archived: 4 - 10 Jul, 2004         Back                 Next

                        TPJ’S TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT OF THE WEEK

TPJ’s award this week goes to Lani Frank, 49, of Berwyn, Pennsylvania.  After viewing Fahrenheit 911, Ms. Frank started passing out voter registration forms in a public parking lot.  This innocuous activity attracted the police.

State police said they got a call reporting a disturbance. When troopers showed up at the cinema, just off Route 30 in East Caln Township, Frank had moved from the theater lobby to the parking lot.

"She continuously refused to leave the area and continued to cause a disturbance and left the troopers no choice but to arrest her," Cpl. Lawrence Wallick said.

Police charged Frank with disorderly conduct, a summary violation akin to a traffic citation.

Frank said she would fight the citation. Frank, who said she was acting as an individual and not as a representative of the Democratic Party, denied causing any disturbance.

"All I was doing was offering a convenient way to acquire a government voter registration form," she said. "I made no mention of candidate, of party, of how they should vote."

She said she had questioned the troopers' authority to stop her from handing out the cards in a public parking lot and refused to leave when asked because she believed she had the right to be there. – Philadelphia Inquirer  

Standing up for one’s rights is truly patriotic.  Ms. Frank’s civil disobedience in the face of arrest merits TPJ’s award.

                        AMERICA’S WANE?

For most of our lives, America has been a “super power.”  If you are under 30 years of age, America has largely been the only “super power” in the world.  Experts are warning that America’s ascendancy may be on the wane.

The transfer of power from West to East is gathering pace and soon will dramatically change the context for dealing with international challenges -- as well as the challenges themselves. Many in the West are already aware of Asia's growing strength. This awareness, however, has not yet been translated into preparedness. And therein lies a danger: that Western countries will repeat their past mistakes.

Major shifts of power between states, not to mention regions, occur infrequently and are rarely peaceful. In the early twentieth century, the imperial order and the aspiring states of Germany and Japan failed to adjust to each other. The conflict that resulted devastated large parts of the globe.

Today, the transformation of the international system will be even bigger and will require the assimilation of markedly different political and cultural traditions. This time, the populous states of Asia are the aspirants seeking to play a greater role. Like Japan and Germany back then, these rising powers are nationalistic, seek redress of past grievances, and want to claim their place in the sun. Asia's growing economic power is translating into greater political and military power, thus increasing the potential damage of conflicts. Within the region, the flash points for hostilities -- Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and divided Kashmir -- have defied peaceful resolution. Any of them could explode into large-scale warfare that would make the current Middle East confrontations seem like police operations. In short, the stakes in Asia are huge and will challenge the West's adaptability.

Today, China is the most obvious power on the rise. But it is not alone: India and other Asian states now boast growth rates that could outstrip those of major Western countries for decades to come. China's economy is growing at more than nine percent annually, India's at eight percent, and the Southeast Asian "tigers" have recovered from the 1997 financial crisis and resumed their march forward. China's economy is expected to be double the size of Germany's by 2010 and to overtake Japan's, currently the world's second largest, by 2020. If India sustains a six percent growth rate for 50 years, as some financial analysts think possible, it will equal or overtake China in that time. – Foreign Affairs

This article is an excellent read!  It raises possibilities that every American should be considering.  In its simplest expression, America should be taking great care of how it treats other nations as to how we will be treated should they too become “super powers.”

                        THANK BUSH

 TPJ has featured a plethora of articles on Bush’s dogged determination to weaken environmental controls.  (See TPJ’s Bush Watch today for evidence that Bush is ignoring science in this regard.)  Proof of the effect of Bush’s policy is starting to surface:

Nearly 100 million people live in areas that the Environmental Protection Agency says must clean high levels of soot from the air. 

Most of the 243 counties named in an EPA report released Tuesday are near major cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta and Pittsburgh. This is the first time the EPA has specified which cities must reduce soot, a contributor to heart and lung disease.

"There is nothing we can accomplish that will improve the health of our air more than decreasing the concentration of (fine soot)," EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt said. "This is a highly significant contributor to sickness and premature death." (Related: California farmers worry about new air quality rules) – USA Today

To determine if your county is on the list click on this hyperlink and follow the instructions: -- EPA

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Last Update: 03/23/2006