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Today's
Stories
May
13, 2005
Joshua
Frank
The Politics of Tenure at Yale: an
Interview with David Graeber
May
12, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
America is Losing: More Phony Jobs
Hype
Uri
Avnery
Death of a Myth
Greg
Moses
Neo-Con Logic at the Border
Carolyn
Baker
The Politics of Dominionism: the New Religious Right in America
Pat
Williams
Amateurish High Jinks on Roadless Areas
William
S. Lind
Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty
Jack
Random
The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush
Gary
Leupp
Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg
May
11, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed
Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle
Kevin
Zeese
The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like
Every Day
Christopher
Brauchli
Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan
Zalman
Amit
The Collapse of Academic Freedom in
Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University
Robert
Shull
Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops:
Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws
Mike
Whitney
God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
Dr.
Teresa Whitehurst
Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School
Norman
Solomon
Political Bluster and the Filibuster
May
10, 2005
Richard
Drayton
The Imperial Mythology of WW II:
an Ethical Blank Check
Dave
Zirin
Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War
Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP
Jackie
Corr
The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall
Dave
Lindorff
Silence of the Scams: Economists
on China
Michael
Donnelly
From Roadless to Clueless: the Great
Stillborn Eco Victory
Reza
Fiyouzat
Nomadic Abstracts
Scott
Parkin
Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton
Stephen
Babcock
The Burden of Knowing Better
Alan
Farago
Florida, Water and Lobbyists
Michael
Neumann
Naomi's Courage
Website
of the Day
One Nation Under Plagiarism
May
9, 2005
Louis
Proyect
Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond,
Greenwasher
Robert
Fisk
"Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two
Kevin
Zeese
Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman
Joshua
Frank
Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage
Sasha
Kramer
A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons
Andrew
Wimmer
Create and Resist
Jeffrey
Webber
Back to the Streets in Bolivia?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Straight to Bechtel
May
7 / 8, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Who Beat Hitler?
Gary
Leupp
Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism
Saul
Landau
Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups
Joe
DeRaymond
Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega
Daniela
Ponce
Seeing Chile in Nepal
Heather
Williams
Hollywood Does Enron
Gregory
Elich
Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice
Anis
Memon
To Cuba and Back
John
Chuckman
The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism"
Mike
Whitney
Hard Right Rage Against the Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq
War Grinds On
Colin
Kalmbacher
Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont.
Lance
Selfa
Uprising in Mexico City
Fred
Gardner
"Getting High is a Little Like Cuba"
Ben
Tripp
Letters on Wittgenstein
Mickey
Z.
The Mother of All Days
Richard
Joseph
Those Patriotic Magnets
Dr.
Susan Block
Come As You Are: Masturbation 101
Poets'
Basement
Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert
May
6, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and
Blood
Erin
Yoshioka
Another "3 Strikes" Travesty:
Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison?
Sam
Husseini
Talking with Syrians
Dave
Lindorff
Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters
Kevin
Zeese
Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead
Guilty
Joshua
Frank
An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War
Dan
Bacher
Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water
Raid
P.
Sainath
India's Bloody Water Wars
May
5, 2005
Carles
Mutaner
Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist"
or "Populist?"
Carl
G. Estabrook
Is There Any Hope for the Pope?
Farrah
Hassen
The US's Syrian Obsession
Kevin
Zeese
"Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview
with Patrick Resta
Michael
Leonardi
May Day with an American Soldier in Rome
Bennett
Ramberg
The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You
Ray
McGovern
The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit
Norman
Solomon
Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran
Nicole
Colson
The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights
Brian
Concannon, Jr.
Clearing the Fences in Haiti
May
4, 2005
Colin
Kalmbacher
Ann Coulter and the Police State:
Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested
John
Walsh
Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying
on Air America to Support the War
Greg
Moses
Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises
"Birth of a Nation"
Ali
Khan
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart
Chris
Floyd
Ring Them Bells
Linda
S. Heard
D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics
Dave
Zirin
The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle
William
S. Lind
Fool's Paradise
Gary
Leupp
Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking
the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution
Website
of the Day
Kent State, May 4, 1970
May
3, 2005
Dave
Lindorff
Bush has Grasped the Third Rail,
Now Turn on the Juice
Brian
Cloughley
Halliburton's War Loot
Ira
Kurzban
Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers
Seth
Sandronsky
Towards Debtors' Prisons?
Gilad
Atzmon
The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More
Michael
Donnelly
Branding Eco Collapse
Alex
Sanchez
Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush?
Peter
Linebaugh
Magna Carta and May Day
May
2, 2005
Ron
Jacobs
Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement
Stan
Goff
The Case of Hasan Akbar
Karyn
Strickler
Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics
Joshua
Frank
Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly
Kevin
Zeese
Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam
Vicente
Navarro
Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician
April
30 / May 1, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and
"Credibility"
Gabriel
Kolko
Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End
of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later
Jennifer
Loewenstein
The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood
Lee
Sustar
City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago
Saul
Landau
The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power
T.W.
Croft
The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy
Nikolas
Kozloff
Fox News v. Hugo Chavez
William
Blum
Never-Ending Double Standards
Dave
Lindorff
Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly
Joshua
Frank
The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls
Doug
Giebel
Saving Jane Fonda
Steven
Erlanger
A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau
Chief
Fred
Gardner
Washington State Doctor Harassed
Mike
Whitney
Another Mad Bush Press Conference
Kurt
Nimmo
Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine
Joe
DeRaymond
A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania
Michael
Dickinson
Flags
Mickey
Z.
May Day at Yankee Stadium
Justin
Taylor
The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Save Barbados's Cowpastor
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
May 13, 2005
EPA's New Monitoring Plan Still
Inadequate
Ground
Zero's Toxic Dust
By
JENNA ORKIN
EPA's new, supposedly improved sampling
plan to test for residual toxic dust from the environmental disaster
of 9/11 was released Tuesday evening to a response that ranged
from "serious concern" on the part of Senator Hillary
Clinton to dismay among community activists.
"[I]t appears at first glance that the EPA's long-awaited
plan has been designed in a way that is fundamentally inadequate
to determine the true extent of WTC dust contamination,"
said Congressman Jerrold Nadler of the Eighth District which
includes Ground Zero.
"While we are pleased that EPA agreed to test workplaces
as well as residences," said David Newman, industrial hygienist
for the New York Committee for
Occupational Safety and Health and a member of the WTC Expert
Technical Review Panel which has been meeting with EPA for the
last year in an effort to arrive at a scientifically valid plan,
"that is a hollow promise if employers can bar access for
testing."
Newman was referring to an aspect of voluntary testing which
many community activists feel could make it impossible to get
scientifically valid results: If EPA relies only on buildings
whose landlords have volunteered to be tested, those are the
buildings that are most likely to have been adequately cleaned.
In office buildings, employees who are worried about what they
may be getting exposed to at work will be at the mercy of the
decisions of their employers who may be afraid of the liability
issues that could ensue from testing.
Other problems with the plan include its reliance on a WTC 'signature'
which would supposedly insure that contaminated dust that might
be found in people's homes indeed came from the disaster. Community
activists have argued that the contents of the buildings were
diverse and that nature did not obligingly mix them together
into a homogeneous blend. This belief is borne out by experience:
Independent testing performed in the years following 9/11 showed
some apartments to have high levels of antimony; others, high
levels of asbestos or lead, etc.
EPA's initial plan as laid out by James Connaughton of the White
House Council on Environmental Quality (the organization that
changed at least one of EPA's press releases following 9/11,
turning cautionary statements about asbestos into reassurances)
was to use asbestos as a surrogate for all the contaminants that
might remain in people's homes. This suggestion was denounced
by organizations such as 9/11
Environmental Action and the Sierra
Club as well as being severely critiqued by independent experts.
Asbestos was then replaced by two 'signatures', one for the
collapse of the towers, the other for the fires that burned and
smoldered for several months. The fire signature idea was abandoned.
The collapse signature has metamorphosed several times. A few
months ago it was to be slag wool. The current plan adds gypsum
and concrete; the latter a contaminant too heavy to have travelled
far from Ground Zero. The chameleon nature of the WTC signature
underscores the dubiousness of the whole 'signature' notion since
the essence of a signature is its constancy.
Even if EPA were to arrive at a reasonable plan, there are still
problems with the way it would be executed. Residents who took
part in EPA's first cleanup, begun in September 2002, witnessed
equipment that broke down, fans for air tests that were never
turned on or, when they were turned on, were placed facing the
wrong direction. Some community activists, including this writer,
have argued for third party monitoring to prevent a repeat travesty.
Jenna Orkin is one of twelve original plaintiffs in a
potential class action lawsuit against the EPA and is director
of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization. She can
be reached at: Jennakilt@aol.com
|
