By Ian Smith

To many people, the image of a monkey’s face peering out from an astronaut’s helmet is comically absurd and more suitable for the cover of MAD magazine than any reputable academic journal or serious government publication. To others, pictures of terrified monkeys and chimpanzees strapped into spaceships are tragic artifacts of a less enlightened time.

But just when we think that we’ve left science fiction behind, it sneaks up from behind and bites us.

While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is no longer going to the bizarre lengths of actually sending monkeys into space, it is currently planning to fund another cruel and pointless experiment on this planet. The agency has announced that it will spend $1.75 million to fund an experiment in which up to 30 squirrel monkeys will be exposed to dangerous levels of space radiation.

If the experiment, which was submitted to NASA by Harvard animal experimenter Jack Bergman, moves forward, monkeys at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory will be blasted with a single harmful dose of radiation that is intended to crudely re-create the long-term exposure that astronauts may experience during extended trips to deep space. The monkeys would then be transported to Harvard’s McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., where the devastating physical and mental effects of this irradiation would be assessed by restraining the monkeys for behavioral tests each week, Monday through Friday, for at least four years.

Never mind that many decades of such studies—ended in the 1990s—were found to be unreliable and ineffective, showing scientists that monkeys aren’t good proxies for humans in space radiation studies. And never mind that the biological effects of a single, large dose of radiation aren’t comparable to the continuous, low-level exposure that astronauts experience during long missions in space. Apparently, NASA has extra cash—our tax dollars—to throw away.

For the monkeys, this is likely to mean brain tumors, blindness, brain damage, premature aging, skin damage, and even premature death. But the physical ailments, as bad as they are likely to be, are only part of the problem. In their natural rainforest homes, squirrel monkeys live in large social groups with as many as 500 members and traverse miles of treetops in a single day. They can live for up to 20 years.

At McLean Hospital, the monkeys will be housed singly in steel cages, isolated from their peers, and will struggle to cope with severe physical and mental distress that will ultimately cut their lives short. Nearly 90 percent of monkeys who are caged alone in laboratories show signs of severe psychological trauma such as frantic cage-circling, hair-pulling and self-mutilation. These symptoms are exacerbated by the frequency with which the monkeys will be ripped from their cages and forced to perform in experiments.

When PETA first learned of this study, we suspected that its ethical and scientific merits hadn’t been thoroughly considered. Now we’ve obtained documents that have confirmed our suspicions. NASA has apparently violated its own grant guidelines and the Code of Federal Regulations by agreeing to fund the controversial experiment before the animal experimentation oversight committee at Brookhaven National Laboratory had even assessed the ethical and scientific merits, as is required. When it eventually did approve the project—long after the funding was announced and other crucial deadlines had passed—the Brookhaven committee did so without any information about the study’s relevance to human health, its likely harm to the animals involved and other fundamental details. By NASA’s own standards, it appears that this experiment should have been disqualified from consideration.

We expected better from an agency that is responsible for the dazzling images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. These images reveal so much about our place in the universe. They demand a certain degree of modesty on our part. Humans are but one species on one planet in a universe that is inconceivably large. Those who lead NASA and our nation in space exploration know this better than anyone. Yet they have agreed to take part in the callous bullying of animals with whom we share this planet—to take them from their homes, lock them in cages and conduct experiments on them that cause severe physical and mental trauma. It would seem they haven’t learned the most important lesson that the universe offers.

Ian Smith is a research associate in People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) Laboratory Investigations Department.

By Jack Hoffman

Three things recently happened that may have put the final nail in the coffin of what was once known as America’s democracy.

It involved a Supreme Court case brought by an obscure conservative political group. The group versus The Federal Election Commission. Ironically, it involved the use of raising corporate money by showing a documentary that highlights Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run. The conservative group believed that the use of corporate money fell within their First Amendment rights and freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court’s majority decision of 5 to 4 is easy to figure out. To quote the majority: “A corporation has the same rights as an individual.”

Wait a sec! Did I miss something in my reading of the First Amendment? A separate entity, yes, but the same rights as an individual?! You have got to be kidding me!!!

OK, so let’s take this for a stretch. The Court never ruled that foreign corporations could have the same rights as American corporations. Excuse me. Are there any more American corporations that are subject to the same taxes as the foreign corporations? How about this one? The Oil Company of Saudi Arabia, The Venezuelan Oil Company.

My conservative friends won’t like that one!

How about Toyota, the embattled Japanese car manufacturer and an electronic manufacturer? I got a good one - Pemex. The Mexican Oil company mostly funded by dirty money through the Bank of Mexico, another washing machine for drug money. All of the former and latter could in fact fund the next US presidential campaign!

Didn’t I use this phrase in my InCity Times column, several issues ago? The United Corporate States or The Corporate States of America. It was in reference to the US government bailing out the failing banks.

Recently, Errole Southers, probably the most qualified appointment for chairman of TSA resigns after having his nomination held up by one senator - Jim De Mint, Republican South Carolina. One senator held up the nomination of one of the better nominations of President Barack Obama. Why? It seems Mr. Southers, a former FBI Special Agent and more, was in favor of unionizing TSA! Mr. De Mint wanted nothing to do with that! I got news for him. The President can, by emergency decree, call off a strike if it’s in the best interests of the US government. One Senator versus a very highly qualified Afro American. And 60 other Senators. One rascist Senator that believes if you feed people like Mr. Southers lots of food you will breed more. Now I may have gotten the quote a wee bit off but you get the point.

Back to the Supreme Court decision. To all my liberal friends who think Congress can change this I say Bull Shit! The Supreme Court ruled on a constitutional issue. And Congress cannot override the Supreme Court’s constitutional ruling. Only by changing the US Constitution can that happen.

On Friday Afternoon Mr. Southers said screw them all and withdrew his name for nomination. Just think - he didn’t even breed horses!

One last fact: In 1960, Congress filibustered 25% of bills brought forth. Since 2009 Congress has filibustered 75% of all bills brought forth by Democrats.

Too bad the Democrats never had a Tom De Lay.

By Jack Hoffman

In just days since the abortive attempt by the 23-year-old Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device onboard Northwest Flight 253, information surfaced that indicated a quintessential, breakdown of our intelligence and security network. Evidence has shown it to be extraordinary and shocking but not surprising in both its character and scale - especially after the 9/11 debacle.

Should we be shocked?

So what has happened with the preliminary findings from the time of the bombing attempt and now? How Umar put this all together. The dildo detonator and explosive powder stitched in his underwear. A powder that should have been detected by the Amsterdam security police, what with the new body scanners supplied by the United States. And the frightening news Umar trained with another twenty jihadist ready to go.

Again the mainstream media has found some good fodder with which to entertain the listeners. Umar wasn’t even in the newspapers or talked about.

Our country was consumed with the news of a new book, Game Change, by Mark Halperin and John Heinemann - both reporters from Newsweek and both guys considered highly credible by both the left and the right. I’ve just started the book and will review it later. Already the characterization of all the politicians involved in election 2008 and what happened is being bandied around by the pundits from both sides of the aisle. “Insanity at best” from The Daily Beast. Politico has called it a “the freak show” - “Politicians gone crazy.”

Mainly the book is about the gang from Washington that couldn’t shoot straight. Reading some of the book’s “highlights” makes you wonder just how America could ever stop someone like Umar! The stories of vice presidential candidate and now TV starlette Sarah Palin — stories most of us already knew but were of no concern to the voters … . She saw herself as just what this country needed! I got news for them: Stupidity we didn’t need! We already have plenty of that! Tiger is in a sex rehab clinic, “Amercan Idol” is losing Simon.

Umar is bigger than an attempted bombing!

I want to spend more time on Afghanistan and why we need to be there! Are we doing it the right way this time? Meaning, do we have some understanding of the problems that exist in that part of the world? PBS’ Frontline, in a two-part documentary, tried to give us some background and in the end still left me spinning and saying to myself: Do we have a big problem over there?

Yeman has become a new camp for Al-queda. Somalia has been taken over by Al-queda supporters. America is supplying weapons to Pakistani intelligence, which eventually end up in the hands of the Taliban fighters.

America needs its own nation building and an honest media to deal with the truth - information not censored by sponsors.

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The heath care crisis - mine!

When I turned 65 years old, I signed up for Medicare Part 1 and Part 2. Part 1 costs people nothing. Part 2 costs about $150, which is deducted from my monthly Social Security check. I didn’t take it all that seriously, since my wife Joan was dealing with that problem.

What I needed to augment the two parts was a Part 3 HMO to fill in for what wasn’t included in the first two parts! Part 3 cost me $87 per year. Three months into this plan I received an increase of $121 per year for the 2009 period from the HMO. Part 2 had a minimal increase. This year I received an increase to Part 3. I would now pay $172 per month.

Medicare costs are predicated on the CPI - Consumer Price Index. So this year that CPI was 0. We seniors received no Social Security increase and no increase in our Medicare costs. HMOs and insurance companies base their cost on their expenses for the year. For all we know, someone has to pay the billions of bucks for their lobbying!

All of the above costs do not include the co-pays for my prescriptions: $15 and $10 for office visits and $50 for visits to the hospital emergency room.

So now Medicare, for the 3 parts, is costing me almost $6,000 per year! My co-pays have exceeded $5,000. Meaning I will pay well in excess of $11,000 to $12,000 per year for my healthcare. Here is a beauty: the new co-pay cost for an ambulance trip is $150 per trip. The ambulance company gets $140 reimbursement and I pay them another $150 co-pay. I’m still adding it all up! My recent medical costs for all co-pays and insurance costs will exceed $25,000!

So you wonder. How can we pay for this, as these costs increase at a disproportionate amount of money greater than our income. If you have no insurance, your cost would be double what I paid —somewhere close to $50,000!!!

I tell the story only to remind you that Tonight host Jay Leno may be important and fun to some. But we need to understand and speak out and act on these increases in health costs, bank costs and more.

America is drowning in debt. Our problems are bi-partisan. Let’s skip the insults to our intelligence and start working together!

That’s a good starter.

By film maker Michael Moore

Dear President Obama,

I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.

I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.

I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that’s been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.

And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don’t need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do. Click to continue »

By Rosalie Tirella

Watching the Worcester City Council meeting Tuesday nights is like watching the battle of the mini-me’s. (Mostly) third-rate characters, with not a whole lot to contribute, jostling for #1 spot - mayor of Worcester. (not such a big deal, in most folks’ opinion)

So Kate Toomey ran for mayor last election cycle - and lost - big time. She came behind Konnie Lukes, former mayor of Worcester and, of course, Joe O’Brien, current mayor of Wormtown. Both these candidates - at least in voters’ eyes - seemed more mayoral than Toomey. Toomey, while getting lots of votes for City Council, doesn’t seem like she’s ever gonna be endorsed as mayor by Worcesterites. They just don’t see her as mayor.

That is her problem to fix. Click to continue »

By Debbie Leahy

SeaWorld’s damage control team is in overdrive following the tragic death of a trainer who was attacked by one of the theme park’s captive orcas. But if SeaWorld held news conferences every time an animal died at its facilities, people would be staying away in droves. SeaWorld, which owns most of the captive orcas and bottlenose dolphins in the U.S., has one of the worst animal care records in the country.

Twenty-one orcas died in U.S. SeaWorld facilities between 1986 and 2008 — an average of nearly one each year for 22 years. Their deaths were caused by a range of factors, including severe trauma, intestinal gangrene, acute hemorrhagic pneumonia, pulmonary abscesses, chronic kidney disease, chronic cardiovascular failure, septicemia and influenza. In some cases, the cause of death could not even be determined, but it is clear that none of these animals died of old age. Dozens of bottlenose dolphins have also died at SeaWorld. Marine mammals are literally dying to entertain you.

Ocean animals inhabit vast, fascinating and complex worlds. Orcas are intelligent predators who work cooperatively in search of food. They share intricate relationships and swim as much as 100 miles every day. At SeaWorld, orcas perform circus-type tricks for food; swim endless circles in small, barren concrete tanks; and live far short of the 60-year maximum life span that orcas enjoy in the wild. Their worlds have been reduced from fathoms to gallons. Click to continue »

By Ingrid E. Newkirk

This month, HBO premiered an original biopic starring Claire Danes about an extraordinary person, Dr. Temple Grandin. As a young woman, Grandin struggled with the isolating challenges of autism at a time when this disorder was almost a total mystery. Today she is one of the best known advocates for autism education.

But I applaud Dr. Grandin for another reason, one that has angered some people who work in animal protection: I admire her work in the field of humane animal slaughter. PETA would prefer, of course, that no animals be killed for food, but we won’t ignore the horrors of factory farms and slaughterhouses just because we wish that they didn’t exist.

Throughout her career as an animal-science professor at Colorado State University and a consultant to the American Meat Institute, Grandin has worked to improve animal-handling systems at slaughterhouses—markedly decreasing, although never able to stop completely, the amount of fear and pain that animals experience. Click to continue »

By Distrcit 4 City Councilor Barbara Haller

A day rarely goes by without my thinking and remembering Janice Nadeau. Her legacy of public service inspires me to keep plugging to find those windows of opportunity to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative” in our City, and especially Worcester’s District 4.

Janice was an activist long before she was District 4’s first councilor. She knew first hand of the frustration that always seems come with working with elected officials and government administrations. She also knew first hand about financial struggles and the never-ending challenges to raising a family. She knew about blight, job loss, and cars that won’t start. And boy, did she know how to inspire hope and bring people together.

Through her excellent activist work with Fair Share she came to realize, like Tip O’Neil, that all politics is local. For Janice this didn’t mean that hopes for a political career depended on fixing people’s pot holes and sidewalks or getting someone’s kid into a particular school (although she understood this for sure). For Janice this meant that for her agenda of neighborhood respect and protection she (or someone close to her) needed to be elected to government power. Janice realized that access to elected officials and having one or two that would roll up their sleeves and actually work with you - at least on some issues – was critical to real progress. Click to continue »

By Bill Turgeon

The Worcester Sports Foundation has named Mr. Robert “the Hammer” Ricci its 2009 “Person of the Year.” The forty year-old Ricci, a Worcester native and long time youth sports supporter was chosen for the honor due to his unwavering commitment to the Foundation this past year and his life-long involvement with building youth character through athletics.

Ricci grew up in Worcester near Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He fondly recalls spending his youth “playing touch football over at WPI or basketball at Newton Square.” He played varsity football for Doherty High School and baseball for the West Side Senior Ruth team, where he was a standout first-basemen. He went on to college at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy for two years before returning to the city to earn a degree in Electrical Engineering from WPI. Click to continue »

editor’s note: In light of yesterday’s news (whale drowns trainer), I thought it would be good to run this piece on dolphins.

By Jennifer O’Connor

Scientists at Emory University recently determined that the cognitive capacity of dolphins is second only to that of humans and that the brain cortex of dolphins has the same complicated folds associated with human intelligence. A prominent ethicist believes that dolphins should be given the same moral standing as humans. We know that dolphins have distinct personalities, can recognize themselves in mirrors and can think about the future.

Yet dolphins are still captured from the wild to be put on display in aquariums, held captive in theme parks and used in “swim-with” programs. This must stop.

In their rightful ocean home, dolphins inhabit vast, fascinating and complex worlds. They establish close, cooperative and long-standing relationships. They live in large, intricate social groups, swim together in family pods and can cover up to 100 miles a day. Dolphins communicate with each other through whistles and body language, and when they are injured or dying, other dolphins will come to their aid, supporting them at the water’s surface so that they can breathe. However, in tanks, their worlds are reduced to gallons instead of fathoms. Click to continue »