GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





BCD Newsletter

Newsletter went in the mail yesterday. If you do not get yours please let us know. Keeping a mailing list up to date is a big job. Don’t assume anything. Let us know. If you have suggestions let us know also.





TDW Meeting

This Saturday, October 20
11:30 a.m.
CJ’s BBQ at the Bend in Bryan
You may eat at the Buffet or just come

Marcia Mainord, President of the state TDW will be the speaker
There will also be opportunities to sign up for:
-- Habitat lunches on October 27
-- Primary election worker, March 4, 2007
-- Open precinct chairs-not many but a few

Bring a friend and come.
Men welcome too.





Women are needed to run for office.(men, too)

School Board, City Council, State Senator(2010), etc. TDW will train you. It is good training. See letter from Marcia Mainord below.

To sign up visit www.tdw.org





TDW Campaign School



From: Marcia Mainord [mailto:mmainord@academicplanet.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 8:10 AM
To: mmainord@academicplanet.com
Subject: TDW Campaign School

Greetings!

TDW's Campaign School is less than two weeks away. We have a great group of presenters that will not only motivate, but give information that is so vital to any candidate or campaign worker. Please make an effort to get your local people involved and signed up for this school.

I can't emphasize enough the importance of this training.

Thanks.

Marcia Mainord
President, TDW





Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Dear Friends, the Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons for November are now online: (teacher cartoons, also)

http://solidarity.com/hkcartoons/





How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs;

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished;

7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark;

8. One to viciously smear #7;

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;

10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.





National Park Service may acquire Christmas Mountains
Sale of public land to private interests may be thwarted

By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, October 13, 2007

The National Park Service is interested in acquiring the piece of land at the center of a controversial sale by the state and adding it to Big Bend National Park.

But the General Land Office, which controls the sale, appears unwilling to delay, largely because it wants to ensure that hunters have access to the land.

The National Park Service, which had passed on the land, sent a letter to the General Land Office on Friday saying that it is interested in acquiring the Christmas Mountains tract, about 9,269 acres to the northwest of Big Bend.

The state had been collecting bids for the sale of the land, which could happen as early as Nov. 6.

"The National Park Service would like to re-evaluate the feasibility of adding the Christmas Mountains to the park and requests that you postpone the sale until we have time to finish our evaluation," William E. Wellman, the superintendent of Big Bend National Park, wrote in a letter Friday.

The General Land Office had decided to sell the property because it said it could not properly manage it.

The deed with which the land was donated to the state holds that the land office can sell the property only after offering it to the National Park Service or the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

But the General Land Office is unwilling to sell the property if no hunting is allowed on it, said Jim Suydam, a spokesman for the office. (The National Park Service prohibits hunting in its parks.)

"Commissioner Patterson's message to Superintendent Wellman was simple: No hunting, no firearms, no deal," Suydam said.

"We're not looking at changing park policy," said Wellman.

The sale, which was postponed after a technical glitch (the top bid at the time was $652,000, or about $70 an acre), has been fraught.

Outraged conservation groups said putting the land up for sale flouted the intention of the original donors, the Conservation Fund and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, to keep the land in public hands.

Selling the Christmas Mountains land "sends the wrong signal to philanthropic people who are out there trying to support land conservation in Texas," said James H. King, the West Texas program director of the Nature Conservancy.

In particular, the land office has invited the wrath of the Pittsburgh- based Mellon Foundation. The foundation has given 3.6 million acres in all 50 states, from Civil War battlefields to wildlife wetlands.

Its reach runs all the way to Texas, where it has given the state the 40,000-acre Chinati mountain range in West Texas, as well as smaller gifts.

But the sale of the Christmas Mountains tract appears to have jeopardized relations between the state and the foundation.

If the land sale goes through "the state of Texas (should) not look to the R.K. Mellon Foundation for any future help," Mike Watson, an officer with the Richard King Mellon Foundation, wrote in a July e-mail to several people involved in conservation in Texas.

Selling the land "would have a chilling effect on the willingness (of conservation groups) to work with public agencies in the future," said Larry Selzer, president of the Conservation Fund. He said acquisition of the property by the National Park Service would be a "wonderful outcome."

"If this gets straightened out, there won't be any lasting effect," said Bruce Babbitt, a former interior secretary. "The only logical outcome now is to make sure the donors' intent is honored and this land is put in permanent protection without being paid for twice."

asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643





Stop hunting for buyers for Christmas Mountains

By The Editorial Board, Austin American-Statesman
Monday, October 15, 2007, 02:29 PM

Suddenly, the National Park Service expresses serious interest in acquiring the Christmas Mountains land in West Texas, near Big Bend National Park. You might think the cavalry is coming to the rescue of almost 10,000 acres of mostly unspoiled wilderness before it is sold into private hands.

But you wouldn’t be Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who sees only a threat: Not only is hunting banned in national parks, he says, there is an “unconstitutional” ban on anyone carrying a loaded weapon in a park.

To spare Texans the outrage of going unarmed onto land that they don’t even have access to now, the commissioner still intends to sell the Christmas Mountains to a private owner - preferably one who will allow hunting.

Furthermore, he said, the Christmas Mountains area is so wild - narcotics traffickers, for example - that no future visitor should be barred from carrying a weapon for self-defense.

Or as the commissioner neatly sums up his position: “No hunting, no firearms, no deal.”

A brief review: In 1991 the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Conservation Fund gave the people of Texas 9,269 acres in West Texas, just northwest of Big Bend National Park. The gift came with a considerable list of restraints on its use to keep it in its wild, natural condition. The hope was that the land would be turned over to the Texas Departments of Parks and Wildlife or to the National Park Service for permanent conservation.

But both the state and federal park departments declined, apparently mostly for budget reasons, and Patterson decided that the only way to save the land was to sell it. The land can’t be developed, so the likeliest buyers are wealthy individuals who could make some limited, private use of it - like hunting. The initial round of bids was rejected because of a map error, but a second round is scheduled for opening on Nov. 6.

Last week, though, Superintendent William Wellman of Big Bend National Park asked Patterson for more time for the National Park Service to reconsider acquisition of the Christmas Mountains, which he said “would be an appropriate addition” to the Big Bend park.

Patterson did not welcome the request, though he said a winning bidder wouldn’t necessarily be chosen next month.

Though Patterson insists he will not surrender 10,000 acres in West Texas that might be used by some hunters, there is in fact no hunting there now.

“Nobody’s hunting it now because there’s really no species to hunt,” Patterson told us on Monday. Several weeks ago, though, Patterson was arguing that it was important to sell this land into private hands to put a stop to invasive species - and poaching.

Patterson said the conservation easements on the land are so strict, and the original donors who hold them so strict about enforcement, that the land itself would be best off in the hands of a private owner motivated to conserve it (and, apparently most critically, to hunt on it). Kept in public hands, he said, the public will have little practical access to it.

Wellman, though, said in a telephone interview Monday that the restrictions “are not a barrier to the type of use that we envision, which would almost be wilderness-like use - hiking, camping, no permanent structures.” And no hunting.

The superintendent said he would need six months or so to determine if the land could be acquired.

Patterson should cancel the current round of bids and give the National Park Service the time it needs. The public interest requires it.





OPEN LETTER: Muslims Seek Cooperation With Christians as a Step Toward Peace

From Der Spiegel

By Neil MacFarquhar

In a 29-page letter, representatives of many facets of Muslim life have petitioned their Christian counterparts to help find steps to be taken toward erasing the misunderstandings about each other that often lead to violence.

Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock is sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. An open letter by Muslim leaders asks Christians to find common ground and understanding.

Scores of Muslim clerics, theologians and academics issued an open letter yesterday to all Christian leaders saying the two religions need to work more closely together, given that they share the basic principles of worshiping one God and loving thy neighbor.

In sweeping terms, the letter notes that 55 percent of the world's population is either Christian or Muslim, "making the relationship between these two religious communities the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world."

The letter is being seen as an effort to tackle the strained relations between the two faiths as well as to address the widespread perception in the West that moderate Muslims are mute about violence. The letter notably lacks signatures from key figures in the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia. The sect's emphasis on shunning non-Muslims is often considered a root of violence toward the West.

But experts consider the letter an important step toward getting moderates on both sides to overcome a tradition of hostility.

"You have to start somewhere, and you are not going to start with harmony on either side," said R. Scott Appleby, a religious historian at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on Roman Catholic-Islamic relations. "Among the Muslim and Christian peoples of the world, the middle-level leaders are hungry for movement in this direction because people are losing their lives every day in its absence."

The letter, issued to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan this week, is in part another response from the Muslim world to a speech made by Pope Benedict XVI in his hometown, Regensburg, Germany, in September 2006, in which he suggested that Islam is a religion of violence. He later issued a rare personal apology for offending Muslims.

The pope is the first of some 25 Christian figures addressed specifically in the 29-page letter, titled "A Common Word Between Us and You."

The letter quotes the Koran and the Bible, particularly the New Testament, to illustrate how their basic principles mirror each other. It says the Prophet Muhammad's stance was perhaps inspired by the Bible.

The letter notes that there are differences between the religions and that Islam teaches its faithful to resist those who attack them, but it concludes that the world's two largest faiths should compete only "in righteousness and good works."

Among the 138 signatories were senior theologians from around the world, including Sheik Ali Gomaa, the grand mufti of Egypt and hence the top Sunni Muslim figure there, as well as about a dozen other grand muftis. Ayatollah Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, a Shiite Muslim from Iran, also signed.

The consensus was put together mostly by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, founded by Prince Hassan bin Talal. Scholars said that the emphasis on Koranic texts made possible the tricky business of getting signatories from a wide range of sects.

"Terrorists don't have the right to speak for Islam, that is the point that is urgent for the Muslim world to get across," said Timothy Winter, a lecturer in Islam at Cambridge University and a convert to the faith who was among the signatories. The letter is an effort to overcome the difficulty of finding one voice to speak for Islam because of its diffuse hierarchy, Mr. Winter said.

The letter was welcomed by various leaders and institutions, including the Baptist World Alliance and the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury. There was no immediate reaction from the Vatican. Pope Benedict recently re-established an office for interfaith dialogue that he had shuttered, but his emphasis has been on concrete actions like protecting Christian minorities in Muslim lands.

Some analysts see the letter as being addressed as much to Muslims as Christians, although the chances of it influencing radicals is considered slim. Radicals often interpret "love thy neighbor" as help thy neighbor find Islam, said Prof. Muqtedar Khan, director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware.

In addition, politics, not theology, shape anti-Western attitudes among Muslims, Professor Khan said. "They have a problem with the occupation of Iraq, with the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians; it's not about Christianity."





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America