News
That Troubles!
From the Desk of Judicial
Watch President Tom Fitton:
Dear Friends and Supporters:
April 22, 2005
Judicial Watch recently obtained a shocking,
declassified “Secret” FBI report regarding the flight of Saudi Nationals,
including members of the bin Laden family, in the hours and days after the
terrorist attacks of 9/11 – apparently with the permission and assistance of the
U.S. government. The report, entitled: “Response to October 2003 Vanity Fair
Article,” was replete with redactions, which is not altogether unusual,
especially for the super-secretive Bush administration. But what is incredible
about this report is the name of one individual being protected by the FBI:
Osama bin Laden! The FBI chose to invoke Exemption 6 under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) law, which permits the government to withhold all
information about individuals in “personnel and medical files and similar files”
when the disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy.” The document cited publicly available news
articles from sources such as The Washington Post and Associated Press which
provided Judicial Watch with the clues to “fill in the blanks.” (Perhaps the FBI
did not plan on any organization doing the legwork to find out the truth behind
the redactions, but JW lawyers got right to the task.) Are you as dumbfounded as
I am? Why would the U.S. government place the privacy rights of Osama bin Laden
ahead of the public’s right to know what happened in the days after the worst
terrorist attack in U.S. history? Personally, I cannot imagine a greater insult
to the American people, especially those whose loved ones were murdered that
day. Rest assured, Judicial Watch will continue to investigate this matter
thoroughly and get to the bottom of this disturbing, and baffling, matter.
Musicians
My Jah! A Hassidic Reggae star!
Matisyahu -- a Hassidic Jew -- is taking the Reggae world by storm. Ya mon!
Move over, Mozart! Israeli-American musical prodigy, 12, wows the world.
My Jah! A Hassidic Reggae star!
By israelinsider.com staff and partners April 21, 2005
From Brooklyn, to the Bible, to the Big stage: Matisyau is going places.
At a recent sold-out concert at a New York City club, Matisyahu emerged onstage
in the black pants, white shirt, and yarmulke uniform to which all male Hasids
conform. Against a backdrop depicting the star of David, the long-bearded
Matisyahu looked more rabbi than a Reggae artist.
But as his band began to play intoxicating rhythms, Matisyahu began to groove
with the beat, singing and chanting in a Caribbean lilt so convincing one might
think he was island-born.
Halfway through the first song, the crowd -- which included Jewish kids,
Birkenstock-type music fanatics and Afro-Jamaicans -- was jumping up and down to
the beat with Matisyahu, who held his hand to his head in an effort to keep his
yarmulke from falling off.
At age 17, he left home to follow jambands like Phish and search for a purpose
in life. Even then, he says he knew there was a spiritual being that guided him:
"I would always feel that G-d was with me."
"There is a lot of very good in the music in the music business, and there is a
lot of very bad, and it is very rare to find something truly great and
extraordinary. We have found that in Matisyahu," says Larry Miller, founder of
Or Music, which released Matisyahu's "Live at Stubb's" album on Tuesday with
jdub records, which originally signed the singer. (Matisyahu's first album,
"Shake Off the Dust ... Arise," was released last year.)
Extraordinary may be the best way to describe how Matthew Miller transformed
into Matisyahu.
Though Miller was Jewish, he was not born into the ultraconservative Jewish
branch of Hasidism. Growing up in the New York City suburb of White Plains,
Miller resisted any specific religious doctrine.
By the time he was a teen, he was a slacking off in school and squabbling with
his parents. At age 17, he left home to follow jambands like Phish and search
for a purpose in life. Even then, he says he knew there was a spiritual being
that guided him: "I would always feel that G-d was with me."
Eventually, he finished his high school studies at a wilderness school in Oregon
for troubled teens, returned to New York and studied arts at the New School
University. It was around that time he also became entranced with the music of
Reggae stars like Capelton, Sizzla and Buju Banton.
"That's what really inspired me the most, the message and the method that I
connected to," says Matisyahu, 25. "The message was like some kind of connecting
to your roots, going against the mainstream flow, searching for truth, believing
in G-d and the unity of the world and the universe, and just a certain strength,
a certain passion and a certain fire."
He began playing in bands and making demos.
At the same time, he became entranced with Judaism, specifically the
Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidism. Eventually, he abandoned the secular
lifestyle, became a member, and studied for two years in a yeshiva. At that
time, he stopped listening to music, concentrated on his studies and got
married. But after he finished his studies, the desire to perform music,
specifically Reggae, remained.
Still, he had hurdles before he could embark on a singing career --
specifically, his religious advisers, who were bewildered by his plans.
"The rabbis at first were like, 'You're in yeshiva -- why would you want to go
to these clubs and go to these bars and go back to this lifestyle that you used
to be a part of?"' he recalls.
It only took one performance for a group of young Hasidic boys at a community
center, to win his rabbis over.
"I closed my eyes and sang the song, and afterwards I looked up, the two rabbis
from the yeshiva were right next to me, and I looked up at them and they like
had huge smiles," he says. "Ever since then, they got it, and the whole
community is totally supportive."
He's since gained plenty of attention for his late-night TV performances on
shows like "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and even reggae aficionados have given him the
seal of authenticity -- he's the only white act slated to perform at an annual
reggae event this summer on New York's Randalls Island.
"His style, you can't put it into a single category. He falls into like three
different categories," says Joel Chin, the director of A&R at VP Records, which
has made reggae stars out of artists like Sean Paul and Beenie Man. "I would
love to hear some more stuff from him to hear how diverse he can be."
"He sticks to his virtues," says D'niscio Brooks, an organizer of New York's
massive summer Reggae Carifest, which Matisyahu will headline. "When I first
heard Matisyahu, I was taken aback, just at the thought of a Hasidic Jew doing
reggae . . . but he's so authentic."
"He can really rip," agrees hip-hop producer and bassist Yossi Fine (David
Bowie, Me'Shell Ndege-Ocello), who is himself part Israeli and Afro-Jamaican
Jew. "He's extremely fierce, jumping around the stage. The only difference
between him and a Jamaican rapper is that he takes the lyrics from the Bible
instead of from Rasta. He changes 'Jah' to 'Hashem' [Hebrew for G-d]."
Besides his unique delivery -- which combines hip-hop beat-boxing and reggae
chanting and singing -- Matisyahu's music references spirituality and Judaism
heavily. One of his song titles is "Tzama L'cha Nafshi (Psalm 63:2-3)."
But Miller says he's not trying to convert anyone -- he just wants people to
feel the same spiritual high that his religion, and his music, have given him.
"I'm just trying to put my music out there, and at the end of the day, I hope
people take away from it what I took away from music growing up, that it gave me
a sense of strength and hope and peace, and stability and inspiration."
The AP contributed to this report.
GM
Industry Puts Human Gene Into Rice
By
Geoffrey Lean
Environment
Editor 24 April 2005 Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into
food crops in a dramatic extension of genetic modification. The move, which is
causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations
that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy
surrounding it to new heights. Even before this development, many people,
including Prince Charles, have opposed the technology on the grounds that it is
playing God by creating unnatural combinations of living things.
Environmentalists say that no one will want to eat the partially human-derived
food because it will smack of cannibalism. But supporters say that the
controversial new departure presents no ethical problems and could bring
environmental benefits. In the first modification of its kind, Japanese
researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to
digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named
CPY2B6, which is particularly good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the
body. Present GM crops are modified with genes from bacteria to make them
tolerate herbicides, so that they are not harmed when fields are sprayed to kill
weeds. But most of them are only able to deal with a single herbicide, which
means that it has to be used over and over again, allowing weeds to build up
resistance to it. But the researchers at the National Institute of
Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, have found that adding the
human touch gave the rice immunity to 13 different herbicides. This would mean
that weeds could be kept down by constantly changing the chemicals used.
Supporting scientists say that the gene could also help to beat pollution.
Professor Richard Meilan of Purdue University in Indiana, who has worked with a
similar gene from rabbits, says that plants modified with it could "clean up
toxins" from contaminated land. They might even destroy them so effectively that
crops grown on the polluted soil could be fit to eat. But he and other
scientists caution that if the gene were to escape to wild relatives of the rice
it could create particularly vicious superweeds that were resistant to a wide
range of herbicides. He adds: "I do not have any ethical issue with using human
genes to engineer plants", dismissing talk of "Frankenstein foods" as "rubbish".
He believes that that European opposition to GM crops and food is fuelled by
agricultural protectionism. But Sue Mayer, director of GeneWatch UK, said
yesterday: "I don't think that anyone will want to buy this rice. People have
already expressed disgust about using human genes, and already feel that their
concerns are being ignored by the biotech industry. This will just undermine
their confidence even more." Pete Riley, director of the anti-GM pressure group
Five Year Freeze, said: "I am not surprised by this. "The industry is capable of
anything and this development certainly smacks of Frankenstein."
