Commentary Update for December 30, 2002: Corporations Behaving Badly, Rylance Rant/Northwestern Response, Commentary's Year In Pictures, Treats For Information Dogs, Newsmakers of the Year, Tone On Clone, North Carolina Nightmare, McNally/Zweifel, Football

Dear Friends of Commentary:

This week we will repeat our October "Free Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA) program with Ana Maria Hernandez, Jesus Albeiro Martinez, and Jason Wallach. Information about the guests can be found in the October 7th Update. Since the October program, I've become aware of an "official" FTAA website that provides the government/corporate perspective on it, while an anti-FTAA site can be found here. More information about FTAA can be found at the Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign site.One of the things opponents are worried about, of course, is the creation of more sweatshops in the hemisphere and/or the worsening of those that already exist. The Union of Needletrader, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) sponsored a "Behind the Label" campaign in 2002 to raise awareness about sweatshop conditions and the retailers responsible for them. They were especially critical of The Gap.

In Other News:

*Speaking of Corporations Behaving Badly: An uncensored copy of the Iraqi dossier detailing its weapons of mass destruction program was leaked recently, meaning that we finally know the names of those corporations (mostly German and American) that built Iraq's war machine. The information can be found here.

*Rylance Rants, Northwestern Responds: Commentary pundit Dan Rylance wrote a piece for the Commentary website about local taxes. The Oshkosh Northwestern says Dan has his facts wrong and sent in this response.

*Commentary 2002: The Year In Pictures: Commentary had an active year, which I've archived in a photo essay.

*Treats for Information Dogs: I've received emails over the last 4 or 5 months asking if I keep the Commentary Updates in an archive. After turning in the final grades I finally had a chance to put that together. All updates from April 1, 2001 can be found here. The archive is dedicated to Pugsley Krasny-Palmeri, the original Information Dog.

*Palmeri's Newsmakers of the Year: I was so appalled by the Oshkosh Northwestern's selections for local newsmaker of the year that I just had to come up with my own list.

*The Tone On The Clone: Did anyone see the press conference from Florida last week featuring the clone chemist? Here's my take.

*North Carolina Nightmare: I received an email from someone (s/he did not reveal a name) in response to the piece I did on the Thurmondification of American Politics. S/he thought I would be interested in a recent series that the Winston-Salem Journal recently did on North Carolina's forced sterilization program that lasted into the 1970s. North Carolina was not the only state to have such a program during the "eugenics" craze of the early to mid 20th century, but their program as described in the series appears to have been especially atrocious. The series can be found here.

*McNally on the Budget, Zweifel on TIFS: Our friend Joel McNally came up with some common sense budget solutions recently, though I can't imagine our new governor Jim "The Tough On Crime Teamster" Doyle is going to take Joel's suggestions for cutting prison and road spending seriously. Meanwhile, Dave Zweifel in a column about Wal-Mart says this about Tax Incremental Finance Districts (TIFS are the corporate welfare taxpayer rip-off schemes that Oshkosh city planners are in love with): "Abuse of TIFs has been rampant throughout the state in recent years, particularly in smaller communities that find the tax-deferred device perfect for attracting development, no matter how questionable."

*Giants Make The Playoffs! Congratulations to my favorite football team, the New York Giants, who managed to squeak into the playoffs. Meanwhile, my second most favorite football team, the New York Jets, embarrassed my third most favorite football team the Green Bay Packers yesterday. Here's rooting for a Giants - Jets superbowl, with the Giants having to get past the Pack in the NFC championship game.

Happy New Year!!

-Tony