


44%


$40,000

Vietnamese


25%


$41,000

Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander


17%


$38,000

Cambodian, Laotian, Hmong


13%


$32,000

Math First, Last and Always

Inside Higher Ed :

New research by professors at Harvard University and the University of Virginia has found that no single high school science course has an impact beyond that type of science, when it comes to predicting success in college science. However, the researchers found that a rigorous mathematics curriculum in high school has a significant impact on performance in college science courses. The research, which will be published in Science, runs counter to the “physics first” movement in which some educators have been advocating that physics come before biology and chemistry in the high school curriculum. The study was based on analysis of a broad pool of college students, their high school course patterns, and their performance in college science.

Chatty Senator on Air Force One Pushes the Rules, and Buttons

New York Times: By JIM RUTENBERG

PHILADELPHIA, July 26 — Guests of President Bush aboard Air Force One generally know that he expects them to behave in a certain way: No showboating or mingling with the on-board press corps and, certainly, no criticizing the commander in chief or his team.

Senator Arlen Specter violated both points of decorum on Thursday. He visited with reporters aboard the presidential airplane before it lifted off for Philadelphia and lambasted the attorney general....

According to a pool report of the encounter, Mr. Specter expressed anew his criticism of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales but said he saw no signs that Mr. Gonzales would be forced to resign. Mr. Specter attributed Mr. Gonzales’s job security to Mr. Bush’s “personal loyalty” to him.

Mr. Specter spoke derisively of Mr. Gonzales’s appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee ... “Our hearing two days ago was devastating,” Mr. Specter said. “But so was the hearing before that, and so was the hearing before that.”

Mr. Specter also waded into another uncomfortable subject, the Congressional demands for testimony from Karl Rove, the presidential adviser, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, among others.

He said that while he hoped “to reach an accommodation” with the White House, “I don’t see it now.” ...

White House officials seemed none too pleased with Mr. Specter’s remarks, but had no comment, either.

Bedtime for Gonzo

Eugenewashingtonpost.com: By Eugene Robinson

It's way past bedtime for Gonzo. At this point, every day Alberto Gonzales continues as attorney general means more dishonor for the office and the nation -- and higher blood pressure for Senate Judiciary Committee members trying desperately to get a straight answer out of the man.

Gonzo has managed to do something no one else in Washington has managed in years: create a spirit of true bipartisanship. After his pathetic act in front of the committee Tuesday, it's no surprise that Democrats are threatening to investigate him for perjury. But it was Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican, who looked Gonzo in the face and told him, 'I do not find your testimony credible, candidly.'

Specter seems ready to pop a gasket. 'The hearing two days ago was devastating' for Gonzo, Specter said yesterday. 'But so was the hearing before that, and so was the hearing before that.'...

Asked about the glaring discrepancy, Gonzo said Tuesday that the disagreement and the hospital visit were about "other intelligence activities," and "not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people."

Specter's response: "Mr. Attorney General, do you expect us to believe that?"

No one believes it. The most generous interpretation is that Gonzo, fearful of facing a perjury rap, is insisting on an artificially and dishonestly narrow definition of "the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced" -- leaving out "intelligence activities" that any reasonable person, including Comey, would consider part of the program. The nice word for that would be dissembling.

The not-so-nice word would be lying. Hence the call yesterday by a group of Senate Democrats for a perjury investigation.

I hope they nail him. Anyone tempted to feel sympathy for Gonzo should check out his weaselly explanation for why he would think it appropriate to buttonhole a sick man in his hospital room, regardless of the issue.

"There are no rules governing whether or not General Ashcroft can decide 'I'm feeling well enough to make this decision,' " Gonzo said. When Specter pointed out that Ashcroft had already turned his powers over to Comey, Gonzo replied, "And he could always reclaim it. There are no rules."

"While he was in the hospital under sedation?" Specter interrupted, before giving up on getting a straight answer.

Gonzo answered the question, all right -- inadvertently, of course: "There are no rules."

That's the guiding philosophy of this administration. As far as these people are concerned, there are no rules of common decency. There are no rules of customary practice. There are no rules governing respect for the truth, or even respect for the privacy and health of an ailing colleague. ...

Blair Asserts ‘Sense of Possibility’ After Meeting 2 Sides in Jerusalem as Mideast Peace Envoy

New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, July 24 — Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, on his first visit to Jerusalem in his new post as international diplomat seeking to advance Mideast peace, declared after meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders that he felt “a sense of possibility.”

He declined, however, as did those he met, to explain the basis for his optimism at a time of deep political divisions and weak regional leadership....

He met with Fatah and independent politicians in the Palestinian government but did not speak to the Hamas faction, elected by Palestinians and running Gaza and regarded as a terrorist group by Israel and the West. He may well make discreet contact with Hamas through independent intermediaries, however....

That effort suffered somewhat overnight, when elite Presidential Guard units reportedly mistreated the daughter and son of the jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti. According to an account in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the guards stopped the daughter, Ruba Barghouti, in a car. The guardsmen laughed at her, she called relatives who came, and a fight occurred.

Similar accounts of rudeness and criminal activity by Fatah-affiliated gunmen and security forces have regularly angered Palestinians. ...

Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud opposition, recommended to Mr. Blair specific economic incentives from private industry that could quickly improve the economy in the West Bank and create jobs, a Netanyahu aide said. Mr. Netanyahu warned against relying on the public sector, which has been slow and corrupt.

Arab Envoys and Israelis Meet to Talk Mideast Peace

New York Times:

Mr. Khatib and Mr. Aboul Gheit met with Mr. Olmert; Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni; President Shimon Peres; and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud party leader.

At a joint news conference here, Mr. Aboul Gheit said that he and Mr. Khatib had heard “many positive responses” from Ms. Livni. They said they would be reporting back their findings, and maybe presenting some ideas, to an Arab League ministerial meeting on Monday.

All sides emphasized that the details of any agreement would have to be reached by the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves.

Ms. Livni said the idea was “to advance a bilateral Israeli-Palestinian process and to see how the Arab world can support it.”

Palestinian negotiators have suffered in the past from a lack of support from the Arab world that would help them make the necessary concessions for a deal with Israel. For many Israelis, the promise of full normalization with the Arab world makes the idea of concessions on their part more palatable. Both Ms. Livni and her Arab counterparts pointed to a wide consensus among the Israeli public in favor of an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the two-state solution."

USF, Physician Liable For Botched Diagnosis

Tampa Tribune: By THOMAS W. KRAUSE

TAMPA - A University of South Florida doctor gave Daniel and Amara Estrada the green light to go ahead with a second pregnancy even though their first child has significant birth defects.

The doctor, however, did not give the Estradas all the facts.

A jury determined the Estradas deserve $23.5 million for lifetime care of their second child, born with the same genetic disorder as their first. The award includes payment for the pain and suffering caused by the doctor's misdiagnosis. Because USF is a government agency, the couple must petition the Legislature for the bulk of the money.

Had Boris Kousseff properly diagnosed Aiden Estrada with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, the parents would have known there was a 25 percent chance their second child would have the disorder. A simple test could have found the disorder before Caleb Estrada was born.

Had the Estradas known, they would have terminated the second pregnancy, the couple said in their lawsuit....

Because USF is a government agency, the most it will have to pay would be $200,000 of the $21.1 million verdict. The Estradas must petition the Legislature to collect the remainder. The Estradas' lawyer said costs in the case have topped $200,000. Without the Legislature's help, the Estradas would see nothing.

"It is going to be a long road," Amara Estrada said. "I'm glad this part is over."...

State Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, leads the committee that will determine whether the Estradas deserve more than the $200,000 cap.

Typically, Crist said, a group of legal experts will hear testimony and compare the jury award to similar cases. The legal experts will return to the legislative committee with a recommendation. The Legislature votes on about 100 such claims a year, Crist said.

This case might prove more difficult because of the abortion issue.

"In the 15 years I've been in the Legislature, I haven't seen that kind of issue," Crist said. "This has a potential moral question that could become a potential political issue. I don't know what the Legislature will do with that."

How liberals can take back the Court.

TNR Online :
by Douglas T. Kendall & James E. Ryan

...[P]rogressives would do well to follow Scalia's lead. In public debates over constitutional interpretation, Scalia keeps it simple. Sure, he says, sometimes I have to follow precedent. Sure, he admits, sometimes text and history aren't so clear. But those are details. Don't let them distract you: I like a rock-hard Constitution, plain and simple, and that Constitution binds me as a judge.

That's the way Clinton, Obama, and other Democratic candidates ought to talk about their own constitutional vision. They can eschew terms like originalism, if they don't like its baggage. But they should say something similarly evocative: 'I want judges who are accountable to the Constitution, not the Democratic or Republican platform.' They should be prepared to explain what they mean by constitutional accountability, and they should provide examples of where conservative judges have violated this mandate. They should talk about the Constitution and its history, but resist the impulse to discuss the hardest cases first and avoid getting bogged down in the details of philosophy. They must recognize that there is a big difference between defending a constitutional vision and deciding a case. The progressive failure to grasp that difference is precisely why they've been losing these battles.

Kendall and Ryan are big fans of Yale's Akhil Amar and his "progressive originalism":

Indeed, there's a nascent movement among progressives to embrace the Constitution rather than run from it. The central theorist of this school--what you might call progressive originalism--is Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar. Amar is one of his generation's most influential constitutional historians. His works on the Constitution have won acclaim from across the political spectrum, with one prominent conservative law professor calling Amar's recent opus, America's Constitution: A Biography, the best book written about the Constitution since The Federalist Papers. This conservative acclaim is somewhat surprising, because Amar reveals the Constitution to be a deeply progressive document.

Over the years, conservatives have convinced many liberals--not to mention the public--that the Constitution is a document largely geared towards protecting private property and wealth. Amar demolishes this notion. He explains that our Constitution started out both democratic and inclusive for its time and has remained viable because of constitutional amendments that improved the document.

Amar's most powerful argument is that the post-Civil War amendments fundamentally altered our founding document in ways that have yet to be recognized by the Supreme Court. What may have begun as a document focused on protecting liberty was transformed into a document just as concerned with equality. A federal government that began with powers that were "few and defined" was awarded vast new powers to protect due process and equal protection. Conservatives may not like this, of course, but they should not be able to wish away these changes.

How the legal left can rein in the Roberts Court

Slate Magazine: By Emily Bazelon

Let's say, though, that next term, Roberts is even more successful in wooing Kennedy than he was this term, which seems entirely plausible. What kind of 'unity' would that get us? The answer is in Sunstein's new essay (here's an early version). He argues that 1) today's court has no William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall (Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not that liberal), whereas the 1980 court had no Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas; 2) three of the court's supposed 'liberals'—Breyer, David Souter, and John Paul Stevens—are really moderates, akin to the old Stevens-Lewis Powell-Byron White trio; and 3) the trade-off in the center of Harry Blackmun for Anthony Kennedy is a loser for the left, too. Sunstein still believes in restraint (he calls his version of it 'minimalism'). But while he doesn't think the likes of Brennan and Marshall should run the show, he also now says that 'something has gone badly wrong if the Court has a strong right-wing without any real left.' And it's even worse that the court's moderates are being cast as left-wingers, thus belying the court's overall conservative creep.

A message to the moderate Arabs: With Hamas there's no reconciliation, only confrontation

Haaretz : By Shmuel Rosner

Here is a clarification that was issued this week: The Bush administration has no interest in a dialogue with Hamas. This was one of the main messages in Bush's speech, and it was directed at important listeners in three Arab cities: Ramallah, Cairo and Riyadh. Having been burned by the surprise of the Mecca Agreement, and the formation of the Palestinian unity government, the Americans wished to make it clear this week to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, publicly, that they would not look with understanding upon another reconciliation attempt that would essentially bring Hamas back into the arena. They hope, but are not entirely certain, that the message will be received by the Egyptians and also the Saudis - the perpetual potential facilitators of a 'Palestinian reconciliation.' The United States does not want a reconciliation. It wants a confrontation. It wants a decisive victory....

It is against this backdrop that the covert message to Israel must be understood: You ought to close a deal with Fayad and Abbas. For seven years you've been complaining that there's "no partner" on the Palestinian side. First it was Yasser Arafat and then it was Hamas. Now you've got the dream team over there. You won't get anything better.

Read Hass, then Rosner, then Hass again--nearly a perpetual motion machine, based on more or less the same facts. Both published in Haaretz. The same day. And in the Arab press?

Top Vatican official says controversial Latin prayer for Jews could be dropped - Haaretz - Israel News

Haaretz : By The Associated Press

ROME - The most senior official in the Vatican after the Pope suggested yesterday that a highly controversial prayer for the conversion of the Jews could be dropped from the re-introduced Latin-language rite.

Speaking at a news conference, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was asked about Pope Benedict's recent decree allowing a wider use of the old Latin missal, or prayer book, that was phased out after the reforms of the so-called Second Vatican Council.

Jewish leaders sharply criticized the decree, which revived the possible use of a passage from the old Latin prayer book for Good Friday calling for Jews to be converted. ...

Bertone said the prayer that many Jews have found offensive could be substituted with one introduced into church rituals in the 1970s and which makes no reference to conversion of Jews.

Given the sensitivity of the issue, one wonders why this was not more fully considered and implemented before the Pope's announcement, rather than floated at this point.

I have read reports, not fully confirmed, that the restoration of the Latin rite does not apply to the Easter weekend liturgy. It is peculiar that there is so much speculation and apparent confusion about Vatican policy on the issue following the Pope's announcement.

The Right of Return of the Jewish People

Haaretz : By Bradley Burston

It is only fitting that it was this week - the week of the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, the anniversary of the expulsions of Jews from the Holy Land into exile - that Israel's Education Ministry announced that it had approved a controversial textbook for Israeli Arab third-graders. The book teaches that some Palestinian Arabs were driven from their homes and became refugees in 1948, and that some Arab villages in the new state of Israel were destroyed during and after the war.

There are many among us Jews who think it obscene, masochistic, defeatist, that on this anniversary of a succession of calamities that befell the Jews, the textbook also notes that Arabs use the word Nakba, or catastrophe, to describe the 1948 war.

They should think again.

It is only right and just that the Jews begin to acknowledge the pain and the dismemberment and the loss which Palestinians feel over the war that gave birth to Israel and in the course of which thousands and thousands of Palestinians lost their homes, some because they fled, hoping soon to return, others because they were forced from them.

Just as we should begin to expect that you, the Palestinians, begin to acknowledge the open wounds of the Jews. ...

Those of you who cannot bring yourselves to acknowledge the pain of the Jews, those of you who console yourselves by deciding that today's Jews are not the descendants of ancient Israel, those of you who take comfort in rejecting the notion that Jews have valid claims to this land, should know this:

This is our home. Exactly as it is yours. ...

Belittle this at your peril. Deny this to your detriment. This is what you need to know about the Right of Return, ours as well as yours, and about holy men, ours as well as yours:

There is no knowable justice in this world. Not for you, and not for us. Keep the right of return where it belongs. It is a part of you. But it is not a part of this world.

Our right of return is no more realizable than yours. It is a right to nothing more than memory. Our right of return is the legacy of a Home which no longer exists in a kindom which no longer exists, yours the legacy of a home which no longer exists in a village which no longer exists.

This one God of ours does not offer the Jews and the Palestinians justice. This one God of offers our two peoples life, if we choose to find a way to swallow our right to return to all that was once ours, and act, for once, as adults.

Israeli PM confirms intention to negotiate with Abbas on formation of Palestinian state

Haaretz : By Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed Wednesday that he intends to engage in negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on the formation of a Palestinian state.

Olmert was responding to a Haaretz report, according to which he offered to hold negotiations toward an 'Agreement of Principles' for the establishment of a Palestinian state comprised of the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank. ...

The prime minister added that there are "other quiet understandings" with the PA, in addition to the confidence-building measures Israel has taken. These include the release of prisoners affiliated with Abbas' Fatah movement, amnesty for wanted Fatah men and the transfer of withheld tax funds.

Olmert's proposal to Abbas is based on his view that it is important to first discuss issues that are relatively easy for the two sides to agree upon. The prime minister also believes that such an accord will enjoy the overwhelming support of the Israeli public and the Knesset. ...

"Just so it's clear, [Abbas] carries full responsibility and he is ready to take a risk. There are risks for Israel as well, but we are strong enough to take that risk," he continued. ...

"I want to start a political process with all my might, and to let things move forward. If it is appropriate for other states to help, like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, we will welcome it, but we won't wait for them and sit inactively in order to start the process. We are the ones to lead and the ones to initiate, because we believe that progress on the peace process serves the interests of Israel."

If Olmert's proposal is accepted by the Palestinians, the two sides will begin negotiations on the characteristics of the Palestinian state, its official institutions, its economy, and the customs arrangement it will have with Israel.

After an "Agreement of Principles," the two sides will tackle the more sensitive diplomatic issues, like final borders and the transit arrangements.

There is the rub. Can negotiations focus first on less divisive issues, and then progress (perhaps as Abbas' willingness and ability (and Israel's) to implement are tested, as under the road map), or is there a need to confront and reach resolution on the ultimate issues up front, even if implementation is staged over time? The Israelis, of course, are concerned that any concessions will become a floor for future demands (e.g., as the price for bringing in Hamas and its constituency down the road).

I continue to mourn the failure of Camp David. That was the moment of greatest promise. I think it's gotten harder, not easier, since...at least unless the Saudis and other Arab countries jump in all the way, and are prepared for necessary concessions on resolving the situation of Palestinian refugees through compensation and permanent settlement in Palestinian (and not Israeli) territories and elsewhere (as citizens, if they wish) in the Arab world.

Institutions, order and hypocrisy

Haaretz : By Amira Hass

Even in this region, where diplomatic platitudes don't begin to disguise the preferential treatment afforded Israel (although it is the occupier), the mandate of the new Quartet envoy Tony Blair rings particularly hollow. His role is reported as being 'to help create viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians ... and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people.'

Internal Palestinian negotiations between Hamas and Fatah may yet stop the disintegration of the Palestinians' civil institutions and the complete severance between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, at the last moment. These institutions functioned during the most difficult times under Israeli military attacks, but started to crumble after January last year when the West, Israel and some Fatah elements tried in vain to topple a Hamas government founded on democratic elections.

One can go on about Hamas' brutal takeover of the security apparatus in the Gaza Strip, and one could go back and discuss the chaos deliberately brought on by the leaders of those organs. Indeed, Hamas appears to be determined to prove that a national-Muslim regime in the 'liberated' area is effective. But Hamas is not homogenous, and the boycott and siege policy has merely strengthened its extremists and their anonymous handlers...

[B]oth movements are well aware that ultimately they will have to climb down, and that only negotiations can deliver the ladders they need to do so. Only a return to the logic of internal dialogue can save the institutions that Blair was sent "to help create."

One of my most knowledgeable and assiduous readers has urged me to seek out and post pieces on Palestinian life by Amira Hass. This is the first piece by her I've seen in a while. Haas is an exceptionally tough internal critic of Israeli policy, and I often find it painful to read her reports. I often disagree with her policy prescriptions, as I do here. But those who care for Israel and its future, not to speak of the human suffering of the Palestinian people, cannot blinker their eyes from the harsh realities she typically forces us to confront.

'Sweet revenge,' say new Germans

Haaretz : By Ofer Aderet

Holding her brand-new German passport, Avital Direktor, 29, of Azor, just had to laugh. 'What a crazy world,' she thought to herself. 'Germany's soil is drenched with my family's blood, and in spite of it all, I got German citizenship. I see it as taking revenge on Hitler. Sweet revenge.'

The past year has seen 4,300 Israelis receive German citizenship, according to data released this week by the Central Bureau of Statistics. The figure represents a 50 percent increase over the previous year....

Avital's grandparents are Holocaust survivors from Berlin and Stuttgart. When she asked them whether they objected to her applying for German citizenship, they asked whether she intended to go back to Germany to pick up where they "left off."

It took Avital three years to get her German citizenship. "It's a long and complex process that stems from the rigid Germanic character...

Avital said she is not surprised by the sharp rise in demand for German citizenship among Israelis. "Look at what's going on here. Ours is a land that devours its inhabitants. The obtuseness to the needy, the corruption. People are dying to get out of here."...

According to Avital, most of her friends supported her decision to apply for German citizenship. "They said they wished they could get a German passport, too, and asked me what I was still doing here in Israel."

But not all of Avital's friends jumped for joy. In her youth, she was a member of the right-wing Moledet party. ..."Some of my friends called me a traitor," she confessed.

My thinking about Jews in Germany has changed in recent years, particularly since my visit to Berlin to see the new Holocaust Memorial and the amazing Jewish Museum. I hope Jewish life and culture can be reestablished in Germany. I also believe Israelis, like all humans, should be free to follow their bliss, and to seek personal and professional fulfillment where they can find it.

So why is my heart breaking as I read this article in Haaretz?

Understanding Hospice -- An Underutilized Option for Life's Final Chapter

NEJM:Gail Gazelle, M.D.

It was Mr. G.'s third exacerbation of congestive heart failure in the past 6 months. Eighty-three years old, he had New York Heart Association class IV heart failure, end-stage coronary artery disease, and insulin-dependent diabetes. Although he had never wanted to be put on a ventilator, this time his shortness of breath was so terrifying that he felt he had no choice. After having a good response to diuresis, he was successfully extubated and transferred out of the coronary care unit.

Two days later, a hospitalist suggested to Mr. G. and his wife that given his advanced disease, he should consider going home and receiving hospice care there. Sensing the couple's fear, she reassured them that death was not imminent and that members of the hospice staff would work to ensure the best possible quality of life. Relieved, Mr. G. acknowledged that he would prefer to avoid rehospitalization.

Introduced in the United States as a grassroots movement more than 30 years ago and added as a Medicare entitlement in 1983, hospice care is now considered part of mainstream medicine, as evidenced by growing patient enrollment and Medicare expenditures ...But despite its increased use, many aspects of hospice care are still misunderstood by both physicians and patients. For instance, many would not consider Mr. G. to be a candidate for hospice care. He did not have cancer, and his death was probably months, not days, away. The fact is, however, that slightly less than half of hospice patients have terminal cancer; nearly 40% of hospice admissions are for end-stage cardiac disease, end-stage dementia, debility, pulmonary disease, and stroke.

Patients and clinicians may also not realize that hospice care at home is free. Medicare is the primary payer for hospice care in approximately 80% of cases, with care most often provided in the patient's home. Commercial insurers also provide hospice benefits, but the specifics of coverage vary. Under Medicare, most expenses related to the terminal diagnosis are paid in full, including all medication and equipment and all visits by hospice nurses and home health aides. ... Other hallmark hospice services include intensive emotional and spiritual counseling, 24-hour crisis management, and bereavement support for at least 1 year after the patient's death. ...
With the growing number of baby boomers seeking more control over all aspects of their health care, the use of hospice care will probably continue to increase. It is especially important, therefore, that physicians become more familiar with what hospice care offers and work to overcome barriers in talking frankly with patients about what lies ahead.

I have been a strong supporter of the hospice movement for almost thirty years. Our family's recent experience with hospice care for my dying father reinforces that support. He was, with hospice support, able to stay in his assisted care facility, without the need for a final disruptive and disorienting transfer to a hospital or nursing home. Care was provided with compassion and competence (after some initial challenges in getting all the care providers on the same page about treatment objectives and modalities). Hospice personnel also provided important support through Dad's final illness for my aging mother and for my brother, who bore primary responsibility throughout, and helped with bereavement care in the immediate aftermath.

The article's assertion that "hospice care is now considered part of mainstream medicine" may be somewhat more aspirational than established fact in some locales, but there is increasing recognition that hospice care need not and should not be limited to cancer patients in their final days of life, and provides a highly valuable option for a much broader class of patients approaching "life's final chapter," and for their families. I commend the New England Journal for publishing this piece, and for making it freely available on their web site.