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The Human Cost

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Monday, June 13, 2005

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, lawyer Kenneth Feinberg was chosen to distribute to $7 billion to more than 5,000 survivors and loved ones of the deceased. It wasn’t just a question of fairness, he says, but of measuring the value of human life.

The Editor Was a Lobbyist

Andrew Revkin, New York Times reporter
-explains how a former industry lobbyist got to alter an official report on climate change
» "Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming" (The New York Times)

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From Freedom Fries to Jones' Retreat

Terence Samuel chief congressional correspondent for US News & World
- says support for the war in Iraq is eroding in Congress
» US News and World Report

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White Noise

Bakari Kitwana author,Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wangstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America (Basic Civitas Books, 2005)
- on the deeper issues of white music fans liking hip-hop
» Basic Book

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Plan B

Jay Kriegel Executive Director of NYC2012
- thinks he has found another place for an Olympic stadium
» NYC 2012

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Olympic Feat

Ed Hula editor of Around the Rings a weekly source of independent news and information on the Olympic movement
- on the changing NYC Olympic bid
» Around the Rings
and
Errol Louis Columnist for the Daily News
- on the Mayoral ...

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Life's Worth

Kenneth R. Feinberg lawyer, former prosecutor and former Director of the Fund to compensate victims of 9/11 and author, What is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11 (PublicAffairs, 2005)
- on compensating the victims of September 11th

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Feinberg Says No More

Just one day before his WNYC interview, 9/11 Victims' Compensation Fund master Kenneth Feinberg published a must-read opinion piece in the Star-Ledger, arguing, among other things, that:

>the victims of future terror attacks probably should not be compensated by the federal government

>if compensation is given after future terror attacks, it should be a flat rate for every victim, not calibrated to projected future earnings

>9/11 was a truly exceptional circumstance, different even from the 1998 Africa bombings and the Oklahoma City bombing, and the government's response should not serve as a precedent

Your thoughts:

As a person who filed a claim for my brother who lost his wife, I found the program very disturbing. It was run well, but it paid my brother, a banker, a lot of money that he did not need. There are a lot of people and businesses that actually do need help.
-Anonymous in Queens

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