TresSugar

Life After 9/11: One Young Arab Gets Thrown in US Jail

LibertySugar — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:00:18 -0700

A recent piece in the New York Magazine chronicles the nightmarish journey of a young Arab immigrant. After September 11, Rasha found herself in jail with her family. Rasha's story sheds light on a darker side of national security.

At five-years-old Rasha moved with her family from Syria to the United States on a tourist visa. When she was in the sixth grade, after years of trying to get permanent residency, and failing, Rasha and her family moved back to Syria. Eventually she would get her Brooklyn life back, after her family was finally granted their green-cards. But the joy didn't last forever.

In February 2002, fifteen US officers awoke Rasha and her family in the middle of the night - Rasha's family was being investigated for terrorist connections. Once in a holding cell, officials questioned each family member in a separate room. To find out what happened next, read more.

After a few days of this treatment, Rasha's father begged the FBI agent to deport the family. Instead, INS detained the family until they completed their investigation. After three months of detention, the family was unexpectedly and quickly released, allowed to live their lives as before, but with new fears. Rasha, having missed school, received Fs on her report card, and having missed mortgage payments, the family had to sell their home. The New York Magazine gives a detailed account of the family's stay in prison and the recovery process after their release.

Lucky for Rasha and her family, their lawyer and other family members advocated for their release. But many others, who were arbitrarily detained, stayed longer or were deported following September 11. Without an understanding of what people like Rasha have gone through, can we accurately assess America's national security policy?

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What's Too Much? Are Safety Kits For Drug Users Worth It?

CitizenSugar — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:00:26 -0700

The back page of New York magazine every week is the Artifact feature, where they archive a tidbit of the city - this week was an annotated picture of the kit given by the city to drug users to ensure the safe usage of their substance of choice. I was more than surprised by its. . . thoroughness? I mean I have hobbies, but no government agency has ever given me a kit that contains not only every thing I need to accomplish said extracurricular - down to a nine-step info card of how to do so, but that's just me.

I honestly don't know where to stand on this conundrum, but I have some questions:

If someone is a habitual drug user, what are the chances that they will actually use all of these items as they're intended? The kit contains 10 different doodads, including capsules of sterilized water for mixing the drugs (see, I had no idea this was necessary) itsy-bitsy cotton balls to trap dirt and debris from getting in the syringe, a bottle of bleach, and an empty bottle to use to clean the needles in. Oh, and the needles come from a whole different location. Will the complexity stop these goods from actually getting put to use?
At what point is the line between encouraging drug use by making it so much safer, easier, and government-sanctioned? If drug users aren't exposed as easily to diseases and live longer as addicts, what kind of future societal health problem could we be creating?

I'm just getting started - we haven't even considered money yet. To see the rest, read more.

Then there's the question of harm reduction. Is it more harmful to not provide clean paraphernalia and have drug users potentially spreading more deadly diseases? If drug addicts have to come in to exchange needles, is it a valuable opportunity to also give out education and condoms, aiding the cause even further?
And then there's the money. Preventing people from contracting HIV does save public health money. According to the Lancet if needle exchange had been implemented in early 1997, by 2000, 11,000 fewer HIV infections would have occurred saving over $600 million. But then there's the reason this kit was featured this week: New York's $300 million budget cuts are impinging on the centers that distribute them. Do you spend money to save money?

Is giving out kits like this the answer? How much support is too much? Where do you stand?

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Wish the Dem Convention Was Scripted Like the West Wing?

CitizenSugar — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:00:57 -0700

Oh, wish no longer! With all the squabbling around the delegates and the big convention in Denver looming, don't you wish you could just cozy up and watch the drama unfold, just like the good ol' days on West Wing? This is almost as good!

It's a full screen play of the the imaginings of the plot. It's good!

The leadership considers going to Hillary and telling her it’s time to drop out. They all know there will be blood if they do that. Someone suggests trying to get Barack to drop out.

Reid: Barack sure is a lot easier to talk to.
Pelosi: Are we really gonna ask him to drop out just because he’s easier to talk to?

They screw up the courage to go to Hillary. They all agree they have to have Gore onboard and they have to enlist at least one of Hillary’s most committed superdelegates to join them.

Noo! Tell us how it ends! No cliffhangers! I wonder if this fiction will parallel reality. . . Do you think President Bartlett is a superdelegate?

Photo courtesy of NBC

Are People Falling Out of Love With Bill?

CitizenSugar — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:00:49 -0700

When Bill Clinton started stepping out for Hillary, some were worried people would be so fond of him, Hillary would get lost in the shuffle. According to this piece in New York magazine, that's not entirely the case. Are people falling out of love with Bill?

The piece grapples with learning to love Bill for his faults, ". . . despite all his sleazoid tendencies, he was, of course, a pretty good president-and he turned out to be an absolutely exceptional ex-president, the best of our lifetimes." And reconciling that relationship now, even positing the notion that the love might be lost because, ". . . Obama is the new, highly improved version of Bill Clinton." To see how far he's sunk, read more.

According to NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling, Bill Clinton’s approval rating since he left office have dipped to 32 percent, the most negatively people have felt about him in five years. But why would a man who presided over the greatest financial boom in our nation’s history face such enmity considering our present course?

It comes down to the sticky matter of truth. According to the piece, "Bill Clinton is our great living exemplar of Sam Goldwyn’s great epigram: If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made."

Do you think Bill is less than sincere? Have you loved and lost with Bill, or never loved at all? Do you think he's hurt Hillary's campaign? Do you wish he could run again?

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Bookmobile: Human Smoke By Nicholson Baker

CitizenSugar — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:00:22 -0700

If you're browsing the bookstore this weekend, take a peek for this new one. It's called Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II: The End of Civilization. OK, I know it sounds heavy, but bear with! The book is set up in series of short anecdotes, newspapers clippings, and diary entries like this one that nabbed my attention pronto:

The Congresswoman Who Spoke Her Mind: Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, voted against declaring war on Germany. It was April 6, 1917 ..."‘I want to stand by my country,’ Rankin said. ‘But I cannot vote for war.’ … ‘I felt,’ she said later, ‘that the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war she should say it.’”

Wow. That event was not captured in my US History class, at all. Now I'm excited to pick up the book. Baker is an acknowledged pacifist, so seeing the stories and artifacts he pulled together about a war that still remains pretty unblemished (by US standards anyway) stands to be wildly engrossing.

Chart It Out: The Politician's TMI Index

CitizenSugar — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:01:40 -0700

Aw, I'd almost forgotten all about the whole Mark Foley thing until New York's Daily Intel put the recent sex scandals into a handy (Heh. I remember now.) chart aimed at answering that one crucial question: at what point is Info, Too Much.

I know, we said we were done blaming politicians who were involved in sex scandals, but really this is more for historical research. This little excerpt doesn't do justice to the whole thing. If you're interested in the prurient parts of politics, go peek for yourself.

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Where I'm Clicking Now: NY Magazine's Electopedia

CitizenSugar — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:00:53 -0700

I love almost anything New York magazine writes, so when they round up all of their election coverage, make it easy to find, and give it funny headings like: "Hairstyle and Its Evolution" and "Best Debate Smackdown," I'm set for hours of reading. They're calling it Electopedia, and I'm proclaiming it fantabagreat. Seriously, "Angriest Public Moment"? Now that's what I call election coverage.

Quiz Nation! Do You Know Your Secret Service Code Names?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:13:56 -0700

If you get their protection, the Secret Service will bestow you with a secret code name so they can talk about your whereabouts privately. The newest New York magazine's Approval Matrix featured Barack Obama's secret name and called it, "The most badass Secret Service code name ever. What's up now, Axis of Evil?" No peeking yet! Let's see if you can figure out which politician goes with which super-cool code name.

Come on, what could be cooler than a guy following you around whispering into his little wrist microphone, "Citizen is moving." Awesome.

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Take the quiz

On the Newsstand: I Love Chelsea Clinton

CitizenSugar — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:00:28 -0800

I feel like I grew up with Chelsea Clinton. We had braces at the same time, both wore those 90s-era flowery dresses, her dad was president, I saw her once at Stanford, you know - we're practically twins. But I didn't really know her until I cracked open this week's New York magazine.

Chelsea, the long quiet, sheltered from the media, first daughter might as well be a unicorn for as much as we've gotten to know about her. Taking center stage for the first time helping her mom's campaign, Chelsea appears to be wowing audiences as a self assured, perfect blend of her mom's detail and her dad's charm.
Hillary:

For nearly an hour, Chelsea fielded questions and spoke in dense, well-organized paragraphs packed with detail, nuance, facts, and figures and punctuated by the occasional “y’know”-a verbal tic of her mom’s-and a soft “yeah?” indicating that she was finished.

and Bill:

Like her father, Chelsea is, in fact, a big flirt (not something her mother is known for). Approached by a tall model-handsome college jock at the University of Utah, she literally batted her eyelashes at him. “Hell-o!” she said in a Mae West tone before posing for a snapshot with him.

Touted in the article as perhaps the best hope at taking over the "Clinton Dynasty," to find out what made me really like her a lot, read more.

When a young man in back demanded to know the Clinton campaign’s “new strategy” in view of the “crippling blow” of Ted and Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama, Chelsea shot him a level gaze. “I don’t think there is a new strategy,” she said. “My mom has been running for the last year, talking about what she thinks our challenges are and what our opportunities are, and why she thinks she’s the most well positioned to deal with our problems in America and to solve things like Social Security or combat global warming or get our economy back on track. There’s no difference today from last week or last month.”

I don't know about you, but I think Chelsea could just be the strongest Clinton on the campaign trail.

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On the Newsstand: The "Evita Factor" in New York Magazine

CitizenSugar — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:00:31 -0800

Hillary Clinton's doing well with Hispanic voters. In the Nevada caucuses she bested Barack 2-to-1 among that demographic, and polls heading into last Tuesday's primary in California showed her with 59 percent approval to Barack's 19 percent. New York magazine has a theory on this phenomenon, which they're calling the "Evita Factor."

Here's why Hispanic voters like Hillary - mostly a spillover of goodwill from Bill. How?

Bill was the first president to have two Hispanic cabinet members serve simultaneously.
He had very tolerant immigration policies
The economic boom that happened under his watch, produced jobs in the barrio.

And this: The Evita Factor. For some voters, the fact that Hillary is the spouse of a former president is a turnoff. But voters from Latin and South American countries are used to it. To find out why, read more. In the piece, a Clinton adviser says, "there's a whole long tradition in Latin America of strong women whose political careers are built on the backs of their husbands, who ran the country first." In other words, Evita - or the modern day example in Argentina - where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became Argentina's first woman president, right after her husband. Sound familiar?

Though US Hispanic voters are 60 percent Mexican-American, and Mexico doesn't share the Evita tradition, the Latino vote is definitely a core to Hillary's strategy. Will Latino voters be the soccer moms and NASCAR dads of this election? Can Hillary win by scoring with Hispanics?

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