Caption:  "I forgot my anti...anti...just <deleted> 'am I protesting?"

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:D

:D

:D

:D

(had to do it again)

thanks doc!

Sorry for the above post as one did try to correct it but then that is "TiT" even here.   Once more.....

ENTER ANGELINA JOLIE:

*applause and wolf whistles*

AJ: "The Gentleman Scamp ladies and gentleman...  What a guy. 

We are all here Africa Africa etc... Poverty etc... 

Now please put your hands together for The Red Hot Chilli Peppers!"

Yours truly

Kan Win

That's a ###### of a lot of 'prick' in one picture!!

nothing wrong w/puppies) if you know what I mean.

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Puppies - Delicious. Peel 'em. Put on sticks, fry crispy and dip in caramel. Best with stout and a malt chaser.

nothing wrong w/puppies) if you know what I mean.

Puppies - Delicious. Peel 'em. Put on sticks, fry crispy and dip in caramel. Best with stout and a malt chaser.

You've been out in the 'Bush' too long, p1p...

What was the other picture?

I only saw the chillis.

What was the other picture?

I only saw the chillis.

Uh...the one above the chillies?

Yes, the one above the chilli's.

Where's Kan Win when you need him.

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

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I agree with this....but I also think that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan and the carpet bombing in WWII were acts of murder made against randomly chosen people and as such were acts of terrorists.

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

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The Terrorism Research Centre references to an interesting article written by Stan Crock, drawing attention to the work of Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. Pape is the author of a new book, Dying to Win, which provides the first data-based analysis of suicide bombers, and he reaches conclusions that are stunningly different from President Bush’s.

The implications of this analysis are quite deep going and could explain some of the differences expressed in this thread, therefore I make no apologies for quoting from it in its entirety:

Two decades ago, comedian/actress Lily Tomlin starred in a brilliant one-woman show called The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. In one skit, she portrayed Trudy, a crazy but incisive bag lady who gripes that her "space chums" couldn't distinguish between a can of Campbell's soup and a picture of Andy Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup. When she shuffled the items behind her back, her alien friends became hopelessly confused about which was real.

That came to mind when I compared President Bush's June 28 speech on

Iraq with a presentation two days later by Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. Pape is the author of a new book, Dying to Win, which provides the first data-based analysis of suicide bombers, and he reaches conclusions that are stunningly different from the President's. But no one could be confused about what's real and what isn't.

Consider, for example, this passage, from Bush's speech: "Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home." The President also declared, "Their aim is to remake the Middle East in their own grim image of tyranny and oppression -- by toppling governments, by driving us out of the region, and by exporting terror."

PREVAILING MISCONCEPTIONS. The implications: There's a connection between September 11 and the war in Iraq, radical Islamic fundamentalists are behind all of the suicide bombings in Iraq, and they're spurring insurgencies throughout the Islamic Crescent. Yet government studies of intelligence failures and Pape's analysis indicate there's no evidence that any of this is true.

About the only point Pape agrees with is that the bombers want to drive the U.S. out of the region. But he argues that American policies to combat the terrorists are wrong-headed. "The presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is misleading and may be encouraging domestic and foreign policies likely to worsen America's situation and to harm many Muslims needlessly," he writes. Here's a summary of his analysis, which is based on the 315 suicide terrorist attacks from 1980 to 2003:

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist Hindu group opposed to religion, committed the largest number of suicide attacks, 76. The Kurdish PKK, which used the tactic 14 times, is headed by a secular Marxist-Leninist, Abdulah Ocalan. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another Marxist-Leninist group, and the al-Aqsa Brigade, which has ties to the socialist Fatah movement, account for a third of the attacks against Israel. Communist and socialist groups account for 75% of the attacks in Lebanon. Islamic fundamentalists, he concludes, were associated with about only half of the attacks from 1980 to 2003. And such fundamentalist Islamic countries as Iran and Sudan aren't producing any suicide bombers.

CLEARING THE PENINSULA. Pape argues that the common denominator among the bombers in 95% of the cases is that they're nationalist insurgents with a secular, strategic goal: ousting the military forces of democratic countries from land the insurgents believe is theirs. The suicide terrorists, who account for about 5% of all terrorist incidents but about 75% of all fatalities, believe their land and way of life are threatened. The religions of the occupier and the insurgents invariably are different, Pape notes, but he contends that difference is merely a useful recruiting tool and isn't at the root of the animosity.

Al Qaeda fits this pattern. Osama bin Laden's opposition to the House of Saud stemmed from its decision to allow U.S. troops on Saudi soil. Bin Laden's goal is not simply to kick the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, a country that's a Western construct, but rather from the Arabian Peninsula, which arguably stretches as far north as Iraq and includes Kuwait, Bahrain, and other countries in the region where the U.S. has troops.

Almost every suicide attack is aimed at a democracy, from the Tamil Tigers targeting Sri Lanka to Kashmir strikes against India. That's because the insurgents view democracies as vulnerable to this pressure, as President Bush noted. Indeed, the watershed event that sparked copycat attacks was the suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, which prompted President Reagan to bring U.S. troops home. Indeed, governments have made concessions in 7 of 13 completed campaigns (5 are ongoing). Not bad odds. And growing American disenchantment with the military operation in Iraq proves the point yet again.

FEEDING THE ENEMY. The mere presence of foreign troops is the instigation for the attacks, so lengthy stays to secure democracy actually make attacks more probable and help boost recruitment. Substituting Iraqi security forces for U.S. troops is the only thing that will likely make a difference. Pape notes that arrests of al Qaeda and other insurgent leaders are rising, but the metric that counts is the number of attacks, and they're rising, too. That suggests al Qaeda is growing stronger, not weaker.

Equally troubling is that even as the total number of terrorist attacks globally is declining, the number of suicide attacks is rising. The first five months of this year saw as many suicide attacks as all of last year.

Yet there are some encouraging signs. Pape points to the sharp decline in attacks in Israel when it left southern Lebanon, as it prepares to leave Gaza, and as it builds a protective fence. The insurgents need public support to survive, and if the goal of getting the enemy out is achieved, support for such tactics evaporates.

STRATEGIC PLANNING. Interestingly, Pape doesn't believe Uncle Sam should high-tail it out of Baghdad right away. He thinks the U.S. needs to turn the security responsibility over to the Iraqis as quickly as possible but says doing it immediately isn't feasible.

And Pape isn't an isolationist. He suggests that long-term, America should revert to the strategy of the 1970s and 1980s, when the U.S. had forces in the Middle East on ships, ready to jump when needed but not poisoning the atmosphere with a presence on land.

I find Pape's argument wholly convincing. He's the first to collect these data, so it's no surprise that Washington was operating on the blithe assumption that the suicide terrorists were all poor, young Islamic radicals. In fact, 42% have post-secondary educations, and they're part of concerted campaigns with coherent goals.

FACT AND FANCY. The Kurds, for example, didn't use suicide tactics against Iraq but did use them against Turkey. Fanatics would have attacked both, but rational strategists recognized that the chance of success was better in a democracy than in an autocratic state. What's more, Fatah, a socialist group, used the tactic before Hamas, a more religious-oriented organization, was even created, Pape says.

The goals and tactics of these groups are anathema to a democratic people, but we can't combat them if we don't understand them. Pape has briefed key lawmakers, and the executive branch is funding his continued work because it doesn't have the information he has. Let's hope that in the future, the Bush team can tell the difference between what's real and what's not.

The Terrorism Research Centre references to an interesting article written by Stan Crock, drawing attention to the work of Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. Pape is the author of a new book, Dying to Win, which provides the first data-based analysis of suicide bombers, and he reaches conclusions that are stunningly different from President Bush’s.

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Great post....thanks a ton for this great information.

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

I agree with this....but I also think that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan and the carpet bombing in WWII were acts of murder made against randomly chosen people and as such were acts of terrorists.

Those two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan to end WW2 were necessary. If they had not been employed, the war would have dragged on for a lot longer and more Allies would have died. Not to mention (I posted this before) that I wouldn't be here to annoy y'all with this right-wing stuff as my father was held captive by the Japs and wouldn't have made it thru...

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

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I agree with this....but I also think that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan and the carpet bombing in WWII were acts of murder made against randomly chosen people and as such were acts of terrorists.

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Those two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan to end WW2 were necessary. If they had not been employed, the war would have dragged on for a lot longer and more Allies would have died. Not to mention (I posted this before) that I wouldn't be here to annoy y'all with this right-wing stuff as my father was held captive by the Japs and wouldn't have made it thru...

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I guess you are saying that it is sometimes necessary to murder randomly chosen people...it is sometimes necessary to commit terrorist acts..am I wrong about what you are saying?

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

I agree with this....but I also think that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan and the carpet bombing in WWII were acts of murder made against randomly chosen people and as such were acts of terrorists.

Those two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan to end WW2 were necessary. If they had not been employed, the war would have dragged on for a lot longer and more Allies would have died. Not to mention (I posted this before) that I wouldn't be here to annoy y'all with this right-wing stuff as my father was held captive by the Japs and wouldn't have made it thru...

I guess you are saying that it is sometimes necessary to murder randomly chosen people...it is sometimes necessary to commit terrorist acts..am I wrong about what you are saying?

Don't know about your 'randomly chosed people' definition, Chownah, but in the case of ending the war with Japan, dropping those bombs was the correct decision. I think it's got to be looked at in a case by case situation. You can't make a blanket policy to just take out 'randomly chosen people' w/out considering all the factors.

Again, dropping those bombs on Japan was not a 'terrorist act'. That definition is more closely identified with folks heads chopped off on the telly to promote fear and appeasment.

All decent people should bury the notion that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what the cause. The BBC, al-Reuters, the Guardian, and all others should join the war on terror. There is no "good" terrorism and "bad" terrorism. Don't be afraid to use the word terrorism. Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism. Don't be afraid to delegitimize terrorism. Join the war on terror. Don't be afraid to identify the ideology that drives most of the terrorism in the world today: radical Islamism. It is an ideology of hate, of murder, of religious fanaticism, of islamofascism, of hiraba that calls itself jihad, of nihilism, and of a death-cult value system.

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I agree with this....but I also think that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan and the carpet bombing in WWII were acts of murder made against randomly chosen people and as such were acts of terrorists.

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Those two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan to end WW2 were necessary. If they had not been employed, the war would have dragged on for a lot longer and more Allies would have died. Not to mention (I posted this before) that I wouldn't be here to annoy y'all with this right-wing stuff as my father was held captive by the Japs and wouldn't have made it thru...

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I guess you are saying that it is sometimes necessary to murder randomly chosen people...it is sometimes necessary to commit terrorist acts..am I wrong about what you are saying?

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Don't know about your 'randomly chosed people' definition, Chownah, but in the case of ending the war with Japan, dropping those bombs was the correct decision. I think it's got to be looked at in a case by case situation. You can't make a blanket policy to just take out 'randomly chosen people' w/out considering all the factors.

Again, dropping those bombs on Japan was not a 'terrorist act'. That definition is more closely identified with folks heads chopped off on the telly to promote fear and appeasment.

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I'm not trying to judge the dropping of the nukes on Japan. I just read what you posted and I thought about it and it seemed clear to me that when the nukes were dropped the people killed were not specifically chosen...if you were in town that day you died, if you were not in town you survived...this is a fairly random thing. Some in the US gov't or military made the decision to kill two large groups of randomly chosen individuals....you posted, "Don't be afraid to categorize an act of murder made against randomly chosen people as terrorism."....and I have thought about this and you are right...I am not afraid to call the murder of the randomly chosen people of the two cities in Japan as terrorism.

Perhaps the concept of terrorism is not as black and white as some might lead you to believe.

This gentleman can articulate the message better than I...

How to Lose a War

by Victor Davis Hanson

When terrorists strike in London — or Bali, New York or Madrid — they operate on a variety of assumptions. Middle Eastern governments may publicly deplore their methods, but privately sigh relief that al-Qaeda agents are still not yet after their own heads. Islamicist ganglia go deep into the central nervous system of the Pakistani intelligence service, not to mention the House of Saud.

Likewise, the Muslim public in the Middle East may decry terror, but privately often gets satisfaction when Westerners too are humbled. Their schadenfraude is cultivated by the old anti-Semitism — they can always say the Jews or Israel caused 9/11 or the London bombing — as well as by a deep shame over their own attraction toward Western affluence and consumerism. So we see the eerie spectacle after a 9/11 or 7/7 of imams assuring us that “Islam does not condone such things,” even as bin Laden T-shirts and copies of Mein Kampf sell like hot-cakes on the Arab Street.

A third critical assumption is the deniability of culpability: only al Qaeda or its Mcfranchises in Europe are ever deemed responsible for something like Madrid or London. Apparently, such groups never visit the Pakistani border areas, never take a dime from Saudi princes, never travel through Syria on their way to this or that terrorist camp. And thus no terror-abetting nation ever faces any real accounting. That the attacks are periodic rather than daily, and that most of the world’s oil reserves are in the Middle East make it easier for Westerners to live with the bloodshed rather than issue real ultimatums.

Fourth, and most important, the terrorists and their supporters understand that in a strange way the West is not only split, but also increasingly illiberal as well. It has lost confidence in its old commitment to rationalism, free speech and empiricism, and now embraces the deductive near-religious doctrines of moral equivalence and utopian pacifism. Al Qaeda’s supporters will say that Thursday’s victims were killed because of Afghanistan or Iraq. Westerners will duly repeat the dull refrain that “Bush lied, thousands died” in their guilt-ridden search for something we did to cause this.

And so, rather than focus our attention on the madrassas and the mosques that preach hatred, we will strive to learn more about Islamic culture, as if our own insensitivity were the true culprit. Our grandfathers could despise Bushido — Japan’s warrior cult — without worrying whether they were being unfair to Buddhists; we of less conviction and even less courage, cannot do likewise.

Link

African Economist Blames Aid for Famine

A Kenya-based economist begins to see the way out of Africa’s self-reinforcing tragedy: Economist Blames Aid for Africa Famine.

DAKAR, Senegal - In Niger, a desert country twice the size of Texas, most of the 11 million people live on a dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of four dies before turning 5. And that’s when things are normal. Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges: skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the flies from their faces.

To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up with a lasting remedy. One such economist is James Shikwati. He blames foreign aid.

“When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize on how to get more,” said the Kenya-based director of the Inter Region Economic Network, an African think tank.

“They forget about getting their own people working to solve these very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change."

Makes sense to me. How about you 'Progressives'?

Link

Makes sense to me too, but then I'm not a Progressive. Clearly aid is not the solution....my opinion is that creating stable gov't's is a big part of the answer...generally speaking even a mildly bad gov't but stable gov't is better than the blood shed and displacement caused by the tides of politics in Africa. Of course creating stable gov't is not a well understood process.

African Economist Blames Aid for Famine

A Kenya-based economist begins to see the way out of Africa’s self-reinforcing tragedy: Economist Blames Aid for Africa Famine.

    DAKAR, Senegal - In Niger, a desert country twice the size of Texas, most of the 11 million people live on a dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of four dies before turning 5. And that’s when things are normal. Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges: skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the flies from their faces.

    To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up with a lasting remedy. One such economist is James Shikwati. He blames foreign aid.

    “When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize on how to get more,” said the Kenya-based director of the Inter Region Economic Network, an African think tank.

    “They forget about getting their own people working to solve these very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change."

Makes sense to me.  How about you 'Progressives'?

Link

Aid as such is undesirable except for when there are serious catastrophes. The problem of aid dependence is hardly new, talk to any development workers or experts regardless of agenda and they acknowledge the problem.

Leaving people to their own devices is not always a good solution either, and normally when the right wing writes something about development work, it is done so as to criticize it and find as many faults as possible, because the notion of helping anybody but oneself seems to go against their agenda.

That something is difficult and problematic does not mean it should be abandoned.

Development work involves a lot more than just donating money, food and clothes. It can involve anything from infrastructural projects to basic education in health, hygiene, organisational structure or whatever. It seems the small scale projects focusing on educating women and children in different respects are the most successful. In "traditional" socities, men tend to hog their knowledge more than women, who spread what they know for the benefit of others.

Of course, trade barriers and agricultural subsidies are also very important obstacles to development for Africa. Others are structural and cultural and will take a long time to come to terms with.

I wonder how many of those folks attending the Live8 concerts will remember today what the purpose was. Sir Bob did a terrific job getting them organized but it would be good to see where the $$$ has been distributed thus far.

Hopefully, not like the Red Cross did after 9/11 - into their coffers and not given to the victims families...

I wonder how many of those folks attending the Live8 concerts will remember today what the purpose was.  Sir Bob did a terrific job getting them organized but it would be good to see where the $$$ has been distributed thus far.

Hopefully, not like the Red Cross did after 9/11 - into their coffers and not given to the victims families...

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Which Red Cross are we talking about here, Boon Mee?

I wonder how many of those folks attending the Live8 concerts will remember today what the purpose was.  Sir Bob did a terrific job getting them organized but it would be good to see where the $$$ has been distributed thus far.

Hopefully, not like the Red Cross did after 9/11 - into their coffers and not given to the victims families...

Which Red Cross are we talking about here, Boon Mee?

I should have clarified that it was the American Red Cross.

As I understand it, it's a 'franchise'-type organization.

I wonder how many of those folks attending the Live8 concerts will remember today what the purpose was.  Sir Bob did a terrific job getting them organized but it would be good to see where the $$$ has been distributed thus far.

Hopefully, not like the Red Cross did after 9/11 - into their coffers and not given to the victims families...

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Which Red Cross are we talking about here, Boon Mee?

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I should have clarified that it was the American Red Cross.

As I understand it, it's a 'franchise'-type organization.

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The American Red Cross did have some problems caused primarily by the size of the contributions and some disagreement as to the funds administration - but these problems were resolved in 2001, by the resignation of a director and some reorganisation. Remember we are talking about the greatest disaster and response in the history of the USA - every organisation involved had its problems.

The present situation is best described through this press release, from January this year:

The American Red Cross September 11th Recovery Program (SRP) announced this week the formation of a grant program to distribute $50 million over the next two years to support the recovery of Sept. 11 victims across the country.

At a June 30th press conference, SRP Executive Director Alan Goodman also announced the first grant award to an innovative program operated by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine that supports those who worked for the recovery efforts following 9/11. The announcement marks the beginning of a process to continue supporting 9/11 victims who need help today and those who may need it in the future.

"It is wonderful to have reached this point where we can announce these programs," said Goodman. "These grants will ensure that the unique and evolving needs of victims and their families are met in the communities where they live."

Mount Sinai’s $1.5 million grant will help the hospital expand its World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program*, which supports recovery workers dealing with ongoing mental and physical health disorders following their service at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan or the Staten Island Landfill where the debris was taken. The Mount Sinai program provides all treatment at no cost to participants.

"Many of those we are serving developed a wide range of mental and physical health injuries, and we are grateful to the Red Cross for providing this critically needed philanthropic funding to continue care," said Dr. Robin Herbert, Associate Professor at Mount Sinai and co-director of the WTC Health Effects Treatment Program. Many of the physical injuries include respiratory problems which can become chronic if not properly treated.

"Needs like these don’t wait," Goodman said. "These needs are imminent, and we are ready to put our funds to work to meet them."

Grants Available to Qualified Groups Nationwide

The first request for proposals (RFP) to apply for SRP grant funding is expected to be announced in the next month, with distribution of awards expected this fall. To carefully manage the grant application and review process, the Red Cross hired Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, an industry leader in managing all aspects of grant program creation and delivery.

According to Rockefeller President and CEO Melissa A. Berman, the grant program will issue RFPs over the next two years that focus on several priority areas, including mental health and wellness, treatment for physical injuries, social services, community-based recovery, and services for children and youth.

"The expertise of the Red Cross in caregiving will complement our expertise in grant making," Berman said. "A clear example of that strategy is the funding for the project at Mount Sinai."

Since its creation, Mount Sinai’s WTC Health Effects Program has provided more than 3,500 health services to the 800 people participating in the program. The SRP grant will allow coverage for 500 new patients, as well as the development of a satellite program office in the lower Hudson Valley, and expansion of existing offices in Manhattan and Queens.

Those eligible include workers involved in rescue and recovery, restoration of essential services and clean up/debris removal at either the World Trade Center site or the Staten Island landfill.

The program at Mt. Sinai is supported by research done with funding from the federal government. The resulting study of 12,000 WTC responders released in January 2003 found that more than half of the participants had persistent WTC-related injuries involving physical or mental health.

"This grant helps us continue to provide assistance to those who gave so selflessly," said Herbert.

Previous programs that have received SRP funding include a $1.2 million grant to the Trial Lawyers Care fund and a $200,000 grant to the National Center for Victims of Crime to help families understand the process and receive legal assistance to apply for the federal Victim’s Compensation Fund.

----------------------------------

*

In a 2003 study of 12,000 World Trade Center Respondents conducted by Mt. Sinai’s Center for Occupational & Environmental Medicine: 

75% suffered from upper-airway disorders such as sinusitis or laryngitis;

45% suffered from lower-airway disorders including asthma

42% suffered from psychological disorders including depression or post-traumatic stress disorder

18% suffered from musculoskeletal disorders including carpal tunnel syndrome or lumbar spine sprain or strain.

For more information visit http://www.wtcexams.org .