What Muslims are Really Thinking

Zogby announces special release of years of extensive polling among Muslim Americans at www.zogby.com

Zogby International’s extensive and groundbreaking survey work of Muslim Americans is now available at www.zogby.com, highlighting dramatic changes in the mindset of this important demographic group in the years since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The trends discovered by a series of Zogby polls over time show that Muslims are a politically active group.  A high proportion of registered Muslim voters (95%) plan to vote in national elections, and of that group, 88% are very likely to vote.  In light of that, political horserace questions were particularly interesting in our 2004 survey of this group, especially the dramatic shift away from the Republican Party and President Bush versus the 2000 election. 

In the post-9/11 world, the Zogby polling found Muslim identity is key in voting decisions.  Nearly seven-in-ten Muslim voters say being a Muslim is important in their voting decision.  Yet Muslims are not yet fully engaged, politically

And Muslims clearly intend to be a part of the political system long-term:  86% say it is important for them to participate in politics�seven times as many as who say it is not important.  This holds across all geographic regions. By similar numbers, Muslims say it is important to them for their children to participate in politics.  And Muslims are a generally well-informed group:  nearly two-thirds (64%) say they follow what�s going on in government and public affairs most of the time.  This varies little on geographic or partisan lines, though those who call themselves progressive are more likely than other groups (81% versus a range of 59% to 67%) to say they do so most of the time.

The Zogby survey in 2004 found that American Muslims were at a political and social crossroads.  In the few short years since 2001, they have undergone massive political shifts as the U.S. engaged in two Middle East wars. Muslim Americans have become a relevant part of the political landscape, Zogby polling shows.

Add to this desire to be a part of the political system the fact that three-in-five American Muslims are dissatisfied with the way things are going in American society today, and Muslims become a clearly-potent political entity.  And, despite their negative view of the direction of the country, a majority of American Muslims say this is a good time to be a Muslim in America.

Extensive reports on Zogby’s pioneering 2001 and 2004 surveys of Muslim Americans are available at www.zogby.com

Israeli air strikes add to misery in Gaza

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 18 May 2007

Six Palestinians were killed yesterday and several dozen wounded when Israel unleashed a series of air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza after a spate of rocket attacks launched by militants into Sderot.

Amid what may prove only a brief lull in the infighting between Hamas and its rival faction Fatah, Israel dropped a bomb on a two-storey building used by the Islamic faction's Executive Force, wounding 45 people, including civilians. Other strikes hit a trailer used by bodyguards of a Hamas official, a car carrying two Hamas militants, and another carrying three people. continue...

Doubt cast on JFK 'lone assassin' theory

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 18 May 2007

More than 40 years after he was fatally shot in Dallas, researchers have added fresh fuel to the speculation over who was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy by claiming the original bullet analysis was flawed and cannot rule out that a second gunman was involved. continue...

WPP gets 24/7 for $649m after losing out on DoubleClick

By Stephen Foley in New York
Published: 18 May 2007

WPP, the world's second-largest group of advertising agencies, is buying the internet advertising broker 24/7 Real Media for $649m (£328m) to beef up its presence in the fastest-growing segment of the advertising market.

The company turned to 24/7 after losing out to Google in the takeover battle for DoubleClick, its market-leading rival. Both companies are brokers of so-called "display advertising" - the banner adverts and video commercials that appear on websites - and provide a range of hi-tech tools that measure the effectiveness of online ad campaigns. continue...

Billionaire tells judge he won the lottery... 80 times

By Graham Keeley in Barcelona
Published: 18 May 2007

He is either the luckiest man alive or - just perhaps - a fraudster with a few inconvenient secrets to hide. But Juan Antonio Roca has told a disbelieving judge that he gained his personal fortune of €2.4bn (£1.7bn) by winning the lottery - 80 times. continue...

Racing: Derby plight for Dettori after Dante stroll

By Chris McGrath at York
Published: 18 May 2007

If the manner of Authorized's success here yesterday was theatrical, its consequences were downright melodramatic. As they cruised into the lead in the Totesport Dante Stakes, Frankie Dettori must have realised with a kind of delicious anguish that this could well be the colt he has been craving all these years - a colt capable of giving him a first success in the Vodafone Derby. Even as Authorized hurtled clear, however, his jockey must have begun to dwell on the obligations that may yet cost him the partnership at Epsom a fortnight tomorrow. continue...

Straw backtracks after attack on FoI watchdog

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Published: 18 May 2007

Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, has been forced to apologise for remarks criticising the independent watchdog who regulates the Freedom of Information Act. His apology marks the latest development in an increasingly bitter dispute between MPs and information campaigners over plans to remove Parliament from the legislation. continue...

Terence Blacker: Are the bald ready for the trauma of hair?

Terence Blacker: Are the bald ready for the trauma of hair?
Published: 18 May 2007

It sounds enticingly simple. A snip of epidermis will be removed from the scalp. The activity will stimulate cell activity including the regeneration of hair follicles. If the effect of a gene called wnt is boosted, hair could well begin to grow where none had previously been. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania believe that their findings have "opened a window" in the great quest for a cure for baldness continue....

Kidnap and torture: new claims of Army war crimes in Iraq

Robert Verkaik reveals evidence of systemic ill-treatment of civilians by British soldiers in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam
Published: 18 May 2007

The British Army is facing new allegations that it was involved in "forced disappearances", hostage-taking and torture of Iraqi civilians after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

One of the claims is made by the former chairman of the Red Crescent in Basra, who alleges he was beaten unconscious by British soldiers after they accused him of being a senior official in Saddam's Baath party. continue...

Help support Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist rocket attacks

Israel wants peace
Israel's Prime Minister calls for discussion of a peace plan this week.
Hamas replies with rocket attacks from Israel.
This must stop!

Israel is being attacked daily from terrorists in Gaza and we need your help!
Hamas openly claimed credit for launching more than 45 Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel in an apparent effort to provoke an Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip.

• 16 rockets landed on Wednesday seriously injuring a 70-year-old woman plus 18 others.
• On Tuesday, 24 rockets hit Israel and wounded 30 people.
• 47 rockets have landed in Israel this week.
• Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have fired more than 1,300 rockets into Israel.

The world needs to know about this and support Israel’s right to take measured actions to both defend herself and pursue peace in the face of such terrorist attacks.

Please contact your local papers today and write letters to the editor in support of Israel.

You’ll find both talking points and a listing of your local papers at this link.

Thank you for your help in urgent matter.
Sincerely,

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
Founder and President
The Israel Project

The Indiana Jones of rabbis

For scribe Rabbi Menachem Youlus, Torah restoration can be a dangerous cloak-and-dagger business.

Wheaton, Md. - With quill in hand, Rabbi Menachem Youlus scrutinizes his latest treasure – a centuries-old Torah, stabbed and burned by Nazis during World War II. Many of the onyx-colored Hebrew letters of the scroll are so damaged they now appear to float like rafts on a sea of tea-colored parchment.

The Torah scribe will painstakingly retrace the letters – 300,000 of them – reapplying the ink six times on each letter to preserve the original penmanship. continue...

www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserve

Help educate the world about Hamas rockets

Help educate the world about Hamas rockets

May 16, 2007

An Israeli mother and her three children were wounded this week by rockets from Gaza. On Tuesday, 24 rockets hit Israel and wounded 30 people. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have fired more than 1,300 rockets into Israel.

The Palestinian response? More TV campaigns – this time with a Mickey Mouse look-alike – to teach children to be terrorists.

We need your help educating the media about these attacks.

Today there are huge and deadly fights between Hamas and Fatah. Palestinian terrorists are trying to draw Israel into their fight. However, how many rockets on civilians can Israel take?

The IDF may have to act firmly to destroy the rockets and the workshops where they are made. The media will come to Sderot and Gaza to cover this story. Your help can help make sure they get the facts they need to present the truth.

During the Second Lebanon War, The Israel Project (TIP) set up media centers in Northern Israel to provide journalists with sources, press briefings, background research, transportation, information on lodging and anything else they needed. Press coverage of the war was seen worldwide and in general Israel was portrayed as defending themselves.

Today we need to set up the same kind of media center in Sderot, the town being pummeled by Hamas Kassam rockets. We need to act now to make sure Israel is again seen as defending their citizens against terror from the sky.

Please help educate journalists and help protect Israel by supporting our work at http://www.theisraelproject.org/donate.

TIP needs your help to:

• Staff Sderot media services
• Fly journalists via helicopter over the attack area so they can see Israel’s security challenges
• Train residents to speak to the media, not only in English, but also in German, French and Spanish
• Create signage in multiple languages as backdrops for journalists’ video
• Shoot video which journalists can add to their stories
• Take and distribute photos to illustrate newspaper articles
• Provide researched background information hourly to help journalists meet their deadlines

Our Washington DC and Jerusalem staff are efficient, but educating the media costs money. We need your help and we need it now.

Please help fund our Sderot media center at http://www.theisraelproject.org/donate. Help us educate the press and the world – and allow the IDF to stop Palestinian rockets and protect innocent Israeli children.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
Founder and President
The Israel Project

P.S. We can’t wait for another attack to prepare this media center. Give a generous tax-deductible gift today at http://www.theisraelproject.org/donate. Israel and our global Jewish family need you!

Vegan Wikia

Veganism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from the use or ingestion of animal products and by avoidance of products that have been tested on animals. Individuals become Vegans for a number of reasons. continue...

Here Comes the Solar

May 2, 2007, 1:32 pm

Posted by WSJ.com Staff

Researchers at the University of New South Wales — working at the well-named ARC Photovoltaics Center of Excellence — say they have found a way to boost a solar cell’s light-trapping ability by up to 50%, according to a report in Australia’s The Advertiser (owned by that Murdoch fellow and thus perhaps a soon-to-be sister publication of The Wall Street Journal).

The advance could make solar power much cheaper, making it possible to power an “average” house with just 10 square meters of solar panels, The Advertiser says.

“[T]he solar revolution is coming,” responds Lou Grinzo, who tipped Energy Roundup to the development on his Cost of Energy blog, adding “it will be the biggest game-changer in energy technology during the lifetime of anyone reading this. continue...

Don't Mail It In

Oct 1, 1999 12:00 PM, Al Urbanski

Transforming the United States Postal Service into a marketing power, Azeez Jaffer unleashes direct mail, kids' programs, events, cause campaigns, even Elvis and the Beatles. His all-consuming motivation: Get people to buy stamps but not use them. continue...

Don't Mail It In

Transforming the United States Postal Service into a marketing power, Azeez Jaffer unleashes direct mail, kids' programs, events, cause campaigns, even Elvis and the Beatles. His all-consuming motivation: Get people to buy stamps but not use them. continue...

How to Be a Star in a YouTube World

What it takes to stand out when anyone can be an entertainer

By MICHAEL TOTTY

May 14, 2007;

There are millions of people trying to get noticed on the Web, with everything from blogs to podcasts to videos. So with the huge glut of material out there, how do amateurs get attention -- let alone become bona fide online stars? continue...

Johann Hari: Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue

As one who made an equally foolish misjudgement, I've some insight on how his thinking went so wrong
Published: 14 May 2007

As the crowd clapped along to the old back-to-the-Nineties tune of "Things Can Only Get Better" in Trimdon Labour Club, awaiting Tony Blair's swansong, there was a bleaker postscript to the Blair years piling up half a world away.

In Baghdad morgue, these days they separate out the hundreds of Shia bodies and Sunni bodies that are dumped on them every day. It's easy to do: the Shia have been beheaded, while the Sunnis have been tortured to death with power-drills. continue...

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Blair's failed promise to Britain's blacks

Blair's heart was never captured by anti-racism and the results are clear
Published: 14 May 2007

On Saturday my friend Rakesh Bhanot, a British Asian, married a Dutch painter, Frieda van de Poll. Guests had gathered from various nations, classes, colours and cultures. We ate Indian food, watched Bollywood dances and Dutch ladies performing pop songs. The bride sang "Over the Rainbow" with a voice as smooth and lovely as the silk she was wearing. continue...

Ministers 'wasted' £20m on city academy consultants

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 10 May 2007

The Government has been accused of wasting more than £20m on hiring consultants to evaluate city academies.

Teachers' leaders argued that the money - when coupled with the £28m spent taking on non-teaching project managers to plan the programme - could have been used to build two new schools. Alternatively, it could have been spent on paying the wages of 1,300 teachers for a year. continue...

No more school as council opens 'learning centres'

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 14 May 2007

In the words of rock legend Alice Cooper's most famous song, "school's out forever".

Knowsley Council in Merseyside, which - for years - has languished near or at the bottom of exam league tables, has abolished the use of the word to describe secondary education in the borough.

It is taking the dramatic step of closing all of its eleven existing secondary schools by 2009. As part of a £150m government-backed rebuilding programme, they will reopen as seven state-of-the-art, round-the-clock, learning centres with the aid of Microsoft - which has already developed links with one school in the borough, Bowring.

The style of learning will be completely different. The new centres will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.

Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.
Children will be able to study haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects.

They will be given their day's assignments in groups of 120 in the morning before dispersing to internet cafe-style zones in the learning centres to carry them out.

The 21,000 youngsters of secondary education age in Knowsley will also be able to access their learning programmes from home.

Madeleine Cotson, the headteacher of Bowring, said: "Provided they can show they have developed their learning, there is no reason why they couldn't do some of their learning from home." continue...

Stephen King: How hot money has put central bankers worldwide in a sweat

Raising interest rates simply increases the magnetic attractions of New Zealand for foreign investors
Published: 14 May 2007

It's not often that you'd choose to mention the UK, France, New Zealand and China in the same breath, but when it comes to the future of monetary policy, there's good reason to do so. In all four countries, policymakers are scratching their heads, wondering what to do next. Admittedly, they're starting from different positions, and their conclusions are likely to diverge significantly, but each country has some sort of monetary conundrum. Given that inflation targeting was supposed to be the answer to our economic worries, this is a little surprising. continue...

Julia Stephenson: The Green Goddess

'We stayed in the honeymoon suite.The stains! I bet Al Gore doesn't have to put up with this sort of malarkey'  Published: 03 May 2007

Recently I've had a spate of invitations to speak at various eco gatherings. Public speaking is an alarming prospect, but in the spirit that if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger, I've been saying yes to them all. Besides, nothing will ever be as terrifying as throwing myself off the top of a telegraph post strapped to a safety harness on a course with Tony Robbins, the uber life-coach. People think fire walking is scary, but that's just a question of running fast. Anyway I digress. continue...

The wild bunch: Britain's eco entrepreneurs

Fields, woods and beaches are a rich source of income for the growing number of businesses turning a living from nature's harvest. Sanjida O Connell meets Britain's eco entrepreneurs
Published: 10 May 2007

This year, I made my best sloe gin. It wasn't just that 2006 was unseasonally warm and the hedgerows were laden with blossom, so consequently the blackthorn were bowed down with the weight of their glaucous blue-black fruit by early autumn. It was more that when I got home I discovered I had no gin. continue...

EU boycotts 'provocative' Israeli anniversary party

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Published: 14 May 2007

Ambassadors from European Union states are to boycott celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Israel's conquest of Arab East Jerusalem this week - in the opening shot of what promises to be a challenging summer for Israeli diplomacy.

The United States ambassador, Richard Jones, is also expected to join the Europeans in snubbing the celebrations .

What Israelis commemorate as the "reunification" of their historic Jewish capital is seen by most of the international community, not to mention the Palestinians, as a unilateral attempt to pre-empt a key issue in any peaceful solution. One-third of the city's 725,000 residents are Palestinians, who have opted to reject offers of Israeli citizenship. Along with most other countries, the Europeans keep their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament, yesterday welcomed the European boycott as a blow for international law and peace. "The Israelis," she said, "cannot get away with creating facts on the ground and then forcing everybody to fall in line". continue...

Friends dis-united: The social scandal that tore Manhattan apart

Flip, irreverent and bitchy as hell, the internet sensation Socialite Rank caused a frenzy among Manhattan's hip, beautiful and obscenely wealthy. The anonymous website that put party girls in their places was loved - and feared - by the bright young things it fed on. But then the mystery bloggers went a posting too far...

Isaiah Wilner reports
Published: 14 May 2007

It was the perfect letter - if the goal was to blow up New York society. A bombshell of preening and aspiration, it set off a war between an ageing princess and the girl who threatened to snatch her crown.

There was just one catch: according to a complaint filed last week with the Manhattan district attorney's office, the letter was a fake.

The publisher of the letter was socialiterank.com, a mysterious website that appeared on 24 April, 2006, declaring itself unofficial judge, jury and executioner of 10021 - the postcode of upper Park Avenue and Fifth, and the home of many young women who appear on the charity-ball circuit. Each fortnight, the site released a "Social Elite Power Ranking", scoring the women on their style, public appearances and publicity efforts. The perennial No 1 girl was Tinsley Mortimer, a Virginia rug salesman's daughter who'd married into New York society.  continue...

Health concerns over mobile phone masts prompt review

'IoS' report on the dangers of electronic smog from wireless technology examined by ministers
By Marie Woolf and Geoffrey Lean
Published: 13 May 2007

Ministers are to investigate arrangements for erecting mobile phone masts in the light of growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases because of "electronic smog".

They will review the exceptionally favourable rules that allow mobile phone companies to escape normal planning regulations and stop councils from considering the effects of the masts on health, even when they are sited near homes and schools. continue...

The cream tea diet

If you live in Cornwall, it may be time to cut back on the scones
By Roger Dobson
Published: 13 May 2007

Who ate all the pies? People in the West Midlands and the South-west, says research showing where the highest numbers of Britons are obese - in some places over one in three - or overweight.

The new research, to be published in theSocial Science and Medicine journal, contrasts the overweight - those with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 30 - and the obese, whose BMI is above 30.

Academics at Southampton and Portsmouth universities analysed data on 18,000 people, and worked out a formula for characteristics linked to the risk of obesity for every English council ward. continue...

Excess calcium in elderly 'linked to dementia'

By John von Radowitz, PA Science Correspondent
Published: 14 May 2007

Calcium and vitamin D in dairy products may be helping to cause brain damage and dementia in older men and women, new research suggests.

Scientists believe too much calcium can narrow blood vessels in the brain, leading to neural damage.
The effect may be compounded by vitamin D, which regulates calcium retention and activity.

Researchers made the discovery after scanning the brains of 79 men and 153 women aged between 60 and 86.

All had at least a number of brain lesions - areas of tissue damage. continue...

Country walks 'can help reduce depression'

By Nicola Boden, PA
Published: 14 May 2007

Country walks can help reduce depression and raise self-esteem according to research published today, leading to calls for "ecotherapy" to become a recognised treatment for people with mental health problems.

Ecotherapy: the green agenda for mental health is the first study looking at how "green" exercise specifically affects those suffering from depression.

According to Mind, England and Wales's leading mental health charity, it produced "startling" results proving the need for ecotherapy to be considered a proper treatment option.

The study by the University of Essex compared the benefits of a 30-minute walk in a country park with a walk in an indoor shopping centre on a group of 20 members of local Mind associations. continue...

Lack of a good night's sleep leads to mistakes

By Rob Sharp
Published: 14 May 2007

Those who work long hours and scrape by on scant slumber, beware: Sleep deprivation causes areas of the brain to malfunction, making people blunder.

American researchers, using brain scans of volunteers playing a computer card game, have discovered that the sleep-deprived show increased signs of rash risk-taking. That has been linked to changing activity levels in the parts of people's brains responsible for appreciating reward and understanding the significance of heavy debt.

Dr Michael Chee, one of the researchers undertaking the experiment at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, said: "Understanding why we make poorer choices when sleep deprived is important not only because of the increasing numbers of persons affected, but also because there exist today unprecedented opportunities to incur damaging losses by means such as online gambling."

People should have between seven and eight hours sleep a night to maintain good health. continue...

CSM Broadcast Alert

Christian Science Monitor White House Correspondent Linda Feldmann will be a guest on MSNBC today, May 14 at 12:30 p.m. and again at 2:30 p.m. Linda will discuss Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Linda's recent article, "No lockstep within the GOP's big '08 field, debate showed" can be read online.

AOL Keyword: CS Monitor

(c) 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved

Cherie's parting shot

Mrs Blair speaks out against pregnant women sent to jail
By Marie Woolf, Political Editor - Published: 13 May 2007

Cherie Blair last night made her first foray into British politics since her husband announced he was standing down as Prime Minister by attacking the Government for sending pregnant women to jail.

In what will be interpreted as Mrs Blair's first attempt to stake out her own political credo even before the couple leave Downing Street, the human-rights lawyer has warned that sending mothers to prison increases the risk of their children turning to criminality later in life. continue...

Brown plans 'eco-towns' and cheaper housing

By Ben Russell, Political Corresponent
Published: 14 May 2007

Gordon Brown will detail his commitment to building hundreds of thousands of new homes to meet demand for social housing and help young people get a foot on the property ladder.

The Chancellor will emphasise his commitment today to build more than 200,000 new houses a year, including new homes for people on low incomes and a ground-breaking series of five environmentally friendly "eco-towns".

Mr Brown will use a whistlestop tour of marginal constituencies to flesh out his plans for tackling the housing crisis before turning his attention to the battle for the Labour leadership nominations at Westminster later this week.

He will outline his vision of a property owning democracy but will pledge to make developments environmentally sustainable. continue...

'Only wealthiest will be able to afford solar panels'

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Published: 10 May 2007

Solar and wind power will be unaffordable to all but the "wealthiest homes" it was claimed yesterday after the Government cut the maximum grant for their installation by 83 per cent.

In a move that prompted warnings of job losses in the renewable power industry, the Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling disclosed yesterday that householders installing green energy would be able to make a total claim of £2,500. Previously, they had been able to apply for a grant of £15,000; comprised of £10,000 for a PV solar panel system and £5,000 for a wind turbine. continue...

Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming

In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?

By Daniel Howden  Published: 14 May 2007

The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth's equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories. continue...

Mother's Day (United States)

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day, celebrated on June 2nd, was first proclaimed around 1870 by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872. As originally envisioned, Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament by women. The original Mother's Day Proclamation was as follows [1]:

Arise then...women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with

Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor,

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Early "Mother's Day" was mostly marked by women's peace groups. A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

Lau will lead Isles' largest company

Posted on: Saturday, February 11, 2006

By Rick Daysog
Advertiser Staff Writer

CONSTANCE H. LAU

Title: Effective May 2, president and CEO, Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.; chairwoman of Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc., HEI's utility subsidiary

Age: 53

Education: Punahou School; bachelor of science, Yale University; law degree from University of California Hastings College of the Law; master of business administration from the Stanford University's Graduate School of Business

Family: Married to Russell Lau, CEO of Finance Factors; three children

Lau, who joined HEI in 1984, has been president and chief executive officer of the company's American Savings Bank subsidiary since 2001. She helped transform the bank from a sleepy savings and loan into a full-service community bank. She will continue to head the bank after taking the top job at HEI.

Lau also serves as on the boards of Alexander & Baldwin Inc., Kamehameha Schools and Punahou School, and is president of the Hawaii Bankers Association.

"Ms. Lau has an outstanding record of achievement at American and is successfully transforming the bank from a retail thrift to a full-service community bank," Clarke said.

Hawaiian Electric Industries is the largest publicly traded company based in Hawai'i, with annual revenues of about $2.2 billion. continue...