Listening to militia members
"If you go to a farm auction, time after time you'll see someone crying and putting his arm around the man who's losing his farm," says Joel Dyer, author of Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning, in an interview with The Sun. "Chances are, that will be a local John Bircher or a local militia member. He's there because he's lost his farm, too, and he understands what that farmer is going through. He's saying, 'It's not your fault, man. It's the government's fault. It's the evil Jewish conspiracy's fault. I love you, and you can come with me now and fight this battle. Here's another reason to live.' What a message!
"If someone were there for that farmer with another message -- and that person would have to know and care about what the farmer was going through; it couldn't be just another urban type trying to manipulate the farmer -- then the farmer might go in another direction. ...
"When I first started cruising around talking to suicidal farmers, my friends would say, 'My God, you're not going to Watonga looking like that, are you? They won't even serve you in restaurants there.' In a sense, they were right to be concerned, because I had hair almost down to my butt and wore an earring. And there would be a sudden silence when I walked through the door of the local diner. But then I'd say, 'I'm here to talk to so-and-so about how the banks are screwing him out of his farm,' and instantly they'd say, 'Hey, you want to come to my house for dinner?' and 'If you need a truck while you're here ...' Once we had a common cause, our other differences didn't matter.
"During my book tour, I went on TV shows like Good Morning America and Today. On one show, they introduced me as 'Joel Dyer, who went undercover into the antigovernment movement.' As soon as I came on, I said, 'I never went undercover anywhere. I walked up and knocked on doors and said, "I want to know what you think, and why you're angry," and they told me.' The TV people couldn't believe that somebody in an armed compound had let me in just like that. I said, 'They're angry, and they want to tell someone why, but the only time a reporter ever shows up is to cover a shootout or ask stupid questions about how many guns they have. No one ever shows up to really talk to them, which involves listening.'"

Organic food health research
New research supports the claim that organically grown produce is healthier, according to The Soil Association, a British group that promotes organic farming.
The research, done in Denmark and Germany, has shown that organic crops contain more secondary metabolites than conventionally grown plants. Secondary metabolites are substances which form part of the immune system of plants, and help to fight cancer in humans. Organic crops were also shown to contain a measurably higher quantity of vitamins.
Moreover, organic farming reduces the risk of pesticide poisoning, which afflicts between 3.5 and 5 million people globally each year, according to World Health Organization estimates.
Execution feasts
State expenditures for meals served to guests at executions sometimes exceed the amount allocated for the defense of indigent persons, Leroy White, an Alabama death row inmate, writes in the Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty newsletter (11076 County Road 267, Lanett, AL 36863).
White reports that Michael Mears, director of the Georgia Indigent Defense Council, was able to obtain records from his state.
"For one execution luncheon, the state provided invited guests with an elaborate meal including 225 pounds of chicken, 20 pounds of turkey pastrami, and 10 pounds each of turkey ham and turkey salami at a cost of $821. That is certainly a small sum compared to the millions spent in legal fees to support the prosecution's charge, conviction and sentence. But it is definitely an enormous sum compared to the $212 that state and county governments combined allocated each year per case for defense of poor people accused of criminal offenses, according to a 1997 American Bar Association report. ...
"The true nature of these events is clear from another execution lunch menu Mears published. In addition to the basics of 20 pounds of roast beef, four cases of chicken, 30 pounds of lunch meats and cheeses, and cases of chicken, tuna and macaroni salad, the menu includes 'one pan of cheese straws, two trays of hors d'oeuvres, and three trays of party sandwiches.'
"In an effort not to seem insensitive to the pain of families and friends of murder victims, I will rule out saying it is ludicrous to go feasting at the site of someone being killed. But I do want to point out how states are persuading guests to overlook the bad that is really being done, by providing them with such elaborate meals. The focus is taken away from the actual killing and any possible forethought of whether it is wrong or right, or even necessary, to kill the prisoner."

Drug war targets women
The war on drugs has had a "very disproportionate impact" on women, according to Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project and co-author of a new report, "Gender and Justice: Women, Drugs and the Sentencing Policy."
According to the study, the number of women in state and federal prisons rose 573 percent in 17 years, largely due to drug convictions.
"They don't commit other, more violent offenses as often as men do, so, as you escalate the number of drug offenses and make the sentences harsher, more women are affected," Mauer said. "We need to direct more resources to treatment approaches as well as reconsider the mandatory sentencing policies that have aggravated the number of women going to prison."

Oil, cola and genocide
Although two million people have died and more than four million been displaced in a genocidal war waged by the government of Sudan against its own people in the south, the crisis has received far less international attention than it warrants, according to an America magazine interview with Roman Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis of south central Sudan. Gassis cites religious, racial and economic factors as reasons.
"The Christian world is afraid that if they say there is a persecution of Christians by the Muslims, it might create an outcry in the Islamic world. But we are not here to criticize Islam itself. We are speaking about a group of Islamic fundamentalists who are using religion as a lever to persecute the non-Muslim, non-Arab peoples of Sudan.
"Second, there is an interest in the oil discovered by Chevron in the area, and therefore they do not want to speak about the situation in Sudan. ... So they are not concerned about our fate or the ethnic elimination of the Africans or about the persecution of the Christians and Africans of traditional beliefs. ... The interest is in the resources of Sudan: the oil and the gum arabic which is mainly used in Coca Cola. ... So I'm making an appeal to my brothers and sisters in the U.S. ... to realize that there is a church that is facing total annihilation, if we do not come to the rescue of this church."

Norway calls U.S. prisons inhumane
Norway refused to extradite Harry Hendrickson, a man charged in a drug conspiracy in Vermont, after the Norwegian Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, questioned whether U.S. prisons meet the humanitarian standards required for extradition (FAMM-gram, 10-12/99). Hendrickson, currently in a Norwegian refugee center, will not face trial and will be granted asylum based on human rights considerations.

Ban lifted on Muslim student's prayer
A Muslim college student in Michigan who was forbidden to begin her class presentation with a reference to God was later told she was within her rights to do so and allowed to make up assignments to get credit for the course, according to The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group.
Before the student at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Mich., could give her presentation, the instructor handed her a letter stating that she could not begin it with the traditional Islamic phrase, "in the name of God, most Merciful, most Gracious," as she had done on a previous occasion.
The instructor's letter stated that the phrase was "inappropriate and unacceptable in an American classroom" and that the student must adapt to the "cultural expectations of the U.S."
CAIR argued that the ACLU interprets separation of church and state as applying to government and not individual activity. According to an ACLU handbook, "students are thus free to read their Bibles, recite the rosary, or pray before meals or math tests. Public school officials are prohibited by the Constitution from interfering with these activities."
Washtenaw President Larry Whitworth apologized to the student, stating that "it appears that the instructor misunderstood the meaning of the separation of church and state." l