April 9, 2006


  • Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping Point

    The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it
    By JEFFREY KLUGER


    Sunday, Mar. 26, 2006

    No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.


    It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 4 storm with wind bursts that reached 125 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.


    The image of Earth as organism--famously dubbed Gaia by environmentalist James Lovelock-- has probably been overworked, but that's not to say the planet can't behave like a living thing, and these days, it's a living thing fighting a fever. From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us. Scientists have been calling this shot for decades. This is precisely what they have been warning would happen if we continued pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that flows in from the sun and raising global temperatures.


    Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. If there was any consolation, it was that the glacial pace of nature would give us decades or even centuries to sort out the problem.


    But glaciers, it turns out, can move with surprising speed, and so can nature. What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam. Melt enough Greenland ice, and you reach the point at which you're not simply dripping meltwater into the sea but dumping whole glaciers. By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft. Nature, it seems, has finally got a bellyful of us.


    "Things are happening a lot faster than anyone predicted," says Bill Chameides, chief scientist for the advocacy group Environmental Defense and a former professor of atmospheric chemistry. "The last 12 months have been alarming." Adds Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts: "The ripple through the scientific community is palpable."


    And it's not just scientists who are taking notice. Even as nature crosses its tipping points, the public seems to have reached its own. For years, popular skepticism about climatological science stood in the way of addressing the problem, but the naysayers--many of whom were on the payroll of energy companies--have become an increasingly marginalized breed. In a new TIME/ ABC News/ Stanford University poll, 85% of respondents agree that global warming probably is happening. Moreover, most respondents say they want some action taken. Of those polled, 87% believe the government should either encourage or require lowering of power-plant emissions, and 85% think something should be done to get cars to use less gasoline. Even Evangelical Christians, once one of the most reliable columns in the conservative base, are demanding action, most notably in February, when 86 Christian leaders formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, demanding that Congress regulate greenhouse gases.


    A collection of new global-warming books is hitting the shelves in response to that awakening interest, followed closely by TV and theatrical documentaries. The most notable of them is An Inconvenient Truth, due out in May, a profile of former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-change work, which is generating a lot of prerelease buzz over an unlikely topic and an equally unlikely star. For all its lack of Hollywood flash, the film compensates by conveying both the hard science of global warming and Gore's particular passion.


    Such public stirrings are at last getting the attention of politicians and business leaders, who may not always respond to science but have a keen nose for where votes and profits lie. State and local lawmakers have started taking action to curb emissions, and major corporations are doing the same. Wal-Mart has begun installing wind turbines on its stores to generate electricity and is talking about putting solar reflectors over its parking lots. HSBC, the world's second largest bank, has pledged to neutralize its carbon output by investing in wind farms and other green projects. Even President Bush, hardly a favorite of greens, now acknowledges climate change and boasts of the steps he is taking to fight it. Most of those steps, however, involve research and voluntary emissions controls, not exactly the laws with teeth scientists are calling for.


    Is it too late to reverse the changes global warming has wrought? That's still not clear. Reducing our emissions output year to year is hard enough. Getting it low enough so that the atmosphere can heal is a multigenerational commitment. "Ecosystems are usually able to maintain themselves," says Terry Chapin, a biologist and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "But eventually they get pushed to the limit of tolerance."


    CO2 AND THE POLES


    As a tiny component of our atmosphere, carbon dioxide helped warm Earth to comfort levels we are all used to. But too much of it does an awful lot of damage. The gas represents just a few hundred parts per million (p.p.m.) in the overall air blanket, but they're powerful parts because they allow sunlight to stream in but prevent much of the heat from radiating back out. During the last ice age, the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was just 180 p.p.m., putting Earth into a deep freeze. After the glaciers retreated but before the dawn of the modern era, the total had risen to a comfortable 280 p.p.m. In just the past century and a half, we have pushed the level to 381 p.p.m., and we're feeling the effects. Of the 20 hottest years on record, 19 occurred in the 1980s or later. According to NASA scientists, 2005 was one of the hottest years in more than a century.


    It's at the North and South poles that those steambath conditions are felt particularly acutely, with glaciers and ice caps crumbling to slush. Once the thaw begins, a number of mechanisms kick in to keep it going. Greenland is a vivid example. Late last year, glaciologist Eric Rignot of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas, analyzed data from Canadian and European satellites and found that Greenland ice is not just melting but doing so more than twice as fast, with 53 cu. mi. draining away into the sea last year alone, compared with 22 cu. mi. in 1996. A cubic mile of water is about five times the amount Los Angeles uses in a year.


    Dumping that much water into the ocean is a very dangerous thing. Icebergs don't raise sea levels when they melt because they're floating, which means they have displaced all the water they're ever going to. But ice on land, like Greenland's, is a different matter. Pour that into oceans that are already rising (because warm water expands), and you deluge shorelines. By some estimates, the entire Greenland ice sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft., swallowing up large parts of coastal Florida and most of Bangladesh. The Antarctic holds enough ice to raise sea levels more than 215 ft.


    FEEDBACK LOOPS


    One of the reasons the loss of the planet's ice cover is accelerating is that as the poles' bright white surface shrinks, it changes the relationship of Earth and the sun. Polar ice is so reflective that 90% of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space, taking much of its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90% of the energy it receives. The more energy it retains, the warmer it gets, with the result that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it.


    That is what scientists call a feedback loop, and it's a nasty one, since once you uncap the Arctic Ocean, you unleash another beast: the comparatively warm layer of water about 600 ft. deep that circulates in and out of the Atlantic. "Remove the ice," says Woods Hole's Curry, "and the water starts talking to the atmosphere, releasing its heat. This is not a good thing."


    A similar feedback loop is melting permafrost, usually defined as land that has been continuously frozen for two years or more. There's a lot of earthly real estate that qualifies, and much of it has been frozen much longer than two years--since the end of the last ice age, or at least 8,000 years ago. Sealed inside that cryonic time capsule are layers of partially decayed organic matter, rich in carbon. In high-altitude regions of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, the soil is warming and decomposing, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO2. That, in turn, could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw, says research scientist David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. And how much carbon is socked away in Arctic soils? Lawrence puts the figure at 200 gigatons to 800 gigatons. The total human carbon output is only 7 gigatons a year.


    One result of all that is warmer oceans, and a result of warmer oceans can be, paradoxically, colder continents within a hotter globe. Ocean currents running between warm and cold regions serve as natural thermoregulators, distributing heat from the equator toward the poles. The Gulf Stream, carrying warmth up from the tropics, is what keeps Europe's climate relatively mild. Whenever Europe is cut off from the Gulf Stream, temperatures plummet. At the end of the last ice age, the warm current was temporarily blocked, and temperatures in Europe fell as much as 10°F, locking the continent in glaciers.


    What usually keeps the Gulf Stream running is that warm water is lighter than cold water, so it floats on the surface. As it reaches Europe and releases its heat, the current grows denser and sinks, flowing back to the south and crossing under the northbound Gulf Stream until it reaches the tropics and starts to warm again. The cycle works splendidly, provided the water remains salty enough. But if it becomes diluted by freshwater, the salt concentration drops, and the water gets lighter, idling on top and stalling the current. Last December, researchers associated with Britain's National Oceanography Center reported that one component of the system that drives the Gulf Stream has slowed about 30% since 1957. It's the increased release of Arctic and Greenland meltwater that appears to be causing the problem, introducing a gush of freshwater that's overwhelming the natural cycle. In a global-warming world, it's unlikely that any amount of cooling that resulted from this would be sufficient to support glaciers, but it could make things awfully uncomfortable.


    "The big worry is that the whole climate of Europe will change," says Adrian Luckman, senior lecturer in geography at the University of Wales, Swansea. "We in the U.K. are on the same latitude as Alaska. The reason we can live here is the Gulf Stream."


    DROUGHT


    As fast as global warming is transforming the oceans and the ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. People, animals and plants living in dry, mountainous regions like the western U.S. make it through summer thanks to snowpack that collects on peaks all winter and slowly melts off in warm months. Lately the early arrival of spring and the unusually blistering summers have caused the snowpack to melt too early, so that by the time it's needed, it's largely gone. Climatologist Philip Mote of the University of Washington has compared decades of snowpack levels in Washington, Oregon and California and found that they are a fraction of what they were in the 1940s, and some snowpacks have vanished entirely.


    Global warming is tipping other regions of the world into drought in different ways. Higher temperatures bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to cross the line into full-blown crisis. Meanwhile, El Niño events--the warm pooling of Pacific waters that periodically drives worldwide climate patterns and has been occurring more frequently in global-warming years--further inhibit precipitation in dry areas of Africa and East Asia. According to a recent study by NCAR, the percentage of Earth's surface suffering drought has more than doubled since the 1970s.


    FLORA AND FAUNA


    Hot, dry land can be murder on flora and fauna, and both are taking a bad hit. Wildfires in such regions as Indonesia, the western U.S. and even inland Alaska have been increasing as timberlands and forest floors grow more parched. The blazes create a feedback loop of their own, pouring more carbon into the atmosphere and reducing the number of trees, which inhale CO2 and release oxygen.


    Those forests that don't succumb to fire die in other, slower ways. Connie Millar, a paleoecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, studies the history of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada. Over the past 100 years, she has found, the forests have shifted their tree lines as much as 100 ft. upslope, trying to escape the heat and drought of the lowlands. Such slow-motion evacuation may seem like a sensible strategy, but when you're on a mountain, you can go only so far before you run out of room. "Sometimes we say the trees are going to heaven because they're walking off the mountaintops," Millar says.


    Across North America, warming-related changes are mowing down other flora too. Manzanita bushes in the West are dying back; some prickly pear cacti have lost their signature green and are instead a sickly pink; pine beetles in western Canada and the U.S. are chewing their way through tens of millions of acres of forest, thanks to warmer winters. The beetles may even breach the once insurmountable Rocky Mountain divide, opening up a path into the rich timbering lands of the American Southeast.


    With habitats crashing, animals that live there are succumbing too. Environmental groups can tick off scores of species that have been determined to be at risk as a result of global warming. Last year, researchers in Costa Rica announced that two-thirds of 110 species of colorful harlequin frogs have vanished in the past 30 years, with the severity of each season's die-off following in lockstep with the severity of that year's warming.


    In Alaska, salmon populations are at risk as melting permafrost pours mud into rivers, burying the gravel the fish need for spawning. Small animals such as bushy-tailed wood rats, alpine chipmunks and piñon mice are being chased upslope by rising temperatures, following the path of the fleeing trees. And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears--prodigious swimmers but not inexhaustible ones--are starting to turn up drowned. "There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out."


    WHAT ABOUT US?


    It is fitting, perhaps, that as the species causing all the problems, we're suffering the destruction of our habitat too, and we have experienced that loss in terrible ways. Ocean waters have warmed by a full degree Fahrenheit since 1970, and warmer water is like rocket fuel for typhoons and hurricanes. Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%. Since atmospheric heat is not choosy about the water it warms, tropical storms could start turning up in some decidedly nontropical places. "There's a school of thought that sea surface temperatures are warming up toward Canada," says Greg Holland, senior scientist for NCAR in Boulder. "If so, you're likely to get tropical cyclones there, but we honestly don't know."


    WHAT WE CAN DO


    So much for environmental collapse happening in so many places at once has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions--an imperfect accord, to be sure, but an accord all the same. The U.S., however, which is home to less than 5% of Earth's population but produces 25% of CO2 emissions, remains intransigent. Many environmentalists declared the Bush Administration hopeless from the start, and while that may have been premature, it's undeniable that the White House's environmental record--from the abandonment of Kyoto to the President's broken campaign pledge to control carbon output to the relaxation of emission standards--has been dismal. George W. Bush's recent rhetorical nods to America's oil addiction and his praise of such alternative fuel sources as switchgrass have yet to be followed by real initiatives.


    The anger surrounding all that exploded recently when NASA researcher Jim Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a longtime leader in climate-change research, complained that he had been harassed by White House appointees as he tried to sound the global-warming alarm. "The way democracy is supposed to work, the presumption is that the public is well informed," he told TIME. "They're trying to deny the science." Up against such resistance, many environmental groups have resolved simply to wait out this Administration and hope for something better in 2009.


    The Republican-dominated Congress has not been much more encouraging. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have twice been unable to get through the Senate even mild measures to limit carbon. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, both of New Mexico and both ranking members of the chamber's Energy Committee, have made global warming a high-profile matter. A white paper issued in February will be the subject of an investigatory Senate conference next week. A House delegation recently traveled to Antarctica, Australia and New Zealand to visit researchers studying climate change. "Of the 10 of us, only three were believers," says Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York. "Every one of the others said this opened their eyes."


    Boehlert himself has long fought the environmental fight, but if the best that can be said for most lawmakers is that they are finally recognizing the global-warming problem, there's reason to wonder whether they will have the courage to reverse it. Increasingly, state and local governments are filling the void. The mayors of more than 200 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, pledging, among other things, that they will meet the Kyoto goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in their cities to 1990 levels by 2012. Nine eastern states have established the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for the purpose of developing a cap-and-trade program that would set ceilings on industrial emissions and allow companies that overperform to sell pollution credits to those that underperform-- the same smart, incentive-based strategy that got sulfur dioxide under control and reduced acid rain. And California passed the nation's toughest automobile- emissions law last summer.


    "There are a whole series of things that demonstrate that people want to act and want their government to act," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. Krupp and others believe that we should probably accept that it's too late to prevent CO2 concentrations from climbing to 450 p.p.m. (or 70 p.p.m. higher than where they are now). From there, however, we should be able to stabilize them and start to dial them back down.


    That goal should be attainable. Curbing global warming may be an order of magnitude harder than, say, eradicating smallpox or putting a man on the moon. But is it moral not to try? We did not so much march toward the environmental precipice as drunkenly reel there, snapping at the scientific scolds who told us we had a problem.


    The scolds, however, knew what they were talking about. In a solar system crowded with sister worlds that either emerged stillborn like Mercury and Venus or died in infancy like Mars, we're finally coming to appreciate the knife-blade margins within which life can thrive. For more than a century we've been monkeying with those margins. It's long past time we set them right.


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April 8, 2006

  • Sylvia Plath

    Mirror
     
    I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
    Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
    Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
    I am not cruel, only truthful –
    The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
    Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
    It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
    I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
    Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
     
    Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
    Searching my reaches for what she really is.
    Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
    I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
    She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
    I am important to her. She comes and goes.
    Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
    In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
    Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.


    1961


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  • Posted on Sat, Apr. 08, 2006



    Rain ruins farm yields

    PROFITS DOWN, PRICES TO RISE
    By Lisa M. Krieger
    Mercury News

    Seventeen million of Frank Muller's tomato plants wait in greenhouses in Oxnard. Millions, perhaps billions more are jammed into other nurseries around the state.


    With each rainy day, profits fall. Fields are too wet for planting. Plants aren't bearing fruit. Canneries want tomatoes, field hands want work and nurseries want the plants gone.


    But there's not much Muller can do except wait, worry -- and watch for sun.


    ``There hasn't been a single sustained break in the weather,'' said Muller, a tomato grower from Woodland. ``I can pretty much count on one hand the number of hours of sunshine we've had.''


    It's the same throughout the state, according to the California Farm Bureau: Soggy strawberries. Moldy lettuce. Tractors mired in mud.


    Rain delayed planting of Central Valley's rice and cotton. It has slowed the development of grapes and stone fruit in the Napa and Sonoma valleys. In the Sierra foothills, cattle ranchers worry about hoof rot.


    This spring's unusually cool and wet weather is lowering yields and income, even as farmers' expenses climb. That could translate directly into shortages and higher prices for consumers into midsummer.


    ``Every week that goes by, the growing season gets shortened exponentially,'' said Jack Olsen, executive administrator with the San Mateo Farm Bureau. At this rate, California-grown tomatoes won't be on grocery shelves until after July 4.


    Monday, Olsen and local farmers will meet with federal officials and California Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura to learn what aid might be available to the region's farmers.


    The problem is not so much the total rainfall this season, although it's well above average. In just the first week of April, for instance, Watsonville got more than double its expected average for the entire month.


    Rather, it's the combination of rain, low temperatures and overcast skies that is wreaking havoc with the growing season. And farmers are afraid the problem will continue after the rainy season ends, as melting snow fills rivers and canals and floods low-lying areas of the Central Valley.


    In Gilroy, Kip Brundage's hay fields are lush and green, rich with the promise of young grass standing like strands of jade.


    But he's already missed the first cutting of alfalfa hay, worth about $200,000. The oat grass is beginning to collapse under the weight of its grain. ``They're drowning,'' he said.


    His equipment -- some weighing as much as 25 tons -- can't work in the mud. And once the hay is cut, it needs to dry in a week of sunshine before baling.


    The ripple effects can be felt in other segments of the agricultural economy, as farm laborers sit idle and crop-dusting planes stay grounded.


    ``My 60-plus employees aren't working right now,'' said Muller. ``They understand. But they want to work.''


    Early varieties of tree fruit such as apricots, peaches, plums and nectarines will probably produce a light crop this year.


    In the Pajaro Valley, hail damaged the strawberry flowers, resulting in deformed fruit. The fruit that survived is being discarded in the fields. It is too waterlogged to survive shipping.


    ``The strawberries that are ripe now -- we're just throwing them away,'' said grower Ed Ortega of Watsonville.


    In Pescadero, which has received 40 inches of rain this season -- almost double the average -- Bianchi Flowers grower B.J. Burns can't get his equipment into the fields to cut the white, feathery foliage of fresh yarrow. He fears many plants will rot.


    Crops that are yet to be planted, such as pumpkins, will be significantly delayed, he said.


    ``The ground is so muddy you can't turn it over,'' said Burns. ``You can't chop the weeds and turn them under. You can't do anything; you're just wasting your time. It gets you down.''


    In the Livermore hills, ``calves aren't as big as in years past,'' said Darrel Sweet, who raises 120 beef cattle. ``It's been a long, long time since it's been this wet and cool in April.''


    Friday, ranchers along the San Joaquin River sought higher ground to move livestock away from rising waters.


    In the Fresno area, raisin and wine grapes are all vulnerable, according to the California Farm Bureau. Grapes are at a critical stage in April -- and if they become heavily diseased with fungus, they can lose their bloom and the future crop.


    Asparagus is plentiful in the Stockton area, but harvesting has slowed. Tractors pulling sleds with asparagus spears are getting stuck in the mud and have to be pulled out, said Bill Salmon of King's Crown Packing Co. Workers in mud-caked boots move more slowly through fields, limiting the amounts they can pick.


    But spring is the season of hope. Farmers say that if they can endure this year, maybe next year will be better.


    ``It's Mother Nature,'' said tomato grower Dean Janssen of Ace Tomato Growers and Packers in Manteca.


    ``You can't change her. She just does what she wants to do.''


     


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  • Let America be America Again


    LANGSTON HUGHES 1938


    Originally published in Esquire and in the International Worker Order pamphlet A New Song (1938)


     


    Let America be America Again LANGSTON HUGHES 1938


    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!


     


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April 7, 2006

April 5, 2006

  • Religion is the opiate of the masses.


    -- Karl Marx


     


    Religion was invented in order to prevent the poor from slaughtering the rich.


    -- Napoleon Bonaparte


     


    What is Scientology, anyway?  No, I mean, really . . .


    Scientology



    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



     

    Scientology is a new religious movement based on a system of beliefs, teachings, practices, and rituals that originated as philosophy in 1952 by author L. Ron Hubbard, and characterized by the Church of Scientology in 1953 as an "applied religious philosophy". Hubbard defined Scientology as "knowing how to know" [2], although he first introduced it with the words, "Scientology would be a study of knowledge."[1]


    The Church of Scientology has attracted much controversy and criticism. Scientology's principles have been characterized as pseudoscientific by scientists and by medical and psychotherapeutic practitioners. Critics — including government bodies of several countries — have characterized the Church as an unscrupulous commercial organization, citing harassment of critics and exploitation of its members. Because of these factors, the Church has frequently been called a cult.


    The term Scientology is a trademark of the Religious Technology Center, which licenses its use and use of the copyrighted works of Hubbard to the Church of Scientology. The Church presents itself as a religious non-profit organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of the human spirit and providing counseling and rehabilitation programs. Church spokespeople claim that Hubbard's teachings (called "technology" or "tech" in Scientology terminology) have saved them from addictions, arthritis, depression, learning disabilities, mental illness and other problems.







    Contents

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    [edit]


    Beliefs and practices



    Main article: Scientology beliefs and practices


    L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1970.
    L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1970.

    Scientology's doctrines were established by Hubbard over a period of about 34 years, beginning in 1952 and continuing until his death in January 1986. Most of the basic principles of the Church were set out during the 1950s and 1960s. Scientology followed on the heels of Dianetics, an earlier system of self-improvement techniques laid out by Hubbard in his 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. By the mid-1950s, Hubbard had relegated Dianetics to a subfield of Scientology. A chief difference between Dianetics and Scientology is that Dianetics focuses on rehabilitating an individual's mind, giving him/her full conscious recall of his experiences while Scientology is more concerned with rehabilitating the human spirit. [3] Scientology also covers topics such as ethics and morality (The Way to Happiness), drug and chemical residues as they relate to spiritual wellbeing (the Purification Rundown), communication, marriage, raising children, dealing with work-related problems, educational matters (study technology), and the very nature of life (The Dynamics).


    Scientology practices are structured in a certain form of series or levels, because Hubbard believed that rehabilitation takes place on a step-by-step basis. For example, the bad effects of drugs should be addressed before other issues can be addressed. The steps lead to the more advanced strata of Scientology's more esoteric knowledge. This is described as a passage along "the Bridge to Total Freedom", or simply "the Bridge," in which each step of the Bridge promises a little more personal freedom in the area specified by the Bridge's definition.


    Some central beliefs of Scientology:



    • A person is an immortal spiritual being (termed a thetan) who possesses a mind and a body.
    • The thetan has lived through many past lives and will continue to live beyond the death of the body.
    • A person is basically good, but becomes "aberrated" by moments of pain and unconsciousness in his life.
    • What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. No beliefs should be forced as "true" on anyone. Thus, the tenets of Scientology are expected to be tested and seen to either be true or not by Scientology practitioners.

    Scientology claims to offer an exact methodology to help a person achieve awareness of his or her spiritual existence and better effectiveness in the physical world. Exact methods of spiritual counseling are taught and practiced which are designed to enable this change. According to the Church, the ultimate goal is to get the soul (thetan) back to its native state of total freedom, thus gaining control over matter, energy, space, time, thoughts, form, and life. This freed state is called Operating Thetan, or OT for short.


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    Auditing



    A Scientology recruiter introduces an E-meter to a potential convert. Such introductory audits are typically presented as "free stress tests".

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    A Scientology recruiter introduces an E-meter to a potential convert. Such introductory audits are typically presented as "free stress tests".


    Main article: Auditing (Scientology)

    The central practice of Scientology is "auditing" (from the Latin word audire,"to listen"), which is one-on-one communication with a trained Scientology counselor or "auditor". The auditor follows an exact procedure toward rehabilitating the human spirit. Most auditing uses an E-meter, a device that measures galvanic skin response.


    The auditing process is intended to help the practitioner (referred to as a preclear or PC) to unburden himself of specific traumatic incidents, prior ethical transgressions and bad decisions, which are said to collectively restrict the preclear from achieving his goals and lead to the development of a "reactive mind". The auditor asks the preclear to respond to a list of questions which are designed for specific purposes and given to the preclear in a strictly regulated way. Auditing requires that the preclear be a willing and interested participant who understands the questions, and the process goes more smoothly when he or she understands what is going on. Per Church policy, auditors are trained not to "evaluate for" their preclears; i.e., they are forbidden from suggesting, interpreting, degrading or invalidating the preclear's answers. The E-meter is used to help locate an area of concern.


    Scientologists have claimed benefits from auditing including improved IQ, improved ability to communicate, enhanced memory, alleviated dyslexia and attention deficit problems, and improved relaxation; however, no scientific studies have verified these claims. Indeed, an Australian report stated that auditing involved a kind of command hypnosis that could lead to potentially damaging delusional dissociative states. Licensed psychotherapists have alleged that the Church's auditing sessions amount to mental health treatment without a license, but the Church vehemently disputes these allegations, and claims to have established in courts of law that its practice leads to spiritual relief. So, according to the Church, the psychotherapist treats mental health and the Church treats the spiritual being. A 1971 ruling of the United States District Court, District of Columbia (333 F. Supp. 357), specifically stated, "the E-meter has no proven usefulness in the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of any disease, nor is it medically or scientifically capable of improving any bodily function." [4] As a result of this ruling, Scientology now publishes disclaimers in its books and publications declaring that the E-meter "does nothing," [citation needed] and that it is used specifically for spiritual purposes.


    During the auditing process, the auditor may collect personal information from the person being audited in a manner similar to a psychotherapy session or confessional. The Church maintains that its auditing records are kept confidential, after the manner of confession in Catholic churches. Auditing records are referred to within Scientology as "confessional formulary" and stored under lock and key when not being added to during auditing sessions. In some instances, former members have claimed the Church used information obtained in auditing sessions against them. While such a claim would be actionable as extortion, blackmail or harassment within most legal jurisdictions, no such claim has to date been legally confirmed against Scientology based upon use or revelation of auditing records.


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    The ARC Triangle


    Another basic tenet of Scientology are the three interrelated (and intrinsically spiritual) components that make up successful "livingness": affinity (emotional responses), reality (an agreement on what is real) and communication (the exchange of ideas). Hubbard called this the "ARC Triangle". Scientologists utilize ARC as a central organizing principle in their own lives, primarily based upon the belief that improving one aspect of the triangle increases the level of the other two.


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    The tone scale


    The tone scale is a characterization of human mood and behavior by various positions on a scale. The scale ranges from -40 or "Total Failure" to +40 or "Serenity of Beingness." Positions on the tone scale are usually designated by an emotion, but Hubbard also described many other things that can be indicated by the tone scale levels, such as aspects of an individual's health, sexual behavior, survival potential, or ability to deal with truth. The tone scale is used by Scientologists in everyday life to evaluate people. According to Scientology, the lower the person is on the tone scale, the more complex and convoluted his or her day-to-day problems tend to be, and the more care and judgment should be exercised regarding communication and interchange with the individual.


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    Past lives


    In Dianetics, Hubbard proposed that the cause of "aberrations" in the human mind was an accumulation of pain and unconscious memories of traumatic incidents, some of which predated the life of the individual. He extended this view further in Scientology, declaring that thetans have existed for tens of trillions of years. During that time, Hubbard explains, they have been exposed to a vast number of traumatic incidents, and have made a great many decisions that influence their present state. According to an early lecture of Hubbard's, it is, as a practical matter, both impossible and undesirable to recall each and every such event from such vast stretches of time. As a result, Hubbard's 30-year development of Scientology focused on streamlining the process to address only key factors. Hubbard stated that Scientology materials as described in books, tapes, and research notes include a record of everything that was found in the course of his research. Not all things found have been experienced by all beings (for example, not everyone was Roman or Chinese).


    According to Hubbard, some of the past traumas may have been deliberately inflicted in the form of "implants" used by extraterrestrial dictatorships to brainwash and control people. Scientology doctrine includes a wide variety of beliefs in extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in Earthly events, collectively described by Hubbard as "space opera".


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    Operating Thetan levels and the Xenu incident



    Xenu, as depicted by BBC Panorama

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    Xenu, as depicted by BBC Panorama

    The "Hidden Truth" about the nature of the universe is taught to only the most advanced Scientologists, those who have achieved the level "clear", in a series of courses known as the Advanced Levels. The contents of these courses are held in strict confidence within Scientology. They have never been published by the church, except for use in highly secure areas. The most advanced of all are the eight Operating Thetan levels, which require the initiate to be thoroughly prepared. The highest level, OT VIII, is only disclosed at sea, on the Scientology cruise ship Freewinds. Because Scientology is a mystery religion, the more closely guarded and esoteric teachings imparted at these higher levels may not always be entirely consistent with its entry-level teachings.


    In the confidential OT levels, Hubbard describes a variety of traumas commonly experienced in past lives. He also explains how to reverse the effects of such traumas. Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III has been widely remarked upon in the press: the story of Xenu, the galactic tyrant who first kidnapped certain individuals who were deemed "excess population" and loaded these individuals into space planes for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). These space planes were said to have been copies of Douglas DC-8s, except with rocket engines. He then stacked hundreds of billions of these frozen victims around Earth's volcanoes 75 million years ago before blowing them up with hydrogen bombs and brainwashing them with a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for 36 days, telling them lies of what they are and what the universe should be like and telling them that they are 3 different things: 'Jesus, God, and The Devil.' The traumatized thetans subsequently clustered around human bodies because they watched the motion picture together, making them think they are all the same thing, in effect acting as invisible spiritual parasites known as "body thetans" that can only be removed using advanced Scientology techniques. Xenu is allegedly imprisoned in a mountain by a force field powered by an eternal battery. He is said to be still alive today.


    Scientologists argue that published accounts of the Xenu story and other colorful teachings are presented out of context for the purpose of ridiculing their religion. Journalists and critics of Scientology counter that Xenu is part of a much wider Scientology belief in past lives on other planets, some of which has been public knowledge for decades. For instance, Hubbard's 1958 book Have You Lived Before This Life documents past lives described by individual Scientologists during auditing sessions. These included memories of being "deceived into a love affair with a robot decked out as a beautiful red-haired girl", being run over by a Martian bishop driving a steamroller, being transformed into an intergalactic walrus that perished after falling out of a flying saucer, and being "a very happy being who strayed to the planet Nostra 23,064,000,000 years ago".


    Scientologists argue that most members of the organization have not attained a sufficiently high level to learn about Xenu. Therefore, while knowledge of Xenu and Body Thetans is said to be crucial to the highest level church teachings, it cannot be regarded as a core belief of rank and file Scientologists. Such information is not published in commonly available materials, and as such may not be part of what the vast majority of ordinary Scientologists believe.


    Critics point out that Scientology literature does include many references to extraterrestrial past lives (even to low levels on the bridge), and that internal Scientology publications are often illustrated with pictures of spaceships and oblique references to catastrophic events that happened "75 million years ago" (e.g. the Xenu incident). This material ties in to the general purpose of Scientology, which is to learn about these "whole track" incidents on the OT Levels to confront the negativity the mind still holds from these incidents, and as a result to be free of the ill effects of these "whole track" incidents. Thereby, it is believed by Scientologists that they will achieve greater freedom, happiness, and abilities in their present lives.


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    Scientology and other religions



    A Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

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    A Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

    Scientology teaches that it is fully compatible with all existing major religions. The Church of Scientology has publicly stated:



    "Scientology respects all religions. Scientology does not conflict with other religions or other religious practices." (What is Scientology? 1992, p.544)

    However, the Church of Scientology has been questioned by other religious groups, including the Church of England[2] who complained in March 2003 to the Advertising Standards Authority about the Church's advertising poster promoting Narconon--the drug rehabilitation program based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard. The poster claimed "250,000 people salvaged from drugs." The Church of England Diocese of Birmingham challenged the claim. The ASA considered that, "without clarification, readers were likely to interpret the claim '250,000 people salvaged from drugs' to mean that 250,000 people had stopped being dependent on street or prescription drugs because of Scientology. The Authority "accepted that more than 250,000 people had undertaken the Church's Drug Purification and Drug Rundown programmes, which were designed to free people from the effects of taking drugs," but "the Authority understood that, within Scientology, the concept of 'drug use' referred to a variety of behaviours that ranged from heavy use of street drugs to occasional ingestion of alcohol or prescription medicines and exposure to chemical toxins." In May 2001, the Russian Orthodox Church[3] criticized Scientology along with Jehovah's Witnesses, Moonies and Mormons. The Lutheran Church[4] in Germany has at times criticized Scientology's activities and doctrines. Many members of the Roman Catholic Church reject Scientology, because of the CoS's views on Jesus, and believe Scientology to be a form of gnosticism, which many Christians regard as a heresy. Other Roman Catholics can be found at high levels (OT VII) in the C of S.


    Scientology's claim of religious compatibility to entry-level Scientologists is soon modified by the additional teaching that the various levels of spiritual prowess which can be reached through Scientology are more advanced than those attainable in other religions. Critics maintain that, within Scientology, "spiritual abilities" tends to be synonymous with "mystical powers" rather than with "inner peace". Hubbard himself cautioned against the unwise or improper use of powers in his book History of Man.


    In its application for tax exempt status in the United States, the Church of Scientology International states:



    "Although there is no policy or Scriptural mandate expressly requiring Scientologists to renounce other religious beliefs or membership in other churches, as a practical matter Scientologists are expected to and do become fully devoted to Scientology to the exclusion of other faiths. As Scientologists, they are required to look only to Scientology Scriptures for the answers to the fundamental questions of their existence and to seek enlightenment only from Scientology." (Response to Final Series of IRS Questions Prior to Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) As a Church, October 1, 1993)

    Critics claim that a select group of advanced practitioners eventually discovered that Hubbard had left little doubt in his writings and lectures about the dim view he took toward existing major religions. In some of the teachings Hubbard had intended only for this select group, he claimed that Jesus had never existed, but was implanted in humanity's collective memory by Xenu 75 million years ago, and that Christianity was an "entheta [evil] operation" mounted by beings called Targs (Hubbard, "Electropsychometric Scouting: Battle of the Universes", April 1952). Some critics have claimed that one of the highest levels, OT VIII, tells initiates that Jesus was a pederast (it is decidedly unclear whether the version of OT VIII in the Fishman Affidavit, where this claim originates, is genuine). Thus, critics claim, Hubbard makes clear his belief that advanced Scientologists are to identify Jesus and Christianity more as a force of evil than as a force for good.


    Hubbard claimed that Islam was also the result of an extraterrestrial memory implant, called the Emanator, of which the Kaaba is supposedly an artifact. Mainstream religions, in his view, had failed to realize their objectives: "It is all very well to idealize poverty and associate wisdom with begging bowls, or virtue with low estate. However, those who have done this (Buddhists, Christians, Communists and other fanatics) have dead ended or are dead ending." (Hubbard, HCOPL of January 21, 1965)


    Based on an interpretation of Buddhist writings which described, among other things, a man from the west with hair like flames around his head who was said to be due to return some 2,500 years after the first Buddha, the red-haired Hubbard sometimes identified himself with Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. (Hubbard, Hymn of Asia, 1952).


    In addition to the clergy of the religions not getting along, beliefs in Scientology as one progresses into higher levels become increasingly contradictory with other religions. Most notably is the concept of past lives which most western religions reject, although some Scientologists believe that Christianity at one time believed in reincarnation but the idea was taken out by the early Catholic Church. Whether this comes from Hubbard's theories as presented in the highest levels of Scientology or is just the belief of some Scientologists to create a way for the religion to better mesh, no proof of the claim has ever been presented. Other ideas such as the origins and age of the Earth, the root of evil, and the nature of man make it impossible to hold literal beliefs in most other religions while being a Scientologist.


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    Origins


    Immediately prior to his first Dianetics publications, Hubbard was involved with occultist Jack Parsons in performing rites developed by Aleister Crowley. Some investigators have noted similarities in Hubbard's writings to the doctrines of Crowley,[5] though the Church of Scientology denies any such connection. An influence that Hubbard did acknowledge is the system of General Semantics developed by Alfred Korzybski in the 1930s. [6] Scientology also reflects the influence of the Hindu concept of karma, as well as the less metaphysical theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and William Sargant.


    The word scientology has a history of its own. Although today associated almost exclusively with Hubbard's work, it was originally coined by philologist Allen Upward in 1907 as a synonym for "pseudoscience". [7] In 1934, the Argentine-German writer Anastasius Nordenholz published a book using the word positively: Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens ("Scientology, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge"). [8] Nordenholz's book is a study of consciousness, and its usage of the word is not greatly different from Hubbard's definition, "knowing how to know". However, it is not clear to what extent Hubbard was aware of these earlier uses. The word itself is a pairing of the Latin word scientia ("knowledge", "skill"), which comes from the verb scire ("to know"), and the Greek λογος lógos ("reason" or "inward thought" or "logic"). In a lecture given on July 19, 1962 entitled "The E-meter", Hubbard said:



    "So Suzie and I went down to the library, and we started hauling books out and looking for words. And we finally found 'scio' and we find 'ology'. And there was the founding of that word. Now, that word had been used to some degree before. There had been some thought of this. Actually the earliest studies on these didn't have any name to them until a little bit along the line and then I called it anything you could think of. But we found that this word Scientology, you see—and it could have been any other word that had also been used—was the best-fitted word for exactly what we wanted."

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    The Church of Scientology



    Main article: Church of Scientology


    The official symbol of the Church of Scientology.

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    The official symbol of the Church of Scientology.

    A Church of Scientology was first incorporated in Camden, New Jersey as a non-profit organization in 1953. Today's Church of Scientology was established in 1954. It forms the center of a complex worldwide network of corporations dedicated to the promotion of L. Ron Hubbard's philosophies in all areas of life. This includes:



    • Drug treatment centers (Narconon);
    • Criminal rehab programs (Criminon);
    • Activities to reform the field of mental health (Citizens Commission on Human Rights);
    • Projects to implement Hubbard's educational methods in schools (Applied Scholastics);
    • A "moral values" campaign (The Way to Happiness);
    • World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, or WISE, which licenses Hubbard's management techniques for use in businesses;
    • A consulting firm based on Hubbard's management techniques (Sterling Management Systems);
    • A publishing company, e-Republic, which publishes Government Technology and Converge magazines and coordinates the Center for Digital Government;
    • A campaign directed to world leaders, as well as the general public, to implement the 1948 United Nations document "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (with particular emphasis on the religious freedom elements).
    • An organization dedicated to bettering plant and animal life on Earth that applies Scientology tools, such as "The Dynamics" (Earth Organization)

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    Independent Scientology groups



    Main article: Free Zone (Scientology)

    Although "Scientology" is most often used as shorthand for the Church of Scientology, a number of groups practice Scientology and Dianetics outside of the official Church. Such groups are invariably breakaways from the original Church, and usually argue that it has corrupted L. Ron Hubbard's principles or otherwise become overly domineering. The Church takes an extremely hard line on breakaway groups, labeling them "apostates" (or "squirrels" in Scientology jargon) and often subjecting them to considerable legal and social pressure. Breakaway groups avoid the name "Scientology" so as to keep from being sued, instead referring to themselves collectively as the Free Zone.


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    Controversy and criticism



    Main article: Scientology controversy


    Church of Scientology on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada.

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    Church of Scientology on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada.

    Of the many new religious movements to appear during the 20th century, Scientology has from its inception been one of the most controversial. The Church has come into conflict with the governments and police forces of several countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany) numerous times over the years, though supporters note that many major world religions have found themselves in conflict with civil government in their early years.


    The Church pursues an extensive public relations campaign supporting Scientology as a bona fide religion. The organization cites numerous scholarly sources supporting its position, many of which can be found on a website the Church has established for this purpose. [9]


    Different countries have taken markedly different approaches to Scientology. Scientology is considered a religion in the United States, Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Australia, and thus enjoys and regularly cites the constitutional protections afforded in both nations to religious practice (First Amendment to the United States Constitution; Australian Constitution, s 116). In Canada, the Church of Scientology is considered a religious non-profit organization. In 1992, Scientology became the only[5] religious organization convicted in criminal court on two counts of breach of the public trust (for an organized conspiracy to infiltrate government offices) following a trial by jury. In the United States, the church obtained "public charity" status (IRS Code 501(c)(3)) and the associated preferential tax treatment after extended litigation. Applications for charity status in the UK and Canada were rejected in 1999. Some European governments (including notably, Germany, Belgium, France, and Austria) do not consider the Church to be a bona fide religious organization, but instead a commercial enterprise or a so-called cult.


    Other countries, mostly in Europe, have regarded Scientology as a potentially dangerous cult, or at least have not considered local branches of the Church of Scientology to meet the legal criteria for being considered religion-supporting organizations. In Germany, for instance, Scientology is not considered a religion by the government, but a commercial business. Fifteen of the sixteen German states, positing that Scientology had potentially anti-democratic tendencies, have to a greater or lesser degree and for varying periods subjected Scientology and Scientologists to state surveillance since the early 1970's. No criminal or civil charges have been brought as a result of this surveillance. Two German states and the political party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) have passed rules or regulations limiting the participation of Scientologists in politics, business and public life. In several court cases Scientology lost filed complaints against continued surveillance because the courts held the opinion that Scientology still pursues anticonstitutional activities. In Berlin surveillance ceased because the court prohibited the use of paid undercover agents, in Saarland surveillance was stopped by the court because there was/is no current danger recognizable. The United Kingdom government does not recognize Scientology as a bona fide religion. The Church has been subjected to considerable pressure from the state in Russia. In Belgium, the minister of justice refused Scientology as a candidate for the status of recognized religion. [10]


    Scientology has also been the focus of criticism by anti-cult campaigners and has aroused controversy for its high-profile campaigns against psychiatry and psychiatric medication. The religious bona fides of Scientology have been repeatedly questioned. Hubbard was accused of adopting a religious façade for Scientology to allow the organization to maintain tax-exempt status and to avoid prosecution for false medical claims. These accusations continue to the present day, bolstered by numerous accounts from Hubbard's fellow science-fiction authors and researchers, the most notable being Neison Himmel, Sam Merwin, Sam Moskowitz, Theodore Sturgeon, and Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, who reported to have witnessed Hubbard stating on various occasions that the way to get rich was to start a religion. [11]


    The many legal battles fought by the Church of Scientology since its inception have given it a reputation as an extremely litigious organization, characterized by forcing litigants to enter into a lengthy and costly legal process using a number of highly trained lawyers, expert at prolonging cases.


    However, a notable number of countries around the world have apparently embraced Scientology, including Italy, Spain and Thailand. Also, the number of legal battles in which the Church has engaged seems to have peaked in the early-to-mid-1990s, and has been declining since then. Since that time, many Scientologists have adopted a more relaxed view toward minor criticism. The overall attitude in the Scientology community has partially shifted to spreading Scientology through direct application to communities, rather than combating those who attempt to stop or belittle it.


    The ongoing controversies involving the Church and its critics include:



    • Scientology's harassment and litigious actions against its critics and enemies.
    • Some critics charge Scientology with being a cult of personality, with much emphasis placed on the alleged accomplishments of its founder.
    • Scientologists claim that government files, such as those from the FBI, are loaded with forgeries and other false documents detrimental to Scientology, but have never substantiated this accusation.
    • Unexplained deaths of Scientologists, most notably Lisa McPherson, allegedly due to mistreatment by other members.
    • Scientology's disconnection policy, in which members are encouraged to cut off all contact with friends or family members critical of the Church.
    • Criminal activities by Scientologists, both those committed for personal benefit (Reed Slatkin, Gabriel Williams, and others) and those committed on behalf of the Church and directed by Church officials (Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout, Fair Game, and others).
    • Claims of brainwashing and mind control.
    • Use of high-pressure sales tactics to obtain money from members.
    • Lobbying search engines such as Google and Yahoo to omit any webpages that are critical of Scientology from their search engines (and in Google's case, AdSense), or at least the first few search pages (now however, a search for Scientology on Google and Yahoo brings up this page, with both critical and official Scientology websites).
    • Differing accounts of L. Ron Hubbard's life, in particular accounts of Hubbard discussing his intent to start a religion for profit. [12]

    This last criticism is referenced, among other places, in a May 1980 Reader's Digest article, which quotes Hubbard, "If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."


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    Official Status as a Religion


    The Church pursues an extensive public relations campaign supporting Scientology as a bona fide religion. The organization cites numerous scholarly sources supporting its position, many of which can be found on a website the Church has established for this purpose. [13]


    Journalists proved that, in order to obtain its tax-exempt status in the United States, Scientologists paid private investigators to obtain compromising material on the IRS commissioner and blackmailed the IRS into submission, NYT article costing taxpayers 1-2 billion dollars. [14] Six levels of indents down in the eventually leaked "closing agreement", [15] the IRS is contractually required to discriminate in their treatment of Scientology to the exclusion of all other groups:



    "The following actions will be considered to be a material breach by the Service: ... The issuance of a Regulation, Revenue Ruling or other pronouncement of general applicability providing that fixed donations to a religious organization other than a Church of Scientology are fully deductible."

    The Sklars, in the case MICHAEL SKLAR; MARLA SKLAR v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL No. 00-70753, attempted to obtain the same deduction for their payments to a Jewish school. On January 29, 2002 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the IRS's opposition. Judge Silverman concurred, [16] saying:



    "An IRS closing agreement cannot overrule Congress and the Supreme Court.
    If the IRS does, in fact, give preferential treatment to members of the Church of Scientology—allowing them a special right to claim deductions that are contrary to law and rightly disallowed to everybody else—then the proper course of action is a lawsuit to put a stop to that policy."

    To date, such a suit is not known to have been filed.


    Another source of controversy in 1979 was Scientology's infiltration of the United States Internal Revenue Service in what Scientology termed "Operation Snow White". Eleven high-ranking Scientologists, including Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard, served time in federal prison for their involvement in this infiltration.


    In Australia, critics point to a certain passage in a 1982 ruling by the High Court of Australia. They claim that in the course of litigation between the Church and the government of Victoria, even though the government of the state found that the Church practiced charlatanism, (Church of the New Faith v. Commissioner Of Pay-roll Tax [17]) nevertheless the government of Victoria, due to certain legal technicalities, could not deny the Church the right to operate in Victoria under the legal status of "religion".


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    Scientology and psychiatry



    Scientologists regularly hold anti-psychiatry demonstrations they call "Psychbusts"

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    Scientologists regularly hold anti-psychiatry demonstrations they call "Psychbusts"


    Main article: Scientology and psychiatry

    Scientology is publicly and vehemently opposed to psychiatry and psychology.


    This theme appears in some of Hubbard's literary works. In Hubbard's Mission Earth series, various characters praise and criticize these methods, and the antagonists in his novel Battlefield Earth are called Psychlos, a similar allusion.


    From the Church of Scientology FAQ on Psychiatry:



    What the Church opposes are brutal, inhumane psychiatric treatments. It does so for three principal reasons: 1) procedures such as electro-shock, drugs and lobotomy injure, maim and destroy people in the guise of help; 2) psychiatry is not a science and has no proven methods to justify the billions of dollars of government funds that are poured into it; and 3) psychiatric theories that man is a mere animal have been used to rationalize, for example, the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II. [18]

    L. Ron Hubbard was bitterly critical of psychiatry's citation of physical causes for mental disorders, such as chemical imbalances in the brain. Although there are many questions remaining, the statements by Hubbard deny that psychiatry, through the scientific method, has shown some psychiatric disorders are related to anatomical and chemical cerebral anomalies. Furthermore, it is evident much of his criticism is based upon old and flawed information regarding psychiatry [19]. He regarded psychiatrists as denying human spirituality and peddling fake cures. He was also convinced psychiatrists were themselves deeply unethical individuals, committing "extortion, mayhem and murder. Our files are full of evidence on them." [20] The Church claims that psychiatry was responsible for World War I [21], the rise of Hitler and Stalin [22], the decline in education standards in the United States [23], the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo [24], and even the September 11th attacks [25]. However, for all these statements, the Church has failed to present any evidence supporting this view of psychiatry. Scientology's opposition to psychiatry has also undoubtedly been influenced by the fact that a number of psychiatrists have strongly spoken out against the Church, resulting in pressure from the media and governments. Additionally, after Hubbard's book on Dianetics was published, in which he tried to present a new form of psychotherapy, the American Psychological Association advised its members against using Hubbard's techniques with their patients until its effectiveness could be proven. Because of this critique Hubbard came to believe psychiatrists were behind a worldwide conspiracy to attack Scientology and create a "world government" run by psychiatrists on behalf of Soviet Russia:



    Our enemies are less than twelve men. They are members of the Bank of England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains and they, oddly enough, run all the mental health groups in the world that had sprung up ...
    Their apparent programme was to use mental health, which is to say psychiatric electric shock and pre-frontal lobotomy, to remove from their path any political dissenters ... These fellows have gotten nearly every government in the world to owe them considerable quantities of money through various chicaneries and they control, of course, income tax, government finance — (Harold) Wilson, for instance, the current Premier of England, is totally involved with these fellows and talks about nothing else actually. (Hubbard, Ron's Journal 67 [26])

    In 1966, Hubbard declared war on psychiatry, telling Scientologists "We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one." He committed the Church to eradicating psychiatry in 1969, announcing "Our war has been forced to become 'To take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms.'" [27] Not coincidentally, the Church founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights that same year as its primary vehicle for attacking psychiatry.


    Around the same time, Hubbard decided that psychiatrists were an ancient evil that had been a problem for billions of years. He cast them in the role of assisting Xenu's genocide of 75 million years ago. In a 1982 bulletin entitled "Pain and Sex", Hubbard declares that "pain and sex were the INVENTED TOOLS of degradation", having been devised eons ago by psychiatrists "who have been on the [time] track a long time and are the sole cause of decline in this universe." (Hubbard, HCO Bulletin of August 26, 1982)


    Celebrity Scientologists, notably Tom Cruise, have been extremely vocal in attacking the use of psychiatric medication. [28] Their position has attracted considerable criticism from psychiatrists, physicians, and mental health patients and advocates who cite numerous scientific studies showing benefit from psychiatry. On top of that, there is evidence Scientology adherents destroyed scientific data in a lengthy campaign to discredit research. [29] Nevertheless, this position is still defended and promoted by Scientologists. [30]


    [edit]


    Scientology versus the Internet



    Main article: Scientology versus the Internet

    Scientology leaders have undertaken extensive operations on the Internet to deal with growing allegations of fraud and exposure of unscrupulousness within Scientology. The organization states that it is taking actions to prevent distribution of copyrighted Scientology documents and publications online by people whom it has called "copyright terrorists". Critics claim the organization's true motive is an attempt to suppress free speech and criticism.


    In January 1995, Church lawyer Helena Kobrin attempted to shut down the Usenet discussion group alt.religion.scientology by sending a control message instructing Usenet servers to delete the group on the grounds that



    (1) It was started with a forged message; (2) not discussed on alt.config; (3) it has the name "scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack the Scientology religion; (4) it has been and continues to be heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal practices. [31]

    In practice, this rmgroup message had little effect, since most Usenet servers are configured to disregard such messages when applied to groups that receive substantial traffic, and newgroup messages were quickly issued to recreate the group on those servers that did not do so. However, the issuance of the message led to a great deal of public criticism by free-speech advocates.


    The Church also began filing lawsuits against those who posted copyrighted texts on the newsgroup and the World Wide Web, and pressed for tighter restrictions on copyrights in general. The Church supported the controversial Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. The even more controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act was also strongly promoted by the Church and some of its provisions (notably the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act) were heavily influenced by Church litigation against US Internet service providers over copyrighted Scientology materials that had been posted or uploaded through their servers.


    Beginning in the middle of 1996 and for several years after, the newsgroup was attacked by anonymous parties using a tactic dubbed "sporgery" by some, in the form of hundreds of thousands of forged spam messages posted on the group. Although the Church neither confirmed nor denied its involvement with the spam, some investigators claimed that some spam had been traced to Church members. Former Scientologist Tory Christman, after she left the church, confessed to having been part of the sporgery project, taking money supplied by the Office of Special Affairs to open up Internet accounts at various ISPs under false names, accounts from which she later saw forged and garbled communications going out.[6]


    [edit]


    Celebrity practitioners




    See also: List of Scientologists

    The Church of Scientology has consistently attracted the interest of artists and entertainers, particularly Hollywood celebrities. The Church runs special recruitment facilities for public figures designated Celebrity Centres. They can be found in Hollywood, New York, Nashville, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Dallas, and Vienna, though Hollywood is the largest and most important. Scientologists give this description:



    L. Ron Hubbard recognized the importance of the artist to society. Thus he created Celebrity Centre International — a Church of Scientology that specializes in delivering Dianetics and Scientology services to celebrities, professionals, leaders and promising new-comers in the fields of the arts, sports, management and government.

    These sites are not celebrity-exclusive. They offer Scientology courses to non-celebrities, and courses start at the most basic beginner levels. At the Celebrity Centre, or simply CC as most Scientologists refer to it, the odds of running into a celebrity are high, but it is mostly full of non-famous people.


    Publicity has been generated by Scientologists in the entertainment industry such as John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Jenna Elfman, Kirstie Alley, Catherine Bell, Leah Remini, Beck Hansen, Josh Pettersen, Chick Corea, Brandy Norwood, Isaac Hayes, Jason Lee, James Packer, Doug E. Fresh, Greta Van Susteren, Tom Cruise, and Cruise's converted fiancée Katie Holmes.


    Critics say the attention and care given to celebrity practitioners is vastly different from that of noncelebrity practitioners. [32] [33] Diana Canova, who experienced Scientology both before and during her period of TV stardom, expressed it in a September 1993 interview: "When I started, I wasn't in television yet. I was a nobody - I'd done some TV, but I was not one of the elite, not by a long shot - until I did Soap. Then it became…I mean, you really are treated like royalty." [34]


    [edit]


    Tom Cruise


    Since 2005, Tom Cruise has been one of the best-recognized celebrity Scientologists, in many ways a public face for the religion. Cruise has widely advocated the Church's position against psychiatry and particularly against the use of antidepressants. In May 2005, Cruise excoriated Brooke Shields for both using and speaking in favor of the drug Paxil. Cruise also said, "Here is a woman, and I care about Brooke Shields because I think she is an incredibly talented woman, you look at [and think], where has her career gone?". Shields responded that Cruise's statements about anti-depressants were "irresponsible" and "dangerous."


    On June 24, 2005, Cruise spoke to Today Show host Matt Lauer on the supposed dangers of psychiatry and antidepressants during a promotional interview for his film War of the Worlds [35]. His intent may have backfired as late night comedians and morning radio programs frequently commented about Cruise's passionate frustration at Lauer's perceived lack of knowledge and respect for the topic's severity and mocked him as a radical celebrity.


    [edit]


    Isaac Hayes and South Park


    In November 2005, the television show South Park satirized the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including Cruise and John Travolta, in an episode called "Trapped in the Closet." In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out.


    The episode also mocks the beliefs Scientologists accept. It portrays the story of Xenu and the creation of the Thetans by the hydrogen bombs, and other aspects of the religion, while the words "This Is What Scientologists Actually Believe" appear at the bottom of the screen.


    In March 2006, a press release announced that Isaac Hayes, a Scientologist, would be quitting his role on South Park, with the reason stated as being "intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others". Dubbed "Closetgate" by the Los Angeles Times, the controversy continued as Comedy Central, the channel that broadcasts South Park in the U.S., pulled the "Trapped in the Closet" episode at the last minute from a scheduled repeat on March 15, 2006. It was alleged that Tom Cruise threatened Paramount with withdrawal from promotion of his latest film Mission Impossible 3 if the episode was broadcast. Viacom owns both Paramount and Comedy Central. Though Paramount and Cruise's representatives deny any threats, The Independent reports that "no one believes a word of it". There was later made a movement to never show that episode on public TV again, and it passed.


    Trey Parker and Matt Stone claimed to be "servants of Xenu" and declared that the "million-year war for Earth" had only just begun. Stone also told the Associated Press that he and Parker "never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin." [7] The LA Times reported that, "For Stone and Parker, Closetgate will be the gift that keeps on giving." Using lines cut together from previous recordings, Hayes' character, Chef, was then portrayed in his final episode as a brain-washed, child-molesting cultist in a group called the "Super Adventure Club". [36][37]


    [edit]


    See also



    [edit]


    References



    [edit]


    Footnotes



    1. ↑ Scientology: Milestone One a public lecture given at Wichita, Kansas on 3 March, 1952.
    2. ↑ Advertising Standards Authority record of successful Church of England complaint about Narconon advertisement
    3. ↑ "Russian Orthodox Targets 'Totalitarian Sects'" at Zenit
    4. ↑ "2004 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Germany" at United States Department of State
    5. ↑ McGregor, Glen: Liberal MP stars in video promoting: Scientology Controversial religion not a cult, Lee insists, The Ottawa Citizen, October 26, 2005, p.A1.
    6. ↑ "The Secret Project to Spam the Internet"
    7. ↑ [1]

    [edit]


    External links


    [edit]


    Scientology sites



    [edit]


    Critical sites



    [edit]


    Other sites



    Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology"


  • April 5, 2006


    Big Gain for Rich Seen in Tax Cuts for Investments


    By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

    The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000.


    An analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by The New York Times found that the benefit of the lower taxes on investments was far more concentrated on the very wealthiest Americans than the benefits of Mr. Bush's two previous tax cuts: on wages and other noninvestment income.


    When Congress cut investment taxes three years ago, it was clear that the highest-income Americans would gain the most, because they had the most money in investments. But the size of the cuts and what share goes to each income group have not been known.


    As Congress debates whether to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, The Times analyzed I.R.S. figures for 2003, the latest year available and the first that reflected the tax cuts for income from dividends and from the sale of stock and other assets, known as capital gains.


    The analysis found the following:


    ¶Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million.


    ¶These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income.


    ¶Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each. By comparison, these same Americans received less than 10 percent of the savings from the other Bush tax cuts, which applied primarily to wages, though that share is expected to grow in coming years.


    ¶The savings from the investment tax cuts are expected to be larger in subsequent years because of gains in the stock market.


    The Times showed the new numbers to people on various sides of the debate over tax cuts. Stephen J. Entin, president of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, a Washington organization, and other supporters of the cuts said they did not go far enough because the more money the wealthiest had to invest, the more would go to investments that produce jobs. For investment income, Mr. Entin said, "the proper tax rate would be zero."


    Opponents say the cuts are too generous to those who already have plenty. Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said after seeing the new figures that "these tax cuts are beyond irresponsible" when "we're in a war; we haven't fixed Social Security or Medicare; we've got record deficits."


    Because of the tax cuts, even the merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, are falling behind the very wealthiest, particularly because another provision, the alternative minimum tax, now costs many of them thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost deductions.


    About 3.5 million taxpayers filing their returns for last year are being hit by the alternative tax. But that figure will balloon this year to at least 19 million taxpayers, making as little as about $30,000, unless Congress restores a law that limited its effects until now, according to the Tax Policy Center in Washington, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, whose estimates the White House has declared reasonable.


    The tax cut analysis was based on estimates from a computer model developed by Citizens for Tax Justice, which asserts that the tax system unfairly favors the rich. The group's estimates are considered reliable by advocates on differing sides of the tax debate. The Times, which also did its own analysis, asked the group to use the model to produce additional data on the effect of the investment tax cuts on various income groups. The analyses show that more than 70 percent of the tax savings on investment income went to the top 2 percent, about 2.6 million taxpayers.


    By contrast, few taxpayers with modest incomes benefited because most of them who own stocks held them in retirement accounts, which are not eligible for the investment income tax cuts. Money in these accounts is not taxed until withdrawal, when the higher rates on wages apply.


    Those making less than $50,000 saved an average of $10 more because of the investment tax cuts, for a total of $435 in total income tax cuts, according to the computer model.


    During last week's debate on whether to restore limits on the alternative minimum tax or make permanent the cuts in investment income taxes, House leaders chose as their spokesman Representative David L. Camp, a Michigan Republican. He said Republicans favored continuing investment tax cuts because that would help more people and would especially benefit those making less than $100,000.


    "Nearly 60 percent of the taxpayers with incomes less than $100,000 had income from capital gains and dividends," he said on the House floor.


    But I.R.S. data show that among the 90 percent of all taxpayers who made less than $100,000, dividend tax reductions benefited just one in seven and capital gains reductions one in 20.


    Mr. Camp, who had said in an interview that his figures were correct, said Monday through a spokesman that he had been misinformed by the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee. But his office said he supported making the investment tax cuts permanent because cutting these rates was "good policy and good for our economy."


    President Bush, in his budget, urged Congress to make permanent the reduced taxes on investment income. He also proposed limiting the effects of the alternative minimum tax through next year, saying a permanent solution "is best addressed within the context of fundamental tax reform."


    The Congressional Budget Office estimated that making the investment tax cuts permanent would cost the government $197 billion over 10 years. But advocates of eliminating taxes on investments say there is no cost to the government because lowering taxes on such income encourages more investment, which should lead to more and higher-paying jobs. Taxes on wages from those jobs should more than offset the tax savings to investors, said Mr. Entin, an advocate of eliminating taxes on most investment income as a way of promoting economic growth.


    However, the Congressional Research Service, an arm of Congress that analyzes issues, concluded in a January report that lower taxes on investment income may translate into lower savings because people need fewer investments to earn the same after-tax income. In another report, the research service showed how lower taxes on investment income can encourage investment outside the United States, creating jobs, but not for Americans.


    The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for the poor, and several mainstream policy research organizations say the investment tax cuts will have insignificant positive effects and may even damage long-term economic growth by contributing to soaring budget deficits. In an era of budget deficits, "the net effect is a wash or may even be negative," said Robert Greenstein, the executive director of the center.


    There have been three tax cuts for individuals under President Bush. The top tax rate on compensation was trimmed twice and is now 35 percent, from 39.6 percent when President Bush took office. Most compensation also faces a 1.45 percent Medicare tax, which is matched by the employer, making the effective federal tax rate on high earners 37.9 percent.


    Then, the top rate for most investment income was reduced to 15 percent in 2003, from the 39.6 percent for dividends and 20 percent for profits on asset sales that were in effect when Mr. Bush took office.


    A result is that the wealthiest Americans now pay much higher direct taxes on money they work for than on money that works for them.


     


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  • Big Deal

    After the Lights and the Action


    By WILLIAM NEUMAN

    Published: March 26, 2006




    Skip to next paragraph


    Scarlett Johansson





    Under the High Line.

    Correction Appended



    SCARLETT JOHANSSON, the actress, paid $1.95 million in January for a duplex condominium on Leonard Street in TriBeCa, according to a deed filed with the city. The apartment was bought in the name of a trust controlled by her mother, Melanie Johansson.


    An online listing posted by Daren Herzberg and Julie Pham of the Corcoran Group said the 1,400-square-foot apartment has a double-height ceiling in the living room, Brazilian cherry wood floors and a limestone fireplace.


    Ms. Johansson's publicist, Marcel Pariseau, said in an e-mail message that the actress was on vacation between film shoots and could not be reached for comment.


    Ms. Johansson, 21, appeared last year in the Woody Allen movie "Match Point." She has completed another film with Mr. Allen, "Scoop," which is expected to be released this year. In both movies, she plays a young American in London.


    A Condo With a Door to the Park


    THE Related Companies has loaded up the extras on a new condo building, called the Caledonia, that it is putting up beside the High Line in Chelsea: bamboo plank floors, stainless-steel appliances with a brushed satin finish, a fitness club, terraces with barbecue grills for the use of all residents, an internal courtyard and a meditation garden.


    The interior designer Clodagh even brought in a feng shui expert to help her arrange the expansive lobby, which will include a waterfall, a bamboo grove, a library, a fireplace, stone floors and a concierge desk made from a solid slab of walnut set atop a steel base and illuminated by a pulsating light sculpture.


    The 26-story building, at 450 West 17th Street, at 10th Avenue, will also have its own entrance to the planned High Line park from the second floor.


    Even with all that, the developer's savviest move from a marketing standpoint may be its decision to open its sales office nearby at 111 Eighth Avenue, the mammoth office building at 16th Street, which has become a hub for creative, high-energy businesses. Think of it as a form of direct sales to the young and hip.


    "It is a real sort of mecca for a lot of young media types and creative people and businesses," said Alicia Goldstein, vice president for marketing and communications at Related Residential Sales.


    Google, the Internet search engine company, leased 281,000 square feet in the building last fall for its New York headquarters. Other tenants in the building include Nike; Deutsch, the advertising company; fashion companies like Armani A/X; and technology and Internet companies like WebMD and DoubleClick. "It's a really energetic, vibrant feeling in that building," Ms. Goldstein said.


    The sales office, which is expected to open by the end of the month, will be on the 15th floor, so buyers can get a sense of what views will be like in the Caledonia. Prices for the 190 apartments range from $595,000 for a studio to more than $4 million for a penthouse.


    Gary Handel, the building's architect, said the Caledonia would be one of a small number of buildings with entrances directly to the High Line park, along the old elevated railway bed.


    In an agreement being worked out with the city, Mr. Handel said, the developers will build a separate staircase and elevator from the street to the park for public use. A door from the building's second floor will provide access for condo owners. Jennifer Torres, a spokeswoman for the Department of City Planning, said the city is still creating guidelines for both public and private access points to the High Line.


    The building will be the first constructed by Related since it completed the purchase of Equinox, the fitness club company, earlier this year. Ms. Goldstein said all condo owners would have memberships to the Caledonia's gym, which will be operated by Equinox. Residents will also have access to special services — for example, personal trainers can help them work out in the privacy of their apartments.


    Related's partner in the development is Taconic Investment Partners, which also manages 111 Eighth.


    Beach Parking (and Three Bedrooms)


    THE author A. M. Homes bought a three-bedroom house with a large porch in the Village of East Hampton earlier this month.


    Ms. Homes is the author of the short story collections "The Safety of Objects" and "Things You Should Know," among other works of fiction. A novel, "This Book Will Save Your Life," is to be published next month by Viking. She is also a writer for the TV show "The L Word" on Showtime.


    The house was on the market for nearly $1.3 million, and Ms. Homes's broker, Elaine Stimmel, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, said she paid for slightly less than the asking price.


    Ms. Stimmel said one of the attractions of the house was that it came with a free parking sticker for the five East Hampton village beaches. Ms. Homes also has a one-bedroom house in the Town of East Hampton but outside the village boundaries. Those who do not live in the village do not get free parking privileges at the village beaches, which include Two Mile Hollow Beach.


    Only a limited number of the village stickers are offered to nonresidents, and when Ms. Homes did not act fast enough to get one last year, she decided to look for a house in the village, Ms. Stimmel said.


    Throwing No Stones


    SOL KERZNER, the resort and casino developer, has agreed to buy the $10.5 million penthouse at the Urban Glass House, the 12-story apartment tower at Spring and Washington Streets designed by Philip Johnson, according to a person informed of the deal. Mr. Kerzner is buying the penthouse for his daughter Beverley, the person said.


    The four-bedroom, four-bath unit has 4,266 square feet of interior space and 1,579 square feet of terraces on three sides.


    The Urban Glass House was one of Mr. Johnson's last projects before his death last year, at 98. Its name, if not its height, is meant to evoke his Glass House, a low-slung modernist icon in New Canaan, Conn. The building's interiors have been designed by Annabelle Selldorf.


    Charles Blaichman, one of the developers of the building, said that 25 of the 40 apartments are in contract. The building is expected to be finished in July.


    Mr. Kerzner is the chairman of Kerzner International, which owns resorts in the Bahamas, Dubai and Morocco, as well as the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut.


    Lauren Snyder, senior vice president for corporate public relations at Kerzner International, said Mr. Kerzner would not comment. The broker who represented the Kerzners, Leonard Steinberg of Prudential Douglas Elliman, also refused to discuss the transaction.


     


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April 2, 2006