If any sense in mortal dust remains
When mine has been refin’d from flower to flower,
Won from the sun all colours, drunk the shower
And delicate winy dews, and gain’d the gains
Which elves who sleep in airy bells, a-swing
Through half a summer day, for love bestow,
Then in some warm old garden let me grow
To such a perfect, lush, ambrosian thing
As this. Upon a southward-facing wall
I bask, and feel my juices dimly fed
And mellowing, while my bloom comes golden grey:
Keep the wasps from me! But before I fall
Pluck me, white fingers, and o’er two ripe-red
Girl lips O let me richly swoon away!
GOP blocks NIST 9/11 safety recommendations
After a vulnerability assessment a company has a list of gaps and issues to fix. Sometimes, a company will complain that it can not afford to close gaps and would rather run the risk of loss, or find a way to transfer the liability. This becomes more complicated if the harm actually impacts someone else. In other words a company’s failure to fix things actually puts others at risk, so their incentive involves a number of external factors.
Representatives of those most affected have to represent themselves through governance to pressure a company, otherwise the company may ignore the damage they cause. PCI, for example, has created a rule that says all medium and high vulnerabilities must be mitigated or a company will lose its license to handle the payment card information of consumers. Before that rule existed, it was unusual for companies to feel any pressure to fix even known and high-risk gaps that could harm its customers.
After the 9/11 attack on the twin towers, no one disputed that a number of control failures were at fault. Many of us have seen changes in airport security mandated by the government as a result, as the government has tried to give the public the impression that it is making changes to improve safety. However, while the airport security has had questionable results, investment in building safety clearly would have saved lives.
An independent report by NIST showed that the towers could have had more stairwells or fireproofing. Those are just two important considerations now in front of the International Code Council (ICC) regarding building safety code regulations.
The Bush Administration has decided to block 9/11 safety upgrades.
Next Thursday the 18th ICC will vote on the safety recommendations. The comprehensive post-9/11 report by NIST was intended to improve safety codes to protect buildings and save lives.
Yet, the Bush administration has dismissed the NIST recommendations and now is failing to fairly represent the security and safety needs of Americans.
On September 8th, the New York Times reported that the General Services Administration — the federal agency that manages property for the government — opposes new safety standards because of cost. The group of building owners refuses to agree to even simple measures such as glow-in-the-dark stairwell markings to help evacuate people safely because of “the bigger question…at what economic cost to society?”
“It is unbelievable to me that our tax dollars are being spent to fight safety improvements,” Glenn Corbett of John Jay College in New York City told the newspaper. “They are trying to subvert necessary change.”
The “society” the GSA is referring to is actually just landlord and development corporations. They are worried that costs to these wealthy groups could impact contributions to Republican candidates.
This is a case where governance is failing to serve the group it is meant to protect. Instead of reducing harm and closing security gaps, the GOP appears to work primarily to protect the income of those who will line their pocketbooks, fund lobbyists and contribute to their election campaigns. And then they have the nerve to shrewdly and ironically call this a matter of “saving money”.
Why do I make this into a GOP issue? You may recall that the GSA has already been in hot water over their partisan relationship with Republican candidates in 2008:
On Monday, The Washington Post reported that an assistant to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove briefed GSA political appointees on polling data during a January teleconference in which Doan also discussed how GSA could help 2008 Republican candidates. The participation of the official, Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, could strengthen previously reported charges that the call violated the Hatch Act, which outlaws federal employees from using their positions for partisan political purposes.
In Kansas we would say that the foxes are now guarding the hen-house. When you look at McCain’s lobbyist connections, it makes me wonder if Americans will elect another another fox into their hen-house this November?
Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!
Tasers Halted in Northern Ireland
A legal team has challenged the attempt to market and sell tasers into Northern Ireland, according to the BBC:
Lawyers for the applicant claim there was a failure to carry out a proper equality impact assessment before tasers were brought in.
They also alleged the introduction breached the right to life and right to freedom from torture under the Human Rights Act.
Henry Blaxland, QC, told the High Court the use of Tasers was a matter of real public concern
This makes sense to me. As I have said before in this blog, tasers need to be considered a seriously damaging and life-threatening device, akin to torture. When more deadly force is impractical, a taser might be an option, but electrocution should not be seen as a safe or simple technology (as Edison proved many years ago when he electrified live animals in public to demonstrate the danger).
The next quote really worries me:
However, David McMillen, representing the chief constable, told the court that the weapons purchased were part of a pilot project and only issued to specially-trained officers who can use them in limited circumstances.
That is what was said in America, and soon after practically every officer in every state was carrying a taser with minimal training. The “success” criteria of the pilot should be highly suspect. “Specially-trained” should be carefully documented. Abuse of these devices is rife, and many deaths could have been prevented had police not abused/misused taser technology under the false pretenses like those put forward by Mr. McMillen.