The bloody riot at California's prison at Chino raged for 4 long hours, injuring 175 inmates, with 55 with such serious wounds that they were rushed to local hospitals. 16 inmates were still hospitalized on Monday. Inmates suffered vicious stab and head wounds as prisoners attacked each other with makeshift weapons including shards of glass and broken water pipes. Sixteen inmates remained hospitalized Monday. This violence was predicted in 2007 by the former director of the Texas Prisons, Wayne Scott, based on his evaluation of the prison at Chino. "If the prisoners wanted to take over the dorm they could do so in a second and no one would know," Scott reported after he visited Cleveland Hall located in Chino's West Facility, where Saturday's riot occurred. The dorms were built in the 40's during World War II. They house 198 inmates, guarded by only two officers, one of them separated from the living area in an office. The bunks are so close together that there is no way that the officers can observe the entire dorm at once. Inmates arrive at Chino to be assessed as to the danger they pose to staff. After they are classified, they are bused to one of the 33 prisons in California sprawling corrections system. Inside the prison at Chino the inmates range from low level offenders doing time for check kiting or technical parole violations to murderers and rapists returning to prison after multiple prior stays. Violent prisoners are mixed with vulnerable offenders in dorms where there are no cells and no place to hide. The prison, originally designed to hold 3,000 prisoners is now bulging at almost double that number - 5,900. Imagine the conditions in which these prisoners are held. The prison is in a hot, desert with the Sun baking the compound and its inhabitants. Packed inside are twice as many inmates as it was designed for. A constant flow of bodies jostle through the narrow aisles between the sea of bunk beds. The inmates hassle over toilets and wash basins because there are only half as many as are needed. With the men stacked like cords of wood, the noise, heat and smell of sweat is overwhelming. In this roiling cauldron of tension add the twin curses of loneliness and boredom: the inmates spend hour after hour liked rats in a cage with nothing productive to occupy their time. The budget cuts have eliminated the educational and addiction treatment programs that used to fill their hours and give them hope. Then add in the racial tensions that permeate our inner cities and our prisons and you have an extremely volatile mixture. This was the atmosphere in Chino's Cleveland Dorm when it exploded in violence last weekend. When the officers finally took back control, many inmates had been permanently maimed. Don't blame the corrections officers for these conditions. They are merely carrying out the policies adopted by the legislature and the governor. Unfortunately, meting out long sentences gets more adoring headlines than appropriating the money to pay for them. Corrections leaders have warned of the dangers of crowded prisons for years, but the legislature and the governor haven't responded with enough money to solve the problem. Comments on several news sites suggest that we shouldn't care about these inmates. Some writers said that the guards should have held back and let the inmates fight until they had all killed each other. My hunch is these attitudes would be very different if one of their sons or brothers were housed in Chino. When the government incarcerates an inmate it strips him of all control over his life, even the ability to defend himself. The inmate has no choice over where he sleeps, whom he lives next to, when he gets up, where he goes, where and what he eats. If the lights are out in the shower room - a very dangerous situation - he can't shower somewhere else and can't fix the light. He is prohibited from arming himself. He is vulnerable. When the government takes away all ability of an inmate to defend himself, it assumes responsibility to keep him safe. In many cases, the government has failed in this responsibility. It certainly failed at Chino last weekend. And some in government don't seem to care. The local Assemblyman for the Chino area, Curt Hagman, commented, "By nature prisons are violent". With a shrug he accepted the stabbings and broken bones, the eyes gouged out and the heads cracked open that occurred over the weekend. Assemblyman Hagman's remark reminds me of a similar callous remark by a Massachusetts Corrections Official who, when asked about prison rape, said, "What can I say. It's prison." Actually there are prisons where violence is not a problem and where beatings and rapes do not occur. Rather than shrugging off the violence, leaders like Assemblyman Hagman should be supporting corrections leaders who are trying to make prisons safe and restore the programs that allow prisoners to prepare to live contributing and law-abiding lives after they are released. Prisons can be safe. In Louisiana, Angola State Prison is the largest maximum security prison in the US. Until a few years ago it was also America's most violent prison. The inmates slept with metal plates or phone books on their chests to prevent stabbings to their chests. Under the leadership of Warden Burl Cain, all that has changed. Angola is now the safest prison in the US. Cain shows the men respect. Although 98% of the inmates will die in that prison, he promises them good food, good medicine, good fun and good praying. I have visited Angola and have seen the difference in the prisoners. They look you in the eye. Most inmates in maximum security avoid your eyes out of fear. At Angola, the inmates are taught how to prepare delicious food for their fellow prisoners by New Orleans chefs. There is a seminary in the prison, training men to become pastors for their fellow prisoners. The inmates have a great time at the annual rodeo, which draws thousands of local residents who get a chance to see that the inmates are human just like them. As a member of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission and also a member of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's prisons, I had the chance to learn from corrections professionals what steps can be taken to make prisons safe rather than descending into violence. Leadership is a critical element in establishing a safe environment for staff, inmates and volunteers. But good leaders have a harder time if the inmates are packed liked sardines in a can. Both commissions identified prison crowding as one of the key factors leading to physical assaults and rapes in prisons. All of us should care what happens to inmates while they are incarcerated because 95% will serve their time and be released back to our communities. When they are released, what kind of neighbors will they be? The skills the inmates develop to survive violent prisons like Chino make them dangerous when they are released. You can't cage men like animals and then expect them to be model citizens when they return home. The next time a politician promises to lengthen sentences, ask him if he is willing to support more money to house the increase in inmates caused by the longer sentences. Hold your representatives' feet to the fire. If they aren't willing to spend the dime, they should not be voting for more time. Here are more resources on the impact of violence in our prisons and ways to stop it: Prison Violence Prison Rape Warden Burl Cain
Take three masters of the electric guitar -Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White, plop them on one of Hollywood's largest soundstages along with their instruments and then add a documentary film crew headed by The Inconvenient Truth's' Davis Guggenheim. There you have the main course of a documentary feast tracing the influences, talents and stories that make up the complex, delicious and very loud history of the electric guitar. During It Might Get Loud Page's double-neck guitar, The Edge's array of effects pedals and White's new mic, custom built into his guitar, jam live. This footage is intercut with individual portraits of each artist as they take us to the sites of their most influential musical moments. Jimmy Page takes us on a tour of Headley Grange, a former poorhouse, where "Stairway to Heaven"was composed and where Led Zeppelin recorded many of their tunes, the foyer doubling as an echo chamber for John Bonhams' legendary drumming. Then there's the cinder block the classroom where U2 first got together to make what the Edge admits was embarrassing but heartfelt attempts at music. We also see Jack White at his Tennesee farm building a makeshift guitar from scraps of wood, wire and glass and then composing a song as we watch. Each takes on a musical journey to share their own strongest influences, most memorably a visibly passionate Jimmy Page playfully accompanying Link Wary on air guitar to illustrate what a profound revelation his "Rumble" was to him as a young artist splitting time between learning the guitar and studying painting and dabbling in his original career choice of biological research. See trailer here.
I was lucky enough to catch up with Guggenheim, Page and White on the occasion of the film's premiere to get a little more insight into what they each hope the audience will take from the extraordinary access Guggenheim serves up as a feast of sight, sound and a healthy dash of 'pinch-me-again-because-I-still-can't believe-I-get-to-eavesdrop-on-these-three- playing-each-others'- music. photo by Ken Lee
Jimmy and Jack, I know why Davis did this, but what was in it for you two?
JP: It captured my imagination when he put it to me and I'd met Jack before and was aware of his playing and the Edge too and you've got three really strong individual character players and I thought 'yeah let's to see what 's going to happen' so that's it really. It was rolling on that--as far as a real love and respect for the other guys and just to see how it would go. JW: What was in it? The whole idea-just as an exploration of ourselves-we learned something about what we do and why we do it . At times you work with what people are interested in, and I think a lot of people are interested in this --look how many people Davis got to see a movie about the environment. That's a triumphant thing. Guitar playing- it's a household word, almost every home in America there's a record that is guitar based, DG: Actually, they've both wanted to spend time with me since they were little boys ...
Photo by Ken Lee
Davis you must have had moments of disbelief, just being in that room and hearing the conversations and the music what was most memorable?
DG: The first filming we did with music was in Tennesese at the farm and when you are directing are focused on setting up a shot and then suddenly Jack plugged in his amp, a Silvertone, and it's not large--it's like 3 feet tall and 4 feet wide, and he played the first chord and I felt the vibration of the music hitting me in the face. And I'm visual person and I forgot what music is like when you are right there as a fan standing there and feeling that and then I thought ; 'oh no, there's something that you can't put in a movie' because it's something so powerful and what happens is something that you should not put words to and that happened time and time again when Jack picked up the guitar. And then "Whole Lotta Love" at the summit --it was the first music that was played and all of us.....I mean, one cameraman sort drifted away... unfortunately the film will only capture some of that .
Well certainly when the there were playing together in that room, I felt like I was somehow participating as well...What do you each want people to take away from this documentary?
JW: A re-evaluation of the instrument, and I personally I hope a reevaluation of the blues and what it really means and not what it's become--some fake blues bar . Because all music dates back to that and all music has that --it's root and I'd like them to take that away JP: You've got the aspect of performance as well as Jack's parts are magic-- real performance art--and the fact that we performed this together.... In fact what Davis achieved is a real historical document and I just hope people go in there and they're going to learn things about us and the crafting of guitar playing, composition , and the bonding between the guitarists themselves. That is really the thing with musicians playing. I think they'll get that through this.
I have to ask you something Jimmy, I couldn't help but notice that for the summit you are the only one who really dressed up for the event?
I sort of did. I didn't know what anyone else would wear. One of the interesting things about this is it was Davis who was really insistent that we not met each other before getting on that sound stage which was was very curious. So in actual fact it worked in a very interesting way because the other way would have been to have had maybe just a whisper of.' what f we get stuck ' so there was none of that and as far as wardrobe I had no idea what anyone else was going to wear so I chose what I wore to the 02 [London arena-where Led Zeppelin had its first and only reunion] well why not ...,.it's a lovely suit
Do you all plan to keep in touch, did you trade phone numbers?
JW: I don't own a cell phone, but I would if I did.... JP: I've got carrier pigeons that I use.
We all know things celebrities touch can often turn to gold, but these items I think reach platinum status!
(Let's do this ala David Letterman)
The #10 item on the list of Top 10 Celebrity Relics is a guitar Jimi Hendrix used that was sold for Julien's Auction in 2007 for $480,000
#9 - The talisman necklace worn by John Lennon on the cover of his 1968 album with Yoko Ono "Two Virgins". It was sold by GottaHaveRockandRoll.com (how's that for a URL?!) to a private collector in 2008 for $528,000
#8 - George Harrison's Gibson SG guitar. Christie's and Julien's Auctions sold this in 2004 to a private collector for $567,500
#7 - Marilyn Monroe's white baby grand piano. This was sold by Christies. The lucky bidder? Mariah Carey. $662,500
#6 - Judy Garlands ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (oh I wanted those!) - again sold by Christies to a private collector in 2000 for $666,000
#5 - Audrey Hepburn's black Givenchy cocktail dress worn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Sold by Christie's to benefit a charity "City of Joy Aid" which serves the poor in India. This sold in 2006 (purportedly to the House of Givenchy) for $923,187
#4 - A hand painted drum skin shown on the sleeve of the Beatle's album "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" in 2008 for $1.1 million
#3 - The dress Marilyn Monroe wore while singing "Happy Birthday" to JFK (who can remember the dress???) Christie's again (where is Sotheby's in this mix?) sold to New York Based GottaHaveIt.com in 1999 for $1.27 million
#2 - The Steinway piano on which John Lennon composed "Imagine" - ahhh here we go - sold by Sotheby's to none other than, George Michael in 2000 for $2.1 million
and finally, the #1 most expensive Celebrity Relic:
John Lennon's hand painted Rolls Royce Phantom V sold by Sotheby's to Canadian businessman Jim Pattison in 1985 for 2.23 million.
Whew....
And I thought people got a lot for my autograph on eBay!
Israel is long overdue to undergo the same racial reckoning and transformation that the United States underwent in the 1960s and South Africa passed through in the 1990s. The dual system of law that prevails in the occupied West Bank and favors Jewish settlers to the detriment of Palestinians is unacceptable in the 21st century. Israel's settlers must decide if they will abide by international law and leave the occupied territories or stay on -- as offered by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad -- provided they live under Palestinian law.
Two states with security and rights for Israelis and Palestinians is within our grasp today. We must be dogged in our determination to achieve this outcome with the utmost speed. Delay plays into the hands of rejectionists and those who would use time not to advance peace but to further settle the West Bank and East Jerusalem, rendering impossible a contiguous and viable Palestinian state.
If a Palestinian state becomes impossible and Palestinians appear consigned to a permanent apartheid-like reality then many of us who overcame daunting odds in South Africa will feel obliged to throw our support to one state based on equality for all. Let us, then, determine to make two states for two peoples work during the Obama administration.
I have no doubt I will be castigated for my plain speaking on behalf of Palestinian rights, Israeli security, and an end to the Israeli occupation. The rhetoric surrounding this conflict is ferocious. Mary Robinson, who on August 12 was awarded with the Medal of Freedom, is currently being vilified by organizations such as AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Zionist Organization of America for vigorously speaking out on behalf of Palestinian human rights. She deserves better and the White House is right to defend her from proponents of a fantasized Israel that reputedly can do no wrong.
She is not alone. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Adviser David Axelrod are also under attack. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu derided them as "self-hating Jews." Israeli settlers regularly refer to President Obama as a "kushi," a vicious and derogatory term for a black man. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the great moral leaders of our time, has been accused of "anti-Jewish and anti-Israel slurs" by the Zionist Organization of America and last week the ADL's Abraham Foxman referred to him as an "Israel basher." This language is the tip of the iceberg. The anti-Semitism label is so overused it is in jeopardy of losing power as a meaningful term.
The willingness of the White House to award Robinson and Tutu with the Medal of Freedom leaves me to wonder if the Obama administration is sending such organizations a message that Obama will not be intimidated and will stand firm in advancing America's national interest in a settlements freeze and, more broadly, in a just Middle East peace.
This week's overheated pro-Israel rhetoric exposes the zealotry of the speaker or organization, but the routine invocation of such labels also serves to intimidate many good people from involving themselves in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Far too many people who were outspoken advocates on behalf of ending apartheid in South Africa have taken to the sidelines in this dispute lest they be accused of being anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, or self-hating Jews. The terminology is cruel and painful to those on the receiving end even though most know the term is employed only as a political weapon to silence. I believe the silencing tactic has worked to delay Palestinian freedom.
President Obama was right when he declared in his Cairo speech, "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights." As he suggested, it was nonviolence that carried the day and advanced rights and justice in South Africa and other struggles.
I would only add that the seeds of a mighty and transformative nonviolent struggle are indeed already visible from the West Bank to the Gaza coast. I have met with Palestinians and Israelis who regularly put their lives on the line to assert nonviolently the injustice of Israeli expansionism and home demolitions. Must we wait for a humanitarian boat of the Free Gaza Movement to be fatally rammed or a Sharpeville massacre in the Palestinian village of Bil'in before we highlight the nonviolent courage of Palestinians and Israelis protesting Israel's siege of Gaza and the land-grabbing barrier that illegally seizes Palestinian agricultural land in the West Bank? Too many young people, most of them Palestinian, have been killed and maimed in Bil'in already.
Israel's ill-advised attempt to establish demographic facts in East Jerusalem by throwing Palestinian families out of their homes does not advance long-term Israeli interests, but leads more and more people around the world to question whether Israel is honestly interested in making peace with its Palestinians neighbors.
Israel must make the choice in the weeks ahead whether it intends to continue ruling over the Palestinians indefinitely or will step back from the dual system of law and apartheid it appears poised to embrace under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
John Dugard is a professor of law, a former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the chairman of the Independent Fact Finding Committee on Gaza.
Arianna appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown" Wednesday to discuss the lack of bipartisanship in the health care reform debate and the resilience of rumors about a government "death panel." She argued that President Obama needs to give up his delusion that both parties and industry interests can all come together to achieve real health care reform. She said the president needs to realize that "there is a whole industry here working against reform and the president needs to stop acting as though everybody's interests are aligned." Arianna added that to accomplish meaningful reform with a public option and the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices, Obama should be saying: "If you are with us, come on board. If you are not, get out of the way."
She also said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should call for a vote of censure against Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for his endorsement of the "death panel" falsehood.
After fifty years of growing government programs, health care costs continue to rise. The U.S. government now controls nearly half of all health care dollars, and the crisis is becoming acute. The plans we are seeing from Washington are not innovations, but rather extensions of the government interventions we have embraced for three generations.
But rather than assume that more government involvement is the answer, should we not at least consider that the source of the problem may be those very interventions? And, more deeply, should we not even consider that the reason for this decades-long pattern is not economic, but moral: the idea that people have a "right" to medical care?
Historically, the huge rise in health care costs began in the 1960s, when Medicare and other programs threw billions of dollars into the industry. Fiscally, Medicare is approaching monumental insolvency, with liabilities in the range of twenty-trillion dollars. To create another bureaucratic labyrinth now -- which advocates are proud to say will cost only a trillion dollars over ten years -- all but guarantees higher prices, and a greater crisis in the next decade.
But such economic arguments have not stopped the train to further government interventions, and we should ask why.
The reason is that advocates of government medicine are upholding health care as a moral right. The moral goal of a "right" to health care is blinding people to the cause and effect relationship between government actions and rising prices.
But the very idea that health care -- or any good provided by others -- is a "right" is a contradiction. The rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each of these is a right to act, not a right to things. "To secure these rights governments are instituted," which means to secure the rights of each person to exercise his or her liberty in pursuit of his or her own happiness.
By this understanding of rights, no one may force you to act in ways contrary to your own interests, as long as you do not demand that they act contrary to their own interests. There is no right to a good outcome -- no right to food, clothing, shelter, or economic security -- only a right to pursue that outcome, with the voluntary cooperation of others if they wish to offer it.
But consider what a right to a guaranteed outcome would mean. It would require an infringement upon the lives and liberty of those who are forced to provide it. If there is a right to food, there must be farmers to provide it -- or taxpayers forced to pay for it. Government medical plans with unique privileges, such as Medicare, institutionalize force against those who are to provide the claimed "right." And yet, neither the principle nor the consequences are changed if the force is spread out over millions of people in the form of a tax return.
These two concepts of rights -- rights as the right to liberty, versus rights as the rights to things -- cannot coexist in the same respect at the same time. If I claim that my right to life means my right to medicine, then I am demanding the right to force others to produce the values that I need. This ends up being a negation of personal sovereignty, and of individual rights.
To reform our health care industry we should challenge the premises that invited government intervention in the first place. The moral premise is that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no "right" to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. There is no "right" to anything that others must produce, because no one may claim a "right" to force others to provide it. Health care is a service, and we all depend upon thinking professionals for it. To place doctors under hamstringing bureaucratic control is to invite poor results.
The economic premise is that the government can create prosperity by redistributing the wealth of its citizens. This is the road to bankruptcy, not universal prosperity. The truth of this is playing out before our eyes, as medical prices balloon with every new intervention, and we face the largest deficits in human history.
If Congress wants to address health care issues, it can begin with three things: (1) tort reform, to free medical specialists from annual insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars; (2) Medicare reform, to face squarely the program's insolvency; and (3) regulatory reform, to roll-back the onerous rules that force doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies (who produce the care that others then demand as a "right") into satisfying bureaucratic dictates rather than bringing value to their patients.
In Part II of this series on how to answer the question, "Can I trust this poll," I argued that we need better ways to assess "likely voter" samples: What kinds of voters do pollsters select and how do they choose or model the likely voter population? Regular readers will recall how hard it can be to convince pollsters to disclose methodological details. In this final installment, I want to review the past efforts and propose an idea to promote more complete disclosure in the future.
First, let's review the efforts to gather details of pollster methods carried out over the last two years by this site, the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and the Huffington Post.
Pollster.com - In September 2007, I made a series of requests of pollsters that had released surveys of likely caucus goers in Iowa. I asked for information about their likely voter selection methods and for estimates of the percentage of adults represented by their surveys. A month later, seven pollsters -- including all but one of the active AAPOR members -- had responded fully to my requests, five provided partial responses and five answered none of my questions. I had originally planned to make similar requests regarding polls for the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, but the responses trickled in so slowly and required so much individual follow-up that that i limited the project to Iowa (I reported on the substance of their responses here)
AAPOR - In the wake of the New Hampshire primary polling snafu, AAPOR appointed an Ad Hoc Committee to investigate the performance of primary polls in New Hampshire and, ultimately, in three other states: South Carolina, California and Wisconsin. They made an extensive request of pollsters, asking not only for things the AAPOR code requires pollsters to disclose but also for more complete information, including individual-level data for all respondents. Despite allowing pollsters over a year to respond, only 7 of 21 provided information beyond minimal disclosure, and despite the implicit threat of AAPOR censure, three organizations failed to respond with even the minimal information mandated by AAPOR's ethical code (see the complete report).
HuffingtonPost - Starting in August 2008, as part of their "Huffpollstrology" feature, the Huffington Post asked a dozen different public pollsters to provide response and refusal rates for their national polls. Six replied with response and refusal rates, two responded with limited calling statistics that did not allow for response rate calculations and four refused to respond (more on Huffpollstrology's findings here).
They came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, And I didn't speak up because I was Protestant. Then they came for me, And by that time no one was left to speak up. --Martin Niemoeller
China is attacking the U.S. with a stealth weapon of mass economic destruction -- unfair trade. U.S. corporations -- and China -- which profiteer from it prefer to label this "free trade."
But industrial carnage is the only way to describe the devastation done to the U.S. economy by an accumulated trillion dollar trade deficit with China, the destruction of U.S. jobs by off-shoring them to China, and the disintegration of the U.S. industrial sector that is foreclosing America's ability to support itself or to manufacture weapons to defend itself.
The United Steelworkers union is challenging China and the profiteers. It has demanded imposition of duties and tariffs on imported Chinese products -- not because the U.S. can't compete but because China cheats.
We've watched our members lose their jobs as steel mills idled, paper plants closed, and tire factories shuttered. In this war, China came for our jobs. Virtually no one spoke up for displaced blue collar workers. Perhaps you don't wear a blue collar. A white one will prove no special shield. The Chinese will come for your job, too.
In this struggle, it is crucial to understand that so-called free trade isn't some lofty capitalist ideal. The U.S. engages in "free trade" with the Chinese because they hold $1 trillion in debt over our heads, an obligation they know we can't pay. We shrink in fear of them. They're world class bullies. They can do whatever they please. And they do. They violate international trade laws by which we abide. That's why their stuff is so cheap. The one factor on which the price difference always is blamed -- labor costs -- is only the tiniest fraction of it.
Labor violations are part of the cheating. The National Labor Committee and others, including reporters from the New York Times, have documented exploitation of Chinese workers that can only be described as modern slavery. We stand in solidarity with these workers and condemn these atrocities that include very young teenagers kept in locked buildings with caged windows where they are forced to labor 14-hour shifts under grueling conditions, but find it impossible to make money or to amass the "exit fee" required to leave. They include children, women, and occasionally men kidnapped and forced to work in brick kilns, coal mines, and sweatshops in the Chinese hinterlands, with no payment other than gruel and a sleeping mat. When Chinese companies treat humans this way, they realize a competitive advantage over American firms that routinely obey humanitarian laws.
China is also one of the most dangerous places in the world to work and live because corporations fail to provide safety equipment for workers, such as dust control devices, and refuse to protect the environment with pollution control equipment. Both practices are profitable for Chinese corporations, particularly when competing with U.S. firms, which must abide by environmental and worker health and safety regulations.
Much more significant, however, are other deliberate Chinese interventions in the market, such as the undervaluation of its currency, subsidization of its manufacturing, counterfeiting, forced transfer of American technology, and refusal to give American companies access to Chinese markets with licensing restrictions, complex regulations and local content rules.
China gives breaks to manufacturers on land, rent, energy and water. Manufacturers may receive bank "loans" they know they're not required to repay. China also exempts certain industries from income taxes and gives tax rebates on exports.
China's deliberate currency undervaluation works as a subsidy as well. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission explains it this way: "China's undervalued currency encourages undervalued Chinese exports to the U.S. and discourages U.S. exports because U.S. exports are artificially overvalued. As a result, undervalued Chinese exports have been highly disruptive to the U.S."
China cheats. Free trade is a myth. The American worker doesn't need special treatment. We're the most productive in the world. We just seek fair competition. We want fair trade. The USW wants trade rules enforced.
So the union demands it. Repeatedly, we've won cases seeking imposition of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on unfairly traded imports from China to protect our members. There was the glossy paper case in 2007 and the lightweight thermal paper case in 2008. The USW and four U.S. stainless pipe producers won a final order from the U.S. International Trade Commission in February on dumped Chinese welded austenitic stainless steel pressure pipe. Just two months later, the USW joined seven U.S. companies in seeking duties on imported Chinese welded and stainless steel pipes used in oil and gas extraction because of massive Chinese government subsidies.
But it's the tire case that's causing the commotion. That's because the USW filed it under "Section 421," which is supposed to allow the U.S. to combat unfair and damaging surges of particular Chinese imports. China agreed to abide by Section 421 until 2013 in exchange for support from the U.S. when it sought to join the World Trade Organization in 2001.The advantage of Section 421 is that the process is quicker that a typical trade case.
U.S. companies won four Section 421 cases previously, including the McWane Inc. ductile iron waterworks fittings case in 2003, in which the USW testified. The International Trade Commission recommended in the McWane case and the three others that former President George W. Bush penalize Chinese imports. He did nothing -- refusing to protect U.S. industry.
But it's a new day, with a new president. Thus the ruckus. If President Barack Obama adopts the recommendations of the International Trade Commission to use Section 421 to shield American tire manufacturers from unfair trade and preserve American jobs, more cases will quickly follow. That is what China and the corporate profiteers fear.
The USW filed the Section 421 tire case to defend the 15,000 rubber workers who we represented across North America. And we stood alone. No one spoke up for the tire workers. These U.S. workers watched during the past five years as Chinese tire imports increased 215 percent, making China the single largest source of consumer tire imports in the U.S. In that time, 5,000 U.S. rubber workers lost their jobs. Another 3,000 know they'll get the boot by year's end.
America's increased trade deficits with China since it entered the World Trade Organization have cost 2.3 million workers their jobs or job displacements, according to The China Trade Toll by Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute.
Most were manufacturing jobs, but, among them, Scott reports, were 127,710 professional, scientific and technical services workers. There were 66,986 managers of companies and enterprises. They even included 13,141 arts, entertainment and recreation workers.
In this supposed "Post Racial" age of Obama you would think that the silly concept of race would simply ease its way into obscurity. And I am not even talking about the stupidity of racism that has in some ways gotten worse as so many on the far right have simply lost their minds at seeing an African-American family in The White House.
No, I'm talking about our concept of race itself. The fact is that we have what some see as the first black president (sorry Bill Clinton) and what others rightfully recognize as our first bi-ethnic president, since Obama is undeniably not all or mostly black, he is half. Now I know to some, both blacks and whites, as silly and erroneous as it is to say it, half black simply means all black. This notion is the result of the concept of white ethnic purity which lead to the age-old but still going strong "one drop rule" that states, quite simply, no matter how stupid and wrong, that one drop of black blood makes you black. Frankly, I am still amazed that blacks accept this as much as whites do even though it means our blood is somehow tainted. But then again, I do know that for blacks, the acceptance is rooted in two things, one being the need to keep our numbers up for statistics and the other that any mixed person who does not unequivocally state that they are black is somehow ashamed of being black. So one is based on choosing to be inaccurate and the other based on self-esteem issues.
Ironically, the concept of race, which is a pseudo-scientific concoction anyway, has gotten more muddled of late than it has gotten better. I remember years ago people of mixed background had no choice on what to check off on demographic surveys that forced them to pick sides. Then came the "Other" category. An improvement in a way, but who wants to be "Other?" Well, thanks to a number of groups making sure the U.S. Census made more effort to be accurate in our rapidly changing society, one that is decidedly more mixed than it was just a few years ago, the choices increased. So we made progress. Right?
Well, just a couple of weeks ago I got my middle school kids' registration papers and, of course, there was the obligatory demographic survey for us to fill out. Much to my surprise and chagrin, the form proved that whoever is responsible for determining our governmental concept of that term "race" has gotten even more confused.
The form was simple enough in design, being a simple one pager. The top section asked you to fill out your "Ethnicity," for which you had but two choices. Ethnically, you were either Hispanic or non-Hispanic. That was the extent of all the world's ethnicities. Mind you, our kids go to a school that has over 30 languages spoken in it -- from Russian to Japanese to Armenian to Spanish to English and much more. But ethnically you were simply Hispanic or non-Hispanic.
Now the second and last section was even more interesting. In the infinite wisdom of the powers that be who try to define "race," the second section offered many choices. In this section, you were to pick your "race." Oh, oh, there is that pseudo-scientific word again. So much to my surprise, "race" now was defined by choices like these -- Japanese, Philippino, Chinese, Indian, etc., and of course there was black and white. White was seemingly the catch all for the Persian, Armenian, Iranian and other Middle Eastern kids who did not have categories of boxes for their "race." Why Asian's had countries for race and others didn't I had no idea.
I was flabbergasted. What used to be ethnicities and cultures were now separate races. And if you think I was confused my wife, who is Mexican American, was really thrown off. Of course, on the top of the form she could check 'Hispanic." But on the bottom there were no categories for "Mexican American" or "Mexican" or anything that related to a country of origin, though there was such for many Asian countries. Was she supposed to check "white," which she is certainly not?
And for our kids, who are half Hispanic and half non-Hispanic, which box should they have checked on the top of the form? And on the bottom they only had "black" but nothing to represent their mother.
Oh boy, this sure didn't seem like progress. It was pure unadulterated silliness. Many, many people, and the numbers are growing, cannot simply be defined by these stupid boxes. When will we let go of the concept of "race" that does nothing but continue to entrap us all in believing that that which is not real is way more than it needs to be?
Barack Obama is both black and white and he is neither black nor white, and he is mixed and he is half. He is all of those things and he is none of those things. They are simply labels that we use to make life supposedly simpler even though in the end, they make it much more complicated. It is stupid and I don't choose to participate in the silliness.
By the way we checked both boxes, Hispanic and non-Hispanic and we checked black and added a box for Mexican-American for the bottom.
Our nation has arrived at a fateful moment in the debate over health insurance reform. More than sixty years after Harry Truman recognized the health of all Americans as a public responsibility, we stand on the threshold, closer than ever to transforming our health insurance system into one that cares for all citizens and honors patient choice.
To step over that threshold we must acknowledge the current system divides us arbitrarily into haves and have-nots and only through united support for each other can we achieve our greatness. Health insurance reform can bring America closer to our ideals of equality and freedom if it offers affordable coverage to all, expands choices and puts each of us in charge of our health care decisions.
At Compassion & Choices, we focus on better care and informed decision making for patients facing the end of life and their families. We fight bills that would force patients to endure futile, invasive treatment against their will. We help clients with advance directives, local service referrals, and pain and symptom management. We were happy when legislators from both parties sponsored a provision to reimburse doctors whose Medicare patients ask to discuss end-of-life choices. This is the now famous Section 1233 on page 425 of House Bill 3200.
When seniors tell their doctor what treatments they would want or not want in a given situation, they protect their families from struggles over decisions about life-sustaining treatment if they became unable to speak for themselves. They protect their families from the kind of strife the Schiavo family endured.
So when patients express their decisions to their doctors, who stands to lose? The same people we saw demonstrating on the lawn of Terri Schiavo's hospice. Notorious anti-choice radical Randall Terry and others who would dictate private decisions for others: radicals who want to impose their religious beliefs on all Americans. Let's be honest, a medical-industrial complex that profits from extraordinary treatments even when they are harmful, painful and futile also benefits when a dying patient's wish for a peaceful end goes unspoken.
Opponents of health insurance reform are now spreading distortions -- including outrageous lies about the government encouraging seniors to end their lives and death panels euthanizing people with disabilities.
No facts support these horror stories. Even Fred Thompson, who first made these claims on his radio show, now admits, "Is this a conspiracy to kill off granny? No. Will seniors be forced to make decisions they don't want to make? No." Regardless of the facts, however, many people embrace these fears and cling to these myths. We shouldn't be surprised. Change of any kind is inherently frightening.
And what we're talking about is a profound change, from a system where bosses and insurance executives decide who gets health care coverage to one where each of us gets to choose; from a system where pharmaceutical representatives have first access to doctors to one where patients do. Having an opportunity to speak for ourselves on the most basic questions of life and death liberates us from dependence on others to dictate what is right for us.
Freedom is the change that feeds the fear. When we have a greater voice in health care, the traditional voices of authority lose their power over us. Note that when opponents acknowledge the truth, as Fred Thompson does, they still oppose patients discussing end-of-life choices with their doctors. The possibility that Americans could have a direct discussion with their doctor, unencumbered by issues of job or status, void of interference from medical vendors and without a requirement to follow the opinion of religious authorities, is a threat to all those who favor an authoritarian model of medical care.
We are passing through a sweltering August of discouragement, but must look ahead to the invigorating cool of a shaded haven, where our health care system might offer equality of access and freedom of choice and where patients -- not profits -- come first. It is within our sight; the door stands open. But those who fear progress stand in the way. By intimidation, with seeds of doubt and fear they are trying to bar our entry. This autumn, walking shoulder to shoulder, we can, we must cross that threshold.
Barack Obama, being plucky, resembles the black cat called Felix, but surely, being far more plucky, he'll win again. A double helix is written in his DNA, and found within his cat-like genes that help him reproduce each day the measures for which we've no means to pay for. Yet since he's a cat he'll have nine lives, and maybe four more years to pitch at us and bat, and purr in ways that some adore, though fat cats may try to declaw this puss before he does more harm. I wouldn't do this, quite in awe of him and his ailurocharm; I'd rather stroke him since I hope that while I do it he won't scratch; he's Felix, happily no dope, and still the best of all the batch.
Inspired by a blog in Huffington Post by Niall Ferguson:
1. Black cats are proverbially lucky.
2. Felix the cartoon character was a black cat, not an African-American cat - in other words, he was not one of the (quite numerous) 1920s figures in popular entertainment that mocked the mannerisms of the descendants of slaves.
3. Obama is a lucky president--so far. Compare his first six months with Carter's and Clinton's if you don't get that bit.
4. As for the word "black", it's the same one used by the Congressional Black Caucus and the Harvard Black Alumni Society, among others.
The piece made an important point about the biggest threat to Obama's presidency: the seemingly uncontrollable deficit. That's the issue the Huffington Post should be focusing on, not politically correct claptrap.
There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success. Winston Churchill, The Malakand Field Force
KBR will long remember August 7, 2009. Cheryl Harris will long remember August 7, 2009. Each will remember it for the same reason. That was the day they learned that a team of investigators from the government had concluded that KBR should not be held criminally responsible for its negligence. It arrived at that conclusion because of a unique legal theory the investigators developed in connection with the electrocution in Iraq of Cheryl Maseth's son, Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth.
KBR is known for its ability to get contracts for reconstruction in Iraq notwithstanding its demonstrated incompetence and its criminal activities in countries other than Iraq. Its demonstrated incompetence has been covered here and in countless other venues. It was rewarded for its incompetence by receiving $615 million for certain reconstruction work in Iraq that included, but was not limited to, not building a pipeline for which it received full payment, not serving food to the troops for which it was paid and not furnishing potable water to the troops for which it was paid.
KBR's success at getting contracts notwithstanding its incompetence is seen in the contract it was awarded in January 2009 for $35.4 million to construct a power plant and electrical distribution center at the Camp Adder convoy support center in Iraq. Its dishonesty is demonstrated by the fact that less than three weeks after being awarded that contract it pleaded guilty to charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for being part of a four-company joint venture that used bribes in order to get engineering, procurement and construction contracts in Nigeria to build liquefied natural gas facilities in that country. The contracts were worth more than $6 billion, a sum that makes the Iraq contracts seem like small potatoes. The fine it paid for its criminal activity in Nigeria was $402 million or two-thirds of the money it received for the above-described work it didn't do in Iraq. (In addition, it, and its former parent, Dick Cheney's Halliburton Company, jointly agreed to disgorge $177 million in profits arising from their criminal activities. When that amount is added to the fine, the U.S. government was almost made whole for the money paid the company for its non-work in Iraq.)
Here is why the company and Cheryl will both remember August 7, 2009. On January 2, 2008, Ryan was electrocuted when he attempted to take a shower in a barracks that had been wired by KBR. At first his death was described by the military as an accident. The army explained to Cheryl that her son had an electrical appliance with him in the shower that caused his electrocution. That, as so much else associated with the Iraq war, was a lie. He was electrocuted because a water pump in the building was not properly grounded and when the shower was turned on Sgt. Maseth was electrocuted. In January 2009, it was reported by the Associated Press that an army investigator had called the death a "negligent homicide" that occurred because two KBR supervisors had failed to ensure that "qualified electricians and plumbers" were employed in construction of the building. The army investigator's conclusions have been rebutted by the Defense Department using a unique, if not overly persuasive legal theory.
The Associated Press reported that the Defense Department said there "was insufficient evidence to prove or disprove" that anyone was criminally responsible for Ryan Maseth's death. It didn't say that KBR wasn't negligent. It said that both KBR and the government were negligent in exercising their respective duties of care to Ryan and none of the breaches of duty, by itself, was the "proximate cause" of Ryan's death. They also concluded that Ryan's death was an accident. Both conclusions are extraordinary and the conclusion as to "proximate cause" should give heart to those contemplating doing wrong.
According to the Defense Department legal theory, an act of criminal wrongdoing entails no criminal consequences if there is a superior who should have detected the subordinate's wrongdoing and taken steps to right it. That is because if one of the parties had done what he or she was supposed to do, the injury would not have occurred. Applying this theory, if a drunk worker were to get into an employer's vehicle with the knowledge of the employer and have an accident, neither the driver nor the superior would be criminally responsible for the consequences of the conduct since each of them bears some responsibility and neither was the "proximate cause" of the accident.
KBR's website says that: "When you become part of the KBR team, your opportunities are endless. . . ." They got that right. It's just too bad the endless opportunities are malfeasance, incompetence, and corruption.
Christopher Brauchli can be e-mailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page.
When I was a child, my mom explained that my dad saved scraps of aluminum foil, the miracle kitchen asset that made cooking so much easier. It was a habit he picked up during World War II when conservation was important and everyone pitched in to fight a threat to the country.
Now, we have a bigger threat to the world. Saving the environment.
A newspaperman all my life, I was used to saving newsprint and dropping them off at charitable homes that sold it for pennies on the pound. It seemed like a lot of effort just to make a few dollars, although the idea was noble.
But when all that turned into "Greening," I started to be a little skeptical. And the first time I saw the new police headquarters in Orland Park, the Chicago suburb where I live, surrounded by uncut grass, foot tall weeds and crude roughage, I almost laughed. My instinct was maybe the mayor was upset with our police chief, Tim McCarthy, the hero secret serviceman who took a bullet for President Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s.
Then came recycling, and the futility I saw in my mother saving all that aluminum foil in large balls under the sink pantry overloaded my logic.
Our environment has a problem. A lot of it comes from wasted energy, most from gasoline usage in cars and lawn mowers. Our ground is poisoned with fertilizers just so the grass can look pretty for about 10 weeks every summer. With water rationing now a common part of life, that green window is even shorter.
Recycling was my tipping point. I became a believer.
There was a time when we would dump four to six bags of garbage every week in two large garbage cans. Ever since the village provided those large blue recycling containers, we throw out less than one bag of garbage a week while the recycling container overflows with aluminum, plastics, paper and cans.
The balance shift in favor of the environment from six bags of unusable waste to six bags of recyclables was amazing.
So I guess it was inevitable that I would make one more change. No, I haven't purchased a "cross-over" energy efficient vehicle. They're too expensive. I'm upset that the auto industry, reeling from poor management and sloppy product, is trying to take advantage of the shift to gas and energy efficiency by raising the price of the cross-over cars.
I spent $100 to buy a push lawn mower. OK, maybe I was a little lightheaded at the time. But I love to mow my own lawn. It's the one thing I can still do. I can't fix my car any more. It's too complicated.
I like to mow my own lawn. I pretend that it's great exercise. Part of me is nostalgic for the days when I was a kid and we actually used a push mower. No one had a gas engine lawn mower when I was growing up on the South Side of Chicago. If you did, you converted it into a go-cart.
Chicago homes were packed together tighter than sardines in a can, and the space between them was called a "gangway." The few steps in front was the "stoop," where we all enjoyed the August humidity.
When you said cut the grass, people thought about marijuana. Most Chicago homes had very little grass. So a push mower was about all we needed.
Then came the suburbs, the glorious Valhalla of wide open spaces and rambling lawns. Oh those big suburban lawns looked so inviting when you bought those huge four bedroom properties with no money down, a flexible mortgage and a lot of debt.
Pretty soon lawn care became a lifestyle.
I'd spend a lot of time during the week thinking about how I was going to manicure the lawn over the weekend. I'd edge it. Cut it short in the fall. High in the spring and summer. Fertilize it either through a lawn care service or spend $30 on a 50-pound bag of Scotts fertilizer and weed killer. Had to kill those weeds.
The lawn mower cost about $650. It lasted about three years before it needed repairs. It burned gas worse than my 1964 Chevy Super Sport with the 327 engine that I had while a senior at Reavis High School.
The more I read about my suburb, Orland Park, talk about reducing our "carbon footprint," the more I started to think maybe I should pitch in and green it up a bit, too.
The day I bought the push mower, of course, it was drizzling rain and the grass was wet. But I had to try it out. Right away. That's what baby boomers do. Rush into everything, head first. It's been 40 years since Woodstock and 50 since I last pushed a push lawnmower. Let's do it!
Grass clippings, normally mulched in the gas guzzler Toro, were strewn everywhere and clinging to my Skechers. My wife is not going to be happy with those clippings trailing all over the house, the driveway and the beautiful Malibu-lighted stone pathway on the side of the house.
It does a great job cutting, when the grass isn't too bunched up and in a straight line. I had forgotten the push mower isn't as versatile around those corners or the weird angles of my landscaped property.
By the time I finished, I think I sweated off 50 pounds. Felt like it anyway.
When I looked in the mirror, I saw what they really mean when they talk about greening. I looked like the Hulk with far less bulk. My face was completely green from the stress.
Enough with the nostalgia. I wonder if I'll use it one more time.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and Chicago radio talks how host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)
Forgotten hairball Rod Blagojevich really wanted to go to the Costa Rican jungle to eat bugs with his lovely wife, Patti, on the hit short-lived reality show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get me Out of Here!" but some stupid federal judge wouldn't let him just because he tried to sell a friggin' golden senate seat to make a little dough while serving the fine people of Illinois. So what, who cares?
Well, multi-talented Mr. Blagojevich knows how to do a few things other than shaking down Children's Hospitals and styling hair. He knows what the people want and he's not afraid to give it to them. And what they want is more Rod Blagojevich!
So before shamefully heading to the dustbins of political history as the Lego-haired embarrassment he is, Hot Rod Blagojevich gave the world the final star-making performance it'd been waiting for. A true Blago original, this time in honor of his coif-sharing idol: the one, the only, Sir Elvis Presley (Al Capone was close though).
Hell, he loves performing so much he'd do it even if he wasn't paid. Which he was. But he might give some of the money to a charity for cancer patients. Maybe. If they're really lucky he just might throw in those luscious brown locks. Free of charge.
Huffington Post Editor Roy Sekoff appeared on MSNBC's "Ed Show" to discuss the increase in right-wing militias. He called it a "perfect storm for the lunatic fringe" with a half-black president, a Jewish chief of staff, and a Latino Supreme Court Justice: "It's the Haters' Trifecta." But Sekoff added that the Obama administration has played a part in fueling the anger with its Wall Street-friendly handling of the bank bailout and behind-closed-doors deal with the pharmaceutical industry.
Disruption of the health care town hall meetings has triggered some rich debate about free speech in the U.S. In these discussions, CODEPINK has been referenced several times as the group that has most often tested the boundaries of free speech. Over the years, we've been chided and insulted by the media, Members of Congress, former Press Secretaries, and even President Bush himself. However, when Nancy Pelosi weighed in recently on the town hall "mobs," saying that "drowning out opposing views is un-American," I was compelled to respond.
While the frequent mentions of CODEPINK in these discussions do not surprise me, it saddens me that there are so few groups from the past decade to reference when talking about pushing the edge of healthy debate. Congress has been failing the people in so many ways for so long that there should have been be a non-stop primal scream from the people to wake the our representatives up from their corporate-funded stupor.
But who would have heard them? For far too long, the American people have been cut off from and out of the political process without any real avenues of letting their voices be heard. So when Speaker Pelosi -- no stranger to drowning out opposing views -- talks about "drowning out opposing views is un-American," the statement is steeped in irony.
For example, CODEPINK attended Nancy Pelosi's last town hall meeting in January of 2006. Let me be clear -- these town halls are one of very few ways for the people to voice their opinions, and CODEPINK does not disrupt healthy debate at these events, as some of the protesters have done at recent health care town halls. At this event, Medea Benjamin was the first in line to ask a question. After her question was ignored (no answer was given), CODEPINK members stood quietly in the front of the room with their banner. No screaming, no verbal attacks or threats of violence, no disruption of the other voices in the room.
At the time of the meeting, Pelosi had announced she'd taken the impeachment of George Bush "off the table" -- choosing her popularity and chances at reelection over her constitutional duty. Millions of Americans were not happy -- but Pelosi refused to have any other town halls for the rest of Bush's term -- effectively "drowning out opposing views." Today -- over three years later -- she continues to work at locking out debate about single payer in the Congressional hearings on health care.
In the media surrounding the health care town halls, protesters disruptions have been compared to CODEPINK's presence in Congress. This is comparing the proverbial apples to oranges and doesn't distinguish Congressional hearings from the public-centered town halls. In Congressional hearings, the discussion is all too often one-sided, with the voice of the people woefully absent. We seek to expand the conversation and introduce the elephants in the room -- most often we've delivered our message with our choice of costume or the messaging on our signs and t-shirts. We do this after we have exhausted every other remedy to express our opinions -- after we've called, written letters, delivered petitions, brought activists to DC from around the country and met with our representatives. We resort to non-violent direct actions when there is no other way to get the message across.
We've understood, regrettably, when we go to a hearing that if we stand up and deliver the message that it is quite probable that we will be arrested. Our 'outbursts' are not meant to shut-down conversation; they're meant to join it where we have been shut out. This does not seem to be the motive of the health care protesters, who appear upset that the topic is even being visited.
However, what is most sobering about this conversation about how to hold national debates is that here, in this country that considers itself to be the most democratic in the world, dissent is so rare and so frightening. We need dissent now more than ever - our representatives have just forked over $10 trillion to Wall Street and another $100 billion for wars. We should all be attending town halls right now and asking the hard questions, demanding accountability. Our representatives need to feel our anger at the selling out of everything we value. But this can only happen when we have all the facts and when we respect the other voices in the room. We absolutely must demand to be heard -- but not at the expense of silencing others.
DETROIT — General Motors Co. has confirmed it will assemble battery packs for its new rechargeable electric car at a new factory in southeastern Michigan.
Company President and CEO Fritz Henderson has called a news conference for Thursday at the plant site in Brownstown Township, 20 miles southwest of Detroit.
GM says in a statement the factory "will produce the lithium ion battery packs for GM's future extended-range electrical vehicles, including the Chevrolet Volt."
South Korea's LG Chem Ltd. is making the batteries.
Two people briefed on the project said last month GM will invest $43 million and employ about 100 people at the plant. They requested anonymity because GM hadn't made an official announcement.
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Associated Press reporters Ken Thomas in Washington and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this story.
Streaking, running naked through a public place, first occurred in 1804 when George William Crump was arrested for doing so at what is now called Washington & Lee University in Virginia.
Streaking reached its pop cultural peak in 1974 when a streaker ran across the stage disrupting the Academy Awards. Once people saw the national media attention the streaker got, it inspired many other such incidents including ones at the Superbowl, Wimbelton and the Olympics. Running naked through a public event is a very effective way to get media attention.
A lot of people have been streaking through town hall meetings on health care reform. Not bothering to dress their outbursts with any facts, they disrupt the public events and, like the streakers before them, get national media attention. The media seems to be a sucker when it comes to reporting nudity instead of baring the facts.
The Healthcare Reform bill presented to the House on July 14th has 1018 pages. It is available online to anyone who wants to read it. Its way too long to Twitter and way too long for most people to read, including those who are yelling the loudest. However, you can do a word search to find those areas you are most interested in.
If you are interested in: death panels, euthanasia, socialism, putting the elderly to death, Nazis, Hitler or any of the other words yelled at the town hall meetings, you won't find them. If you are interested in finding out if you have pre-existing conditions that exclude you from coverage, you can find that information: the bill prohibits any exclusions for pre-existing conditions.
"WE DON'T WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO RUN OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM!" At a town hall meeting in Texas, an activist asked the people there if they "oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care." Most opposed it. Representative Gene Green of Texas, who ran the meeting, then asked how many people there were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands. Medicare, is a government run healthcare program. So is the excellent coverage provided to those who served in our armed forces.
"WE DON'T WANT A GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRAT BETWEEN US AND OUR DOCTOR!" Most of us who are insured already have a bureaucrat between us and our doctor - an insurance company. In most cases the insurance company lets you choose your doctor, as long as they included in the plan you are on, otherwise you pay a lot more. They also determine what treatment qualifies for reimbursement and the pre-existing conditions that exclude you from coverage all together.
Ninety five cents of every dollar spent on healthcare is spent to treat diseases we already have. Prevention is an overlooked part of this debate. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies are mostly controllable by us as individuals. What we eat, what we drink, and how active we are has tremendous and costly effects on our lives. That's something we each have the power to do something about.
"AMERICA'S HEALTHCARE IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD!" No, it isn't, but it is the most expensive. Although the United States spends more than any other country, $4,271/person, 16.5% of GDP, we rank 47th in life expectancy in the world. However, if you take pride in being number one, we are number one in teen pregnancy, obesity, diabetes and plastic surgery. For all you investment buffs, that is pretty bad return. 60% of those who default on their mortgages and lose their homes do so as a result of the burden of medical bills.
France is ranked, by the World Health Organization, as having the best medical care in the world. France is 8th in cost per person of medical care at $2288 which is 10.5% of their GDP. France is 9th in the world in life expectancy. Those promiscuous French are 16th in terms of teen pregnancy, 296 per million people compared to the United States with over 5 times as many, 1,671 per million. France has universal healthcare. So does Canada and Great Britain. Their healthcare costs are lower. Their mortality is longer. They don't stand in long lines. How long do you have to wait for an appointment to see your doctor?
"GO LIVE THERE IF YOU THINK IT'S BETTER!" This is my country as much as it is yours, only I'd like it to get better.
We all agree the health of our citizens is of paramount importance. Healthcare is a huge, costly hot button issue that most people don't understand and don't bother educating themselves about. We need informed debate. It's far easier to pay attention to the aberrant, sometimes amusing, often frightening behavior that gets news coverage. Dangerous fools fuel the fires of ignorance and fear by spreading false information, taunting those who disagree, hanging politicians in effigy and bringing guns to town hall meetings. The real issues that concern us all, right and left, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal, are lost in the ugly noise of an angry mob. The cemetery is truly bi-partisan but by the time we get there it's too late to do anything constructive.
DALLAS — USA Gymnastics signed a deal Wednesday to air its biggest events on NBC and cable partner Universal Sports through 2012.
The agreement, combined with domestic and international contracts NBC has with swimming, skating, track and skiing, gives the networks the lion's share of the coverage of U.S. teams in five key Olympic sports at a time when the U.S. Olympic Committee is trying to start its own channel.
"This makes sense to us for a lot of reasons," USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny said. "It's the natural partner for us and I think the natural partner for the Olympic movement."
NBC has televised every Summer Olympics since 1988 and every Winter Olympics since 2002.
USOC officials have heaped praise on NBC for its coverage and support but the relationship hit a snag last month when the USOC partnered with Comcast to form a new network that is expected to go to air after the Vancouver Olympics.
The Comcast deal came about after negotiations with NBC and Universal Sports broke down.
Plans for the new network have riled both NBC and the International Olympic Committee, which is worried about alienating the network that is providing the IOC's biggest chunk of revenue through its $2.2 billion broadcasting deal for 2010 and 2012.
NBC still plans to bid for the next Olympic TV package for the 2014 and 2016 Games.
"As we've said consistently since the questions started being asked, we fully intend to be at that table when the IOC decides" on the TV deal, said NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel.
He said he didn't want to get drawn into a discussion about the USOC's network plans.
"I will tell you, that from an NBC perspective, we're committed to coverage of Olympic sports," Zenkel said. "We're committed and very passionate about the Olympic Games."
Leaders of Olympic sports – the biggest sports, at least – are mostly enthusiastic about the relationship with NBC and Universal Sports, which air a good portion of their non-Olympic-year events, either through direct deals with the American governing bodies or through contracts with international federations.
For instance, Universal Sports devoted extensive air time to last month's swimming world championships in Rome. The cable network's first big deal in 2003 was with the International Gymnastics Federation.
"We just love the relationship we have with NBC," USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus said. "Their plans through the 2012 Olympic trials have us incredibly excited. We don't know what the future holds after that."
World track championships, which start later this week, will be available on a live internet feed via Universal Sports. NBC plans some coverage, as does the Versus network, which is a creation of Comcast. USA Track and Field does not have a current working contract with NBC, said spokeswoman Jill Geer. The U.S. Ski Team has a combination of deals with NBC, Universal Sports, Versus and others.
The USOC owns rights to Olympic trials and hopes to put most of them on its network beginning in 2014.
The USOC's chief operating officer, Norman Bellingham, said he welcomed the USA Gymnastics news.
"We're very excited to see Olympic sports gain greater coverage in off-year periods," he said.
The Universal Sports network was the creation of Claude Ruibal, who six years ago began buying up television rights to Olympic sports around the world and airing them on a Web feed, envisioning a network devoted to sports that don't traditionally get much TV coverage.
The partnership with NBC made sense, and though Universal Sports is not yet a money maker, it is connected to about 36 million homes and available to 20 million more.
"My passion and love was always 'Wide World of Sports,'" Ruibal said. "I've always liked that diversity. It might just be me, but I've always had the thought that it would resonate with other customers around the USA."
Leaders at the USOC think so, too, and now the question will be whether two such networks can make it.
The USOC network is expected to serve up a steady diet of the smaller Olympic sports, along with lifestyle and studio shows and some archival footage – though the rights for the old highlights is among the many disagreements that have to be resolved in negotiations between the USOC, IOC and NBC.
David Raith, executive director of U.S. Figure Skating, said even though his sport has a home at NBC, he'd like to see the USOC network succeed, knowing that would help lower profile sports and the Olympic movement in general.
"There are some questions I think many of us would like to see answered," he said. "But in the end, we support all of them and we'd like to see all of them be successful."
LINCOLN, Neb. — Police arrested a woman twice in one night in two different cars for driving drunk. Police spokeswoman Katie Flood said the woman was pulled over at 1:13 a.m. Wednesday after she allegedly made an illegal turn and was spotted swerving down a south Lincoln street.
The officer who stopped her said her blood-alcohol level was .19. That's more than twice the legal limit. The woman was cited on suspicion of driving under the influence and negligent driving and taken to a detoxification center.
Flood said the same officer stopped the woman again about two hours later. This time she was driving her boyfriend's car. She was arrested for driving under the influence and negligent driving and taken to jail. Her blood-alcohol level then tested at .154.
NEW YORK — General Electric Co. called a Fox News Channel report about the company supplying terrorists with material used in bombs "irresponsible and maliciously false" on Wednesday, as a feud between Fox's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann kept sizzling.
It was the first time that GE, the parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, had publicly responded to accusations made by O'Reilly on his Fox show.
Olbermann also kept up his attacks, naming O'Reilly one of his "worst persons in the world" on Tuesday's show. The two men have taken their feud to a new level ever since The New York Times reported on Aug. 1 that the chief executives of both parent corporations of the cable news channels – News Corp. as well as GE – had encouraged them to cool things down.
O'Reilly said on Tuesday that his show's sources say there is a federal investigation into whether American companies supplied components being used in roadside bombs aimed at American soldiers. He said that radio frequency modules inside some bombs were part of a shipment made by a U.S. company to Corezing International, a Singapore company that does business with Iran.
O'Reilly said that his show "has been told, but cannot confirm, that the General Electric corporation is under suspicion in the case."
GE spokesman Gary Sheffer said he was surprised by the report, given O'Reilly's admission that he could not confirm GE's involvement.
GE does not do business with Corezing, and does not produce the radio frequency modules that were described in the report, he said.
"We usually do not respond to the misleading and inaccurate claims made on this program because very few people take them seriously," Sheffer said, "but tonight's report took this smear campaign to a new low."
A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, had no immediate comment about GE's statement. FBI spokesman Steve Kodak said the bureau does not comment about any investigations it may be doing.
Sheffer said he believed O'Reilly's report was tied to the MSNBC feud.
Briganti did not comment on GE's assertion that O'Reilly's story was done because of the feud. Fox issued a statement last week about GE and NBC: "Both organizations are covered as news warrants."
Olbermann, for his part, has named O'Reilly one of his "worst persons of the world" three times in the seven shows he's done since report of the supposed truce. He condemned O'Reilly on Monday for spending too much time talking about O'Reilly's own ratings.
"As a reporter, I wouldn't send Bill O'Reilly to cover a john overflowing," Olbermann said.
NEW YORK — A jury can decide whether the author of a best-selling book about the death of Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith defamed her lawyer by making allegations that may be too outlandish to be true, including that he pimped her to up to 50 men a year, a judge concluded Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin found plenty of reasons to let a jury hear the facts behind a $60 million libel lawsuit brought by lawyer Howard K. Stern against "Blonde Ambition" author Rita Cosby, a veteran television news anchor and "Inside Edition" correspondent. The lawsuit was filed less than a month after the book was published in September 2007.
The judge said the book's claim that Stern had a sexual relationship with Larry Birkhead, the father of Smith's daughter, was "nothing short of explosive. Perhaps too explosive."
"In other words," he said, "printing a claim that Birkhead and Stern had sex would be a way to make it to the top of the bestseller list, and a reasonable jury could find that Cosby ignored the inherently improbable nature of the statement in her zeal to write a blockbuster book."
Stern and Birkhead have denied any sexual relationship.
The judge said there was "substantial evidence" to let a reasonable jury find Cosby acted with malice in stating in the book that Smith obtained a videotape of Birkhead and Stern having sex and regularly watched it in front of her nannies.
He noted that Cosby traveled to the Bahamas after Stern filed the lawsuit to try to meet with the nannies and in a conversation with one of their representatives proposed paying the nannies to sign an affidavit supporting the statements attributed to them in the book, which was published by Hachette Book Group USA Inc.
The judge, who dropped the publisher as a defendant, called Cosby's actions "extremely troubling" and said they "suggest that she was attempting to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses."
He said a reasonable jury could conclude that Cosby knew she had fabricated the information about Smith watching the videotape and "was desperate to come up with an after-the-fact verification of one of the more salacious and explosive allegations in the book."
He also said a jury can decide whether there was malice in the book's statements that Smith thought Stern was involved in the death of her son and that many people in Smith's inner circle thought Stern was involved in her death. He tossed out eight of 19 other claims.
Cosby lawyer Elizabeth A. McNamara said she was gratified the judge had dismissed some of the statements at issue in the case and was "fully confident" the jury would dismiss the others once it hears the evidence surrounding Stern's life with Smith.
Stern, who began doing legal work for Smith in 1997, became romantically involved with her in 2000 but kept the relationship secret until 2006, according to evidence in the case.
Stern attorney L. Lin Wood said his client was "very pleased" with the judge's decision to let a jury decide whether Cosby defamed him with claims that Smith thought he was involved in her son's death, that he had pimped her out and that he had engaged in sex with Birkhead.
"Those areas," Wood said, "were the heart and soul of our complaint."
The judge also wrote that there was evidence that Cosby made up quotes. He said a jury could conclude that statements in the book that Smith knowingly acted as a prostitute with Stern as her pimp or that Stern drugged her and pimped her to as many as 50 men a year "are so inherently improbable that Cosby was reckless in including them in the book."
"It will be up to a jury to determine whether this statement is as inherently improbable as it sounds," he said.
Smith, the 1993 Playmate of the Year, had a successful career as a clothing model before landing her own reality TV show, "The Anna Nicole Show." The Texas native was found unconscious in a Florida hotel room in 2007 and was declared dead of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. She was 39.
Smith's son, Daniel, who was born in 1986, died of an apparent prescription drug overdose in the Bahamas just a few days after Smith gave birth to her daughter, Dannielynn, in 2006.
Cosby, a journalist for more than 20 years, has worked as a correspondent and host for CBS, MSNBC and Fox News. She began covering Smith in 2006.
Hachette, the publisher, offered Cosby an advance of $405,000 plus royalties for "Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death, which was an instant best-seller.
NEW YORK — Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece "The Milkmaid" is coming to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art for a special exhibition on the 17th-century Dutch artist.
The exhibition opens Sept. 10 and runs until Nov. 29. It will be the first time in 70 years that the painting will be seen in the United States. It was last exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair.
"The Milkmaid" dates from 1657-58. It shows a milkmaid in a vibrant blue and yellow dress pouring milk from a jug into a bowl.
The exhibition will also feature all five paintings by Vermeer in the Met's collection and works by other Dutch painters.
"The Milkmaid" is being loaned by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Only 36 of Vermeer's works survive today.
After three White Sox hitters were beaned by Cleveland Indians pitchers Saturday, Guillen threw down the gauntlet.
"If I see someone hit my player, and I know they hit him on purpose it's two guys going down. I don't care if I get suspended," Guillen said Sunday. "I rather have me suspended for two games than have my players on the DL for 30 days."
Guillen was reportedly warned, however, that he could face real punishment if he continued to talk about hitting players.
Steely Dan wraps up its series of New York concerts (the Rent Party '09 Tour) at the Beacon Theatre this week proving that Reelin' In The Years takes a lot longer with the passage of time.
These sparkling performances served as a time capsule for those who came of musical age in the 1970s. The Beacon bulged with the masses of midlife. Sitting in Dockers and loose-fitting jeans, with hair that had grayed and also disappeared, they came to reclaim the soundtrack that underscored all those broken hearts, parental fights, and awkward moments when life itself was a Royal Scam, intelligible only with Pretzel Logic.
The fans of Steely Dan once considered themselves cool in high school and complicated in college. The music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen -- the band's founding fathers -- appealed to both misfits and intellectuals. There was wizardry in their word play and an abundance of irony that smirked at the self-conscious earnestness that passed for rock and roll during post-Watergate America.
While disco and punk engaged in their own class conflicts and rivalries -- symbolically represented by Tony Manero's white suit and Johnny Rotten's spiky orange hair -- Becker and Fagen transcended all cultural pretenses and political statements. And their fans wouldn't be caught dead listening to disco or thrashing around in a mosh pit, either.
All that mattered was the music itself -- the sweet spot fusion between jazz and funk, ornamented with those sinuous guitar rhythms, meticulous bass lines and dramatic drum solos.
Throughout the 1970s most bands took grooming tips from The Bee Gees while Steely Dan was rarely photographed. And when the occasional snapshot did surface, the band members seemed to be looking elsewhere, away from the camera.
In fact, they were not so much a band as a loose configuration of stellar musicians, orbiting around Becker and Fagen as if Steely Dan was its own Apollo mission -- not the kind that rocketed into space, but rather the one that owed its allegiance to Apollo, the god of music and poetry himself.
Each Steely Dan album revealed an obsession with remaining original. Becker and Fagen tinkered in recording studios while other bands toured arenas. During a decade dominated by folk rock and heavy metal extravaganzas -- music that would later inspire valentines such as Almost Famous and parodies such as This Is Spinal Tap -- Steely Dan refused to play in front of live audiences.
All seven of their albums went platinum, selling 30 million records worldwide. Yet their fans never got a chance to see them play -- until only recently. For this reason the Rent Party '09 Tour, and its earlier incarnations, have been received like coming-out parties for the band and its fans alike.
And so Becker and Fagen now shuffle across the stage like a couple of jovial, slightly dangerous uncles who everyone looks forward to seeing on Christmas (actually, more like Hanukkah since they are both purportedly Jewish). They look worn, but no worse than the glistening grooves of a couple of vintage LPs.
What is it about the psychic pull that music exerts on the mind and the memories? Nothing else is as transporting or as physically locating as the songs that were played and listened to during transformative times. They are like rite of passage lullabies heard over and over again in darkened bedrooms and on long stretches of highway where the horizon beckons like a future that keeps its distance.
My Old School may sound older nowadays, and the reasons for never going back are no doubt less important if not entirely forgotten. Yet the music of Steely Dan remains as timeless as ever.
The President says he is American, but I smell a pineapple- and whatever-it-is-they-eat-in-Kenya-soaked rat. First he gets elected from a state that never should have been let into the Union (you heard me, Hawaii). Now he is running around like some uppity Swede trying to push public health care on regular Americans. I say, no thanks.
This Euro-phile talk chafes my goodies like a $300 pair of Italian skinny jeans. We need a health care system befitting our self-indulgent lifestyles and corpulent frames. We don't want some restrictive pair of Dolce and Gabbana denim that is continually dictating how and when we adjust our health care packages. We want the XXXL-stretchy-pants health care system. The one that barely covers our bulbous bottom lines, exposes cracks in our social networks and strains mightily against the middle class.
Obama wants to give people stuff they didn't work or pay for, and reduce the profits of companies that are doing well in a recession. And he would slide like butter from a hot knife into a pair of slim-fit D&Gs. Sounds more like Hans from Stuttgart than Average Joe to me. Moreover, he wants to dip into something even more disgusting than dipping fries in mayonnaise: our taxes.
I say enough of this Belgianism. Keep your turtleneck sweaters, your misplaced compassion, and leanings toward a welfare state, Baron von Private-Health-Care-Costs-A-Lot. We like our obscenely expensive system with its inequitable distribution of care. If you want affordable care for everyone, go back to Luxemburg, which is where I am going to do my best to fabricate that you were born.
August 11, 2009 -- Part-time Aspen resident Lance Armstrong, shortly after soundly beating top pro rider Jay Henry of Avon in Saturday's Blast the Mass mountain bike race in Snowmass, had lunch with Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter to talk about reviving a Coors Classic-style staged road race.
That race, which began as the Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger in 1975 and ran as the wildly popular Coors Classic from 1979 to '88, included stages in Vail such as the Vail Pass Hill Climb and the Vail Village Criterium.
In Ron Kessler's new book, "Bush's Law," he reports that the Bush twins and Mary Cheney created problems for their Secret Service detail.
Specifically, he writes that Jenna Bush's then-fiance got so drunk that the Secret Service had to rush him to a hospital in Georgetown and that agents had to break up a barroom brawl he started.
In addition, Kessler reports that Mary Cheney got the Secret Service to remove the leader of her detail after the agent refused to take her friends to restaurants.
Kessler described more details in an interview with MSNBC:
They [the Bush twins] were a terror. Of course they got better later on. Jenna, especially, would purposely evade the Secret Service, would actually go through red lights to evade her detail. She and her then-boyfriend who became her husband, Henry Hager, became so drunk - he did - at a Halloween party that the agents had to take him to Georgetown University Hospital.
The other time, they almost got into a brawl at a bar in Georgetown. They had to intervene. Very, very difficult.
Mary Cheney, also, wanted to get the Secret Service to take her friends to restaurants. And the Secret Service refused. For that, she had the detail leader removed.
Ever since they got a whiff of proposed plans to turn their Chicago neighborhoods into ground zero for the 2016 Olympics, many South Side residents have grown concerned that they will end up sidelined by the games.
Launching a Major Newspaper Web Site in 1996 Offered Hints of the Trouble to Come
The pundits and so-called media experts now wringing their hands over the fate of newspapers are late to the game.
I came to mainstream daily newspapers early in 1996, before most papers had web sites, and witnessed the culture clash that would ultimately hasten the industry's undoing.
It was spring of '96 and I was recruited from a job as a financial reporter at Reuters in New York to join the Baltimore Sun as the second hire in its fledgling online department. My title: "content manager." None of us knew what that meant, which fit the mood of the time. Truth was, no one in the industry knew what we were doing.
My Reuters colleagues were aghast when I resigned to take a job in Baltimore launching a web site. Leaving the lucrative world of New York financial journalism seemed a risky career move, but it was clear to me even then that online media represented the future of journalism. And so I traded in my suits and ties (casual Friday back then meant khakis, a navy blazer and tie), broke my lease on a mice-infested, fifth-floor walk-up and arrived at the Sun to figure out what newspaper readers wanted from a newspaper web site.
From day one, it was clear that overcoming the company's inherent print bias and generational differences between my team and the newsroom would be daunting. At my very first meeting, a senior print executive mentioned something about a sunspot.
"Sunspot? What's that," I asked.
"That's the name of the new web site," the executive responded, clearly irritated that the 25-year-old new kid would dare to interrupt. "What's wrong, you don't like it?"
"Do you know what a sunspot is?" I replied. "It's a blemish on the surface of the sun that disrupts communication on Earth. Why not just call it baltimoresun.com?"
My objections weren't persuasive and the site was christened SunSpot.net (we couldn't even get .com!). It took many years, but the Sun eventually jettisoned the cutesy name and went with my intuitive suggestion, but typing in sunspot.net will still direct you to the Sun's site today.
Few in the company, then owned by Times Mirror and later acquired by Tribune Company, understood the differences between print and online; many said our web site should merely house select stories from the print edition with a teaser to go buy the paper for more information. Others saw the web as the domain of young people who don't read the print product anyway, thus we included chat rooms, games, even a web-based soap opera in our site plan.
Old-timers in the newsroom, some of whom had been in the same union-protected job for 40 years, were nonplussed by the web buzz. They didn't understand the medium and derisively dismissed those of us working to create the company's site. When we completed a working demo of the site, the web staff hosted a training session for the paper's top editors.
Each editor took a seat at a computer; I told them to explore the site and raise their hands with any questions. Immediately, one senior editor's arm shot into the air.
"Mine doesn't work," he said, waving the mouse around above his head. First lesson: the mouse goes on the desk.
One of my more memorable run-ins with the defensive, entrenched print news staff came on the night of Princess Diana's death in August 1997. It was late at night on a weekend when word came of the Paris car crash. I headed to the office to help assemble our web coverage -- breaking news updates, links to foreign news reports, photo galleries, bio, archived coverage of Diana's visit to Maryland, etc. A senior editor stopped me in the newsroom and demanded to know what I was doing there. When I told him, he responded, "Your job is to follow print." I told him he had a lot to learn and continued working.
I struggled to win the respect and attention of the paper's editors, repeatedly reminding them that I held a journalism degree and had both reporting and editing experience. None of that mattered to them: I was either the enemy to be destroyed or a dilettante to be ignored. Part of my job entailed attending the daily newsroom budget meetings during which editors select the front-page stories for the next day.
In the hundreds of newsroom budget meetings I attended in nearly five years, I never spoke a word and my presence was never acknowledged. And some of the editors were downright nasty. When I began assembling a list of reporters' e-mail addresses to post online, one bearded, bedraggled editor charged into my office and cussed me out, accusing me of violating his staff's privacy.
Still others would avoid me during the workday, then send angry, profane e-mails at night. I deduced that they were drunk when sending these messages. Alcohol was not an insignificant force at the Sun. I discovered that many older, senior editorial staff members frequented a dive bar located beneath a nearby bridge for lunch and couldn't resist crashing the party. It was there -- over draft Natty Bohs and rail vodka -- that I finally endeared myself to some of the editors. They didn't respect my work ethic, dedication or journalism experience, but they appreciated that I could hold my liquor.
I got to know a few of them and discovered they weren't the hopeless Luddites I'd assumed. They regaled me with tales of the good ole days -- unlimited travel and expense accounts, stints in the Paris bureau, living for extended periods at the George V. I realized that the golden era of newspapers was already long over and I'd never get to experience the giddy excesses of publishing's heyday. (I would, however, later get to enjoy the giddy excesses of the dot com boom, but that's another story.)
It slowly emerged that the problem wasn't the editors, but the senior corporate executives who refused to fund the online operation at a level where we could really thrive and innovate. The web staff worked for below industry average salaries at a company widely known to pay generous wages to its unionized print staff.
And the union licked its greedy chops at the prospect of absorbing us. One union leader even called me at home to brag of his salary and the fact that he could afford to own a home, while I still rented. The Baltimore-Washington Newspaper Guild hauled us before the labor board to pursue its cause of forcing our staff to unionize and pay dues. Assuming I would prove a hostile witness, they waited to call me to testify until I had left town for vacation, forcing me to cut short a trip and return to Baltimore. When I warned our corporate lawyer that I would arrive at the hearing directly from the beach in flip-flops and a T-shirt, he replied, "That's OK, the hearing officer is blind." Imagine trying to explain to a 60-something blind guy in 1997 what a web site is and what a "content manager" does all day.
The web department's first offices at the cavernous Sun building were located in an unused hallway behind the cafeteria. We sat in a row, our desks lining the hall, facing a wall of windows that heated up to intolerable temperatures by late afternoon. The air reeked of whatever burned pizza or Friday fish fry the kitchen staff was cooking.
It was a shoestring operation and the limited budget meant that attracting employees with online experience would be impossible. Our department became something of a dumping ground for underperformers from print. When you wanted to get rid of someone, you offered them a phony promotion to the web unit. And we got our share of characters who were thoroughly unqualified for jobs in the rapidly evolving new world of online media.
One senior manager hired from print took a seat beside my desk and quietly typed a lengthy memo on his first day. When finished, he turned to me and whispered, "How do you type a capital letter?"
Mystified, I walked over and peered over his shoulder. Turns out he'd always had a secretary in print-land and had never typed his own memos. And so his first memo as a web staffer lacked any capital letters or punctuation.
"Shift," I whispered back to him.
We suffered from a lack of resources, the disdain of the editorial staff and the indifference of everyone else. The print sales reps were rolling in easy commissions and viewed the web product as small change. For some of them in those days, "work" entailed entertaining clients who'd signed year-long mega-contracts that kept coming year after year. There was no incentive to sell the web or learn a new medium. Our web ad rates were so low that a commission on them would barely register to a print rep accustomed to easy six-figure money. As a result, web ads were practically given away as a "value-add." No one seemed bothered that we were teaching our advertisers that web ads had no value, a fact that continues to hamper online ad sales a decade later.
We resented the print staff's salaries and bonuses and craved the clout and respect they commanded internally. Rather than fight the culture war, most of us just toiled away in the hallway. The site evolved from a cartoonish hodgepodge of news and games to a much more sophisticated destination. We added video and much original content and reporting. There were live interview chats with everyone from John Waters to city mayoral candidates.
Our motley crew of underpaid web staffers included an executive assistant who learned HTML so she could pitch in; a junior producer who previously worked at a pet store; and the aforementioned print refugee who kept no sales records, opting instead to memorize the site's few advertising commitments. Everyone learned on the job.
As the years went by and it became increasingly clear to corporate executives that the web wasn't a fad, we were slowly given more resources to hire staff, which enabled us to provide close to 24/7 site updates. But it was already too late.
In the mid-90s era of monopolistic control of local markets, and profit margins that would make Warren Buffett blush, Times Mirror and other newspaper behemoths should have funneled some of that cash into research and development. Instead, we were tasked with forming endless "partnerships" with third-party Internet startups, many of which were more interested in eating our lunch than collaborating on product development.
If the industry had embraced the change that was already at their doorstep, a newspaper company might have invented Google, Craigslist, Facebook or Twitter. Instead, we handed over our content to companies like CitySearch, Monster and others that promised quick, cheap, "co-branded solutions."
The devastation seen in the newspaper industry today can be traced to multiple causes. Corporate executives, who were only interested in presenting the rosiest numbers to Wall Street, failed to invest in online R&D. Powerful newspaper unions stifled creativity and collaboration between online and print departments. Sales executives took a selfish, short-term approach to business, worrying only about their next paycheck and bonus, rather than planning for a day when classifieds would disappear. Editors devoted more energy to fighting internal turf wars with web departments than to retooling their daily deadline culture for an era of constant news updates. Meanwhile, the web culture evolved into an "everything is free" mentality, fueled by vats of venture capital money that led to giveaways of everything from Internet access to grocery deliveries.
The big question, of course, is can newspapers be saved? Unfortunately, newspapers today get a bad rap. Yes, they were slow to adapt, but today many newspaper sites are updated around the clock. They have embraced video, podcasts, blogs, Twitter feeds, social networking, reader-submitted content, hyper-local features and more. So they are now doing all the things they've been criticized for neglecting. Most blogs are nothing more than commentary about -- and links to --newspaper, TV or magazine reports. So the notion that blogs represent the future of journalism is off base and frightening.
What's really undermining newspapers today is the online freebie culture. Advertisers won't pay print rates for web ads, even though a web ad is infinitely more valuable given the ability to target users and track response. And readers won't pay for content, after 12 years of endless free stuff. We've arrived at the day of reckoning; quality journalism and free are not compatible. All those journalists responsible for serving as a watchdog on everyone from the president and Congress to the local school board to corporate leaders to sports heroes have to be compensated for their work.
If readers and advertisers won't pay for that work, then who will? Private foundations? Wealthy donors? The government? None of those constitute appealing solutions.
Newspapers will have to become ruthless about charging for content and willing to sacrifice unique user numbers in an effort to re-train consumers that what they read online has value. Advertisers will have to embrace the immediacy and transactional nature of the web and pony up more for online advertising. That won't be enough to sustain newspapers at heyday staffing levels; there won't be any reporters bunking at the George V. But there may just be enough revenue there to fund a streamlined reporting staff, albeit with fewer high-priced editors to safeguard their work. Significantly reducing (or even one day eliminating) expensive printing bills and distribution costs and mitigating the need for expansive office space will enable news operations to function at a much lower cost.
By the time I left the Sun in early 2000, the web department's offices were moved to newly renovated space that was integrated with the print side. We'd finally won the respect and legitimacy we sought during the '90s. Ironically, Times Mirror created a centralized online department, headed by some of the very people who had paid scant attention to the web for so long. No one from the web department was tapped for this new operation -- it was staffed by print executives. There were flashy PowerPoint presentations about the future of newspaper web sites and expensive consultants brought in to advise the new corporate saviors. I suppressed a burst of laughter when one of the senior corporate execs in charge -- dressed down now in hip jeans and black sweater to reflect the trendy web -- tiptoed into my office with an urgent question. "What does CPM mean," he asked. When I told him it stands for Cost Per Thousand, he seemed perplexed and asked if I was sure it wasn't Cost Per Million. I assured him it was from the Latin "Mille."
It was a typically corporate approach: form a committee, hire outside consultants and package it all in shiny paper and bows. Nine years later, there's no money for consultants. Tribune is in bankruptcy, its various newsrooms decimated by layoffs and buyouts. During my tenure at the Sun, the newsroom alone boasted more than 400 staffers. Today, that number stands at just 140 after 61 were unceremoniously let go in April. A once proud, Pulitzer Prize-winning, 172-year-old news operation is gutted, its remaining staff demoralized and nervous about what's to come.
What's especially frustrating is that many of us saw this coming. And not just the web kids. The only other department at the Sun to see the folly of giving everything away for free online was the circulation department. But they weren't supposed to be big thinkers; circulation's job was to deliver the paper, not to worry about an unlikely paperless future. That future has now arrived. I hope for the sake of so many talented journalists -- and for the future of our democracy -- that newspapers reassert themselves, start charging readers and advertisers for their irreplaceable product and embrace technology and the inevitability of change.
This week we learned help may be on the way for shareholders and the public. Judges and Congress aren't going to stand for companies that hide critical facts from investors about billions of dollars. Smart executives are paying attention.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York is my idea of a true American hero. This week he had the guts to ridicule the sham $33 million settlement put forth by the bungling SEC and the invisible executives of Bank of America.
He stated the obvious. That there was something bizarre about paying a mere $33 million for swiping $3.6 billion in taxpayer bailout funds slipped under the table to Merrill Lynch executives, calling the 1 percent fine "strangely askew."
To review: As Merrill melted down last year, BofA came to the rescue with taxpayer cash, but hid some cards. Executives at the bank decided shareholders didn't need to know they were tossing golden bones to the Merrill flunkies on the eve of the December 5, 2008 shareholder vote approving the merger.
Federal law requires companies to disclose "market moving" information to investors. Silly question: since when was a secret $3.6 million payoff (the original amount was up to $5.8 billion) not market moving information?
Attorneys for BofA don't believe the bank -- or its executives -- violated the law.
And why should they? The good old SEC, which has proven itself utterly unequipped to stop corporate fraud in this century -- Bernie Madoff, anyone? -- didn't even make the bank admit wrongdoing. Nor did it have to say sorry to taxpayers for grabbing billions that might have paid for roads, health care or schools. Or arrange for the Merill Marauders to give the ill-gotten gains back.
"When this settlement first came to me, it seemed to be lacking, for a better word, transparency," said Judge Rakoff. He's not alone: Congress has called for hearings.
But maybe Congress and the judge are looking at it the wrong way. If you think of BofA and the SEC as part of Danny Ocean's gang in the heist flick Ocean's 11, this was a beautiful Flimflam.
Trick shareholders into thinking there are no golden parachutes. Strong-arm the SEC into arranging a fine of less than 1 percent of "the take" and it's a beautiful piece of work. That's a pretty good one-two punch: Grab the cash and then minimize the punishment.
As an investment -- by the numbers alone -- this was pretty darn impressive. In Ocean's 11, Danny and his crew had to put up several million to pull off a $150 million heist from the vaults of Vegas casinos. But that was a movie about a heist. This is the big-time, a gigantic Flimflam. And it's real money taken from your pocket.
Here all the Charlottans from North Carolina had to do was throw away the reputation of a 105-year old bank for good.
Not do the honorable thing and tell shareholders the facts: that the merger was built on a wicked premise -- the greedy executives who destroyed Merill must be showered with wealth.
Here's why I think this decent judge may turn this debacle into a powerful morality lesson for executives everywhere. He's not buying this sleight of hand. He doesn't believe that CEO Ken Lewis and John Thain, Merill's deposed chieftain, were ignorant of these machinations.
The judge wants the SEC to name who is to blame for this failure of disclosure -- for raiding our taxpayer vaults.
He isn't going to stop until that agency gives up a name. Said Judge Rakoff: "Was it some sort of ghost or a human being?"
It's a great lesson in business ethics and transparency. Corporate Flimflams will never be the same.
Jonathan Littman is the co-author of the new book I HATE PEOPLE! (Little, Brown and Company; June 2009) with Marc Hershon. A Contributing Editor at Playboy, Jonathan is the co-author of the best selling Art of Innovation.
My friend, Keith, from New Orleans, just emailed to say he attended a local "town meeting" on health care and tried to get a word in favor but was almost hounded out of the room.
Why are these meetings brimming with so much anger? Because Republican Astroturfers have joined the same old right-wing broadcast demagogues that have been spewing hate and fear for years, to create a tempest.
But why are they getting away with it? Why aren't progressives -- indeed, why aren't ordinary citizens -- taking the meetings back?
Mainly because there's still no healthcare plan. All we have are some initial markups from several congressional committees, which differ from one another in significant ways. The White House's is waiting to see what emerges from the House and Senate before insisting on what it wants, maybe in conference committee.
But that's the problem: It's always easier to stir up fear and anger against something that's amorphous than to stir up enthusiasm for it.
The White House has just announced a web page designed to rebut some of the insane charges that the right is instigating. That won't be enough. The President has to be more specific about what he's for and what he's against. Without these specifics, the right can conjure up every demon in its arsenal while the middle and left can only shrug their shoulders.
The President needs to be very specific about two things in particular: (1) Who will pay? and (2) Why the public option is so important -- and why it's not a Trojan Horse to a government takeover.
(1) Admit that taxes will have to be raised and that cost-savings won't be sufficient to achieve nearly universal care. But be absolutely clear that taxes will be raised only be raised on the very top. He needs to decide whether he favors a surcharge on the top 2 percent, or a cap on tax-free employee benefits (which would affect only the very top), or some combination, and then announce which he prefers and why.
(2) Say unequivocally that the public option is essential for controlling costs and getting private insurers to offer people better deals, not at all a step toward a government takeover of health care.
- Being the one public plan, it will have large economies of scale that will enable it to negotiate more favorable terms with pharmaceutical companies and other providers. (Here, he must clear up any confusion about any deal made with Big Pharma.) But this won't lead to a government takeover of health care. The whole point of cost containment is to provide the public with health care on more favorable terms. If the public plan negotiates better terms -- thereby demonstrating that drug companies and other providers can meet them -- private plans can seek similar deals.
- It will have low administrative costs -- Medicare's administrative costs per enrollee are a small fraction of typical private insurance costs -- but that's no problem, it's a strength. One goal of health-care reform is to lower administrative costs. Competition with a public option is the only way to push private plans to trim their bureaucracies and become more efficient.
- While it's true that the public won't have to show profits, plenty of private plans are already not-for-profit. And if nonprofit plans can offer high-quality health care more cheaply than for-profit plans, why should for-profit plans be coddled? The public plan would merely force profit-making private plans to take whatever steps were necessary to become more competitive. Once again, a plus.
- The public plan won't be subsidized by government. Subsidies go to families who need them in order to afford health care. They're free to choose the public plan, but that's only one option. They could take their subsidy and buy a private plan just as easily. The public plan may not dip into general revenues to cover its costs. It must pay for itself. And any government entity that oversees the health-insurance pool or acts as referee in setting ground rules for all plans will not favor the public plan.
Now's the time for specifics. It's impossible to fight fearmongering lies with nothing but positive principles.
The old saw is that "what's good for General Motors is good for America" and that's why the Magna International bid for GM's European operations is unlikely to succeed.
The problem is that Magna's partners are Russians and selling the European operation of an American icon like GM to Moscow interests is not something that Washington, General Motors' workers and others support. Concern is strategic and commercial as GM technology will be owned by a Russian car manufacturing rival.
This week, Magna's chances of capturing the car making prize in Europe faded even more with postponement of any decision about GM's Adam Opel GmbH sale until after the German election on Sept. 27. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, who backs Magna's bid, must believe she cannot keep her lead in the polls if she choses their proposal to take over Opel.
This procrastination is nothing new. The bidding process, to take over Opel, should have been completed months ago. Instead, Germany plus GM appear to be trying to buy time to avoid losing control. Opel employs 25,000 in Germany, another 25,000 mostly in Britain and is promised up to US$5.6 billion in German government loans. Stronach has said his consortia needs at least another US$1 billion.
Those bailouts -- plus job loss fears -- mean the issue is political in Germany, as it is in the U.S.
Magna's co-partnership arrangement with the Russians is bothersome to many Germans, who already feel there is too much Russian control over Germany's economy through its energy monopoly.
This should have been apparent to Stronach from the beginning and he would have been wise to have invited in another partner -- with expertise, capital and a non-malevolent reputation. If he had done so, notably a European or American partner, he may have already captured the prize.
Instead, Stronach's Russian partnership arrangement has been murky and fluid. Percentages of ownership by the Russians have had to be rolled back, eliminating the possibility of a Magna-Russian control block. Initially, the Russian backer (Oleg Deripaska) was supposed to be Frank's partner, then it was a Russian bank, then that bank's ownership was only supposed to be temporary.
Besides, Stronach's own history with Deripaska is confusing. He sold part of his Magna control block to him, announced grand schemes to create a Russian-based car manufacturing giant, and then found out his partner wasn't as flush as was thought. The Russian had financial problems and his Magna stock became the property of his many lenders. Despite that major hiccup, he's hitched himself to the same leveraged partner.
Putin, and Dmitri Medvedev, are pressuring Germany, always a bad move, which more or less "encourages" Chancellor Merkel to come out publicly as a supporter. Her hand is also forced somewhat because her predecessor, socialist Gerhard Schroder, is pressuring his party and others on behalf of the Russians. He is on the Russian payroll as a director/consultant/lobbyist for Gazprom and others.
Clearly, Merkel sees some political risk in giving Opel to the Magna-Russian consortium then handing over billions to them. Speculation in the press is that the Opel strategy may shift with the company put into bankruptcy shortly, restructured and eventually controlled by German governments so taxpayers, not foreigners, can benefit from the bailout.
It's been widely reported that Kenneth Gladney, the African American man who claimed he was beaten during a scuffle at a St. Louis health care town hall did not have health insurance. His attorney, David Brown actually solicited funds for his medical bills:
Kenneth Gladney sat in a wheelchair on Pershing Avenue Saturday, his knee bandaged, holding a flag that read: "Don't Tread on Me."
Gladney, 38, was handing out the same flags after a town hall forum in Mehlville Thursday night, when, he says, he was attacked by members of the Service Employees International Union.
Less than 48 hours later, protesters gathered Saturday in front of the union's offices, many of them holding signs with a slightly different version of the message: "Don't Tread on Kenny."
Supporters cheered. [His attorney, David] Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance.
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The Washington Independent is now reporting that this was a complete fabrication and that Mr. Gladney was neither "laid off" nor without health insurance coverage. Despite this, he still collected over $1,000 in donations
Brown said, contrary to recent reports like [the] one from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Gladney wasn't laid off and has health insurance. "He's just unemployed," says Brown, and "has insurance through his wife."
Meanwhile, though Gladney appears to be just fine in the video right after he was supposedly beaten up, he showed up the next day at a tea party event in a wheelchair. At the event, Bill Hennessy, the organizer of the St. Louis tea parties, asked the crowd to donate money to Gladney to help him pay for his injuries, despite the fact that he now says he has insurance. When I asked Brown about this, he said: "Well, who doesn't need a donation? If people want to give him a donation because he's injured and unemployed, that's up to them." Brown said Gladney has raised about $1,100 in donations so far.
In other words, Gladney lied in public about needing money for his bills and is now profiting off his lie to the tune of over a grand in donations.
While the town hall meetings continue to devolve into shouting matches and fisticuffs and the rhetoric of socialized medicine has yielded to outrageous claims that Obama wants to euthanize the elderly and disabled examined by Ezra Klein, Democrats seem to be continuing their mild-mannered efforts to persuade the public that health reform is "the right thing to do" by presenting over and over the same list of facts as evidence supporting the need for reform. Guess what? It doesn't take the likes of Uwe Reinhardt to know that it isn't working. In another piece Klein laments this demise of democracy.
As I've previously written, however, when it comes to political debates, issue framing trumps facts every time. This isn't news. Nor are Democrats going to win in a shouting match. I just don't see anywhere near the same level of outrage on the left as I do on the right. Some are saying that the indignant masses are bordering on "crazy" and doing more harm than good, but I'm not so sure. In fact, I'm thinking that we ought to work with the UFC (that's Ultimate Fighting Championship to the uninitiated) to sponsor a series of health reform town hall cage matches as a way of embracing the madness. Here's a look at where we are so far:
All kidding aside, continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Democrats need to accept the fact that there are an awful lot of very outspoken people who are not going to be persuaded to accept health reform on the merits of its societal benefit.
While many of us talk of a "right to health care" or an "obligation" to our fellow man, I think appeals to "obligation" of any variety (moral, societal, political) are useless in this debate because of the difficulty presented in attempting first to identify the obligation and second to convince others that such an obligation does indeed exist and is sufficient to warrant action (e.g., health reform).
I prefer to accept the premise that men are motivated by self-interest, and I find, therefore, that appeals to self-interest are far more likely to be persuasive than appeals to our unspecified obligation to "make society better." Once we allow people to experience the facts for themselves, we won't have to do much persuading at all.
This is why I like to remind people that we are currently paying for all of the health care consumed in this country. When an uninsured person receives "charity care," the costs of that care are simply passed along, ultimately inflating the costs that all of us who are blessed with insurance coverage wind up paying. That means that your current insurance premiums are more expensive than they ought to be, because you are already subsidizing your "share" of uncompensated care.
People are--and have always been--very "anti-tax" in this country, and that, combined with self-interest, creates a huge push-back when people are made to believe that they will be paying a tax that will benefit someone else. What if, however, your monthly health insurance premium was itemized the way your auto insurance is? When GEICO sends me my invoice, I am able to see just exactly how my total premium is broken out. There is a certain amount for collision, a certain amount for bodily injury, a certain amount for property loss, and so forth. What if your health insurance was as transparent?
According to a 2005 Families USA report, the average individual health insurance premium includes an additional $341 because of uncompensated care, and the average family plan $922. By 2010, the report predicts that these figures will rise to $532 and $1,502, respectively. Now, imagine that your monthly premium for an individual policy was $509 (the national average). Of course, unless you have non-group coverage you aren't likely to know that you're paying that much. But you are. There's the portion you have deducted from your paycheck, which is probably somewhere around $100 a month, and there's the portion you never get in your paycheck at all, because your employer uses it to pay for the other $409 instead of increasing your wages.
Now imagine that instead of simply seeing one figure each month, you saw an itemized account that added up the total cost of your coverage (i.e., $509) labeled as follows:
Foregone wages: $409
Health coverage: 376
Uninsured surcharge: 33
Deducted benefits: $100
Health coverage: 89
Uninsured surcharge: 11
Total: $509
Health coverage: 465
Uninsured surcharge: 44
The "uninsured surcharge" amounts to 1% of annual income for individuals earning $53,200 a year and families earning $150,200 a year. For lower income families, it's an even greater proportion of income. Since half of all U.S. households earned less than $50,233 a year in 2007, we're not talking about a trivial amount of money or a small number of affected persons.
Don't you think people would be on the phone with Blue Cross immediately demanding to know what this extra uninsured surcharge fee was for? Of course they would. The lack of transparency about these costs allows us to ignore the problem. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.
As Ezekiel Emanuel and Victor Fuchs write, the idea of shared responsibility (i.e., government, employers, and the public) for health care financing is a myth. You and I are the source of all of the money that pays for health care. It all comes out of our pocket in one way or another.
Whether you believe that the solution involves a public plan or not, whether you think tort reform is needed or not, you should be able to support the position that you should be paying as little as possible for the care others receive. That's going to require more transparency, and I don't think that the insurance industry is in much of a position to self-regulate. If they were, wouldn't they have done so already? It is in precisely such cases that government should intervene. The particular design of that intervention is debatable. The need for it is not.
General Motors and eBay are teaming up to begin the end for the dealership network by offering to sell its inventory of new cars online. The deal is being tried in California and represents a coup for eBay which gets commissions on every transaction completed. This is the online motherlode if it works. If is the operative word because the experiment, for a few weeks, must involve the cooperation of GM's remaining dealers who are to be connected by eBay with buyers. Some 20,000 cars on lots were put on the eBay site this week.
Some dozen global car manufacturing giants are scouring the world for a winning business model and this is it. First, second and third prizes will go to the care consortia that sells automobiles just like Dell sells computers - viewed in generic showrooms with test driving capabilities; offered online only; manufactured using an international supply chain; assembled near customers; bought and financed online; delivered within days to buyers' doorsteps and warranty services provided independent contractors.
It looks like GM gets it, but the proof will be in the pudding. Experts blog that online sites to sell cars have run into difficulty because the dealers won't negotiate digitally but want potential buyers to come into their showrooms. This defeats the entire purpose and forces buyers to continue to pay more for a car than they should in order to cover dealers' overheads.
This could be, if it works, the new new business model for vehicles.
All across the country, the opponents of health care reform are spreading misinformation about President Barack Obama proposals to improve health care coverage for all Americans. We shouldn't be surprised about that. The insurance companies, the right-wing radio hosts, the K-Street lobbyists and the Republican leadership who are spreading the misinformation have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. They are willing to lie to protect industry profits.
It is troubling to see that so many well-meaning citizens are listening to the lies and believing them. One has only to watch a handful of angry questioners at some televised town-hall meetings to know that some of these questioners are good people who are troubled by what they are hearing. They want to know the facts. But all too often, they are denied answers by the right-wing rabble that eschews the truth by shouting others down.
That's wrong. The opponents of health care reform are pulling out all the stops to kill the reform that millions of Americans need to improve our health care. They're spreading falsehoods and creating chaos. They know what they are doing. All of us need to work together to break through the lies and shouts and slurs. We need to make sure that our friends and neighbors know the truth and can separate the lies from the facts about health insurance reform.
When Sarah Palin writes that President Obama is going to set up "death panels" to decide whether her child with Down syndrome, or elderly parents, are going to live or die, she is spreading a lie. That's a disgrace and she is not alone. A few others liars need to be told to stop it, too.
Senior citizens seem to be a particular target for these liars. A lot of the mythology about health reform is designed to scare them. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was on Fox News last month saying that the President's proposals would be paid for "on the backs of seniors through Medicare cuts." That's a lie. As the Alliance for Retired Americans points out, Medicare will benefit from cost-containment across the entire health care system. Furthermore, President Obama has proposed ending the wasteful overpayments currently given to private Medicare Advantage plans. That reform will help ensure that Medicare resources benefit all Medicare participants, and are not diverted to insurance companies.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) went on the House floor to state that the GOP opponents of health care reform "would not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government." The idea that the President and supporters of health insurance reform want to put people to death is an outrageous lie. As the Los Angeles Times noted on August 10, "This has become one of the most misleading, inflammatory claims made in the health care debate, advanced repeatedly by conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Republican lawmakers working to stoke fears among seniors."
In fact, as the Times notes, under the proposal, Medicare would start to cover voluntary doctor visits to discuss living wills and advance directives for care, which would be used only if a person becomes seriously ill and unable to make medical decisions. As is currently the practice, advance care decisions would still be made by the individual. There is nothing mandatory or coercive in the proposal, which was proposed initially by Republicans in Congress.
Another lie spread across the country: the President's proposal will lead to cuts in the coverage seniors receive for prescription drugs. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said as much on July 21 when he claimed that the Democratic proposal would cause "millions of seniors to lose their coverage for prescription medicine." In fact, health insurance reform will save seniors hundreds of dollars on their prescriptions because it cuts the cost of drugs by half once they reach the Part D coverage gap. Moreover, it begins phasing in the end of the "donut hole."
It's troubling that these lies about health insurance reform are frightening senior citizens. That is an outrage. When you hear these lies, correct them. Let's make sure seniors and all Americans know the truth about health care reform and that lies are spread to block real progress.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A health insurer whose TV commercials promised ''peace of mind'' for just $5 a day must stop running the national ads and pay a fine of $700,000 after New York officials accused it of leaving patients only with huge hospital bills.
The American Medical and Life Insurance Co., advertising through an intermediary called Cinergy, marketed health insurance as a lower cost option for the uninsured and underinsured. It was pitched as costing just $5 a day, or the cost of a hamburger or pack of cigarettes.
In one ad, the narrator said the insurance is available ''regardless of any pre-existing conditions,'' while the print on the screen stated ''most pre-existing conditions accepted'' and the fine print stated there is a six-month waiting period.
Acting Insurance Superintendent Kermitt J. Brooks said Wednesday that the cases uncovered in New York's two-year investigation included a Rochester woman who had $419 a month charged to her credit card for the insurance, only to have the company cover just $1,164 of her $28,000 hospitalization. A 36-year-old New Yorker who had a stroke found his policy covered just $250, leaving him with a bill for $29,917.
In both cases, the company paid off the balances after the state intervened.
''Many New Yorkers are desperate for affordable health insurance,'' said Gov. David Paterson. ''Unfortunately, some businesses are taking advantage of that need to sell limited health insurance in ways that mislead consumers into believing they are getting full coverage. ''
As part of a settlement announced Wednesday, the state Insurance Department forced the company to agree to halt the nationwide ads. American Medical and Life Insurance Co. is based in New York City and sells policies in 38 states and the District of Columbia. The company sold about 12,000 policies in New York, about 5,000 of which have lapsed, and about 38,000 nationwide.
The state is also prohibiting the company from selling its partial coverage policies in New York, in part because state officials said the company failed to fully disclose the extent of coverage or use licensed agents as required.
A company spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
A second unidentified company has agreed to suspend sales of its nationally marketed policies while the state investigates its practices.
The American Medical and Life ad concludes: ''Five dollars a day helps you buy peace of mind ... so don't wait another day.''
President Barack Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 people, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, tennis legend Billie Jean King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
The medals are the first to be awarded by Obama and they represent the country's highest honor for a civilian. Other names on the list are: Race for the Cure founder Nancy Brinker, physicist Stephen Hawking, and civil rights activist Rev. Joseph Lowery. Former Rep. Jack Kemp, who died in May, will receive a posthumous award.
WASHINGTON - President Obama today named 16 recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom. America's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom is awarded to individuals who make an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
This year's awardees were chosen for their work as agents of change. Among their many accomplishments in fields ranging from sports and art to science and medicine to politics and public policy, these men and women have changed the world for the better. They have blazed trails and broken down barriers. They have discovered new theories, launched new initiatives, and opened minds to new possibilities. Story continues below
President Obama said, "These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds. Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs. Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.
"Their relentless devotion to breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens sets a standard to which we all should strive. It is my great honor to award them the Medal of Freedom."
President Obama will present the awards at a ceremony on Wednesday, August 12.
The following individuals will receive the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom:
Nancy Goodman Brinker
Nancy Goodman Brinker is the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's leading breast cancer grass roots organization. Brinker established the organization in memory of her sister, who passed away from breast cancer in 1980. Through innovative events like Race for the Cure, the organization has given and invested over $1.3 billion for research, health services and education services since its founding in 1982 and developed a worldwide grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists who are working together to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find cures. Brinker has received several awards for her work, and has also served in government as U.S. Ambassador to Hungary (2001 - 2003), Chief of Protocol of the U.S. (2007 - 2009), and Chair of the President's Cancer Panel (1990). In May, Nancy Goodman Brinker was named the first-ever World Health Organization's Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control.
Pedro José Greer, Jr.
Dr. Pedro Jose Greer is a physician and the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at the Florida International University School of Medicine, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Humanities, Health and Society. Dr. Greer is the founder of Camillus Health Concern, an agency that provides medical care to over 10,000 homeless patients a year in the city of Miami. He is also the founder and medical director of the St. John Bosco Clinic which provides basic primary medical care to disadvantaged children and adults in the Little Havana community. He has been recognized by Presidents Clinton, Bush, Sr., and Carter for his work with Miami's poor . He is also the recipient of three Papal Medals as well as the prestigious MacArthur "genius grant". He currently has a joint private practice with his father, Pedro Greer, Sr.
Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking is an internationally-recognized theoretical physicist, having overcome a severe physical disability due to motor neuron disease. He is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a post previously held by Isaac Newton in 1669. In addition to his pioneering academic research in mathematics and physics, Hawking has penned three popular science books, including the bestselling A Brief History of Time. Hawking, a British citizen, believes that non-academics should be able to access his work just as physicists are, and has also published a children's science book with his daughter. His persistence and dedication has unlocked new pathways of discovery and inspired everyday citizens.
Jack Kemp
Jack Kemp, who passed away in May 2009, served as a U.S. Congressman (1971 - 1989), Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1989 - 1993), and Republican Nominee for Vice President (1996). Prior to entering public service, Kemp was a professional football player (1957 - 1969) and led the Buffalo Bills to American Football League championships in 1964 and 1965. In Congress and as a Cabinet Secretary, Kemp was a self-described "bleeding heart conservative" who worked to encourage development in underserved urban communities. In the years leading up to his death, Kemp continued seeking new solutions, raising public attention about the challenge of poverty, and working across party lines to improve the lives of Americans and others around the world.
Sen. Edward Kennedy
Senator Edward M. Kennedy has served in the United States Senate for forty-six years, and has been one of the greatest lawmakers - and leaders - of our time. From reforming our public schools to strengthening civil rights laws and supporting working Americans, Senator Kennedy has dedicated his career to fighting for equal opportunity, fairness and justice for all Americans. He has worked tirelessly to ensure that every American has access to quality and affordable health care, and has succeeded in doing so for countless children, seniors, and Americans with disabilities. He has called health care reform the "cause of his life," and has championed nearly every health care bill enacted by Congress over the course of the last five decades. Known as the "Lion of the Senate," Senator Kennedy is widely respected on both sides of the aisle for his commitment to progress and his ability to legislate.
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King was an acclaimed professional tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s, and has helped champion gender equality issues not only in sports, but in all areas of public life. King beat Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, then the most viewed tennis match in history. King became one of the first openly lesbian major sports figures in America when she came out in 1981. Following her professional tennis career, King became the first woman commissioner in professional sports when she co-founded and led the World Team Tennis (WTT) League. The U.S. Tennis Association named the National Tennis Center, where the US Open is played, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2006.
Rev. Joseph Lowery
Reverend Lowery has been a leader in the U.S. civil rights movement since the early 1950s. Rev. Lowery helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks was denied a seat, and later co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading civil rights organization, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Lowery led the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Rev. Lowery is a minister in the United Methodist Church, and has continued to highlight important civil rights issues in the U.S. and worldwide, including apartheid in South Africa, since the 1960s.
Joe Medicine Crow - High Bird
Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief, is the author of seminal works in Native American history and culture. He is the last person alive to have received direct oral testimony from a participant in the Battle of the Little Bighorn: his grandfather was a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. A veteran of World War II, Medicine Crow accomplished during the war all of the four tasks required to become a "war chief," including stealing fifty Nazi SS horses from a German camp. Medicine Crow was the first member of his tribe to attend college, receiving his master's degree in anthropology in 1939, and continues to lecture at universities and notable institutions like the United Nations. His contributions to the preservation of the culture and history of the First Americans are matched only by his importance as a role model to young Native Americans across the country.
Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens to live their lives openly and believed coming out was the only way they could change society and achieve social equality. Milk, alongside San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, was shot and killed in 1978 by Dan White, a former city supervisor. Milk is revered nationally and globally as a pioneer of the LGBT civil rights movement for his exceptional leadership and dedication to equal rights.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Justice O'Connor was the first woman ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court. Nominated by President Reagan in 1981, she served until her retirement in 2006. Prior to joining the Supreme Court, O'Connor served as a state trial and appellate judge in Arizona. She was also as a member of the Arizona state senate, where she became the first woman in the United States ever to lead a state senate as Senate Majority Leader. At a time when women rarely entered the legal profession, O'Connor graduated Stanford Law School third in her class, where she served on the Stanford Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Since retiring from the Supreme Court in 2006, O'Connor has served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary, on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center, and participated in the Iraq Study Group in 2006, as well as giving numerous lectures on public service. She has received numerous awards for her outstanding achievements and public service.
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier is a groundbreaking actor, becoming the top black movie star in the 1950s and 1960s. Poitier is the first African American to be nominated and win a Best Actor Academy Award, receive an award at a top international film festival (Venice Film Festival), and be the top grossing movie star in the United States. Poitier insisted that the film crew on The Lost Man be at least 50 percent African American, and starred in the first mainstream movies portraying "acceptable" interracial marriages and interracial kissing. Poitier began his acting career without any training or experience by auditioning at the American Negro Theatre.
Chita Rivera
Chita Rivera is an accomplished and versatile actress, singer, and dancer, who has won Two Tony Awards and received seven more nominations while breaking barriers and inspiring a generation of women to follow in her footsteps. In 2002, she became the first Hispanic recipient of the coveted Kennedy Center Honor. Propelled to stardom by her electric performance as Anita in the original Broadway premiere of West Side Story, Rivera went on to star in additional landmark musicals such as Chicago, Bye Bye Birdie, and Jerry's Girls. She recently starred in The Dancer's Life, an autobiographical musical about her celebrated life in the theatre.
Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland (1990 - 1997) and a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997 - 2002), a post that required her to end her presidency four months early. Robinson served as a prominent member of the Irish Senate prior to her election as President. She continues to bring attention to international issues as Honorary President of Oxfam International, and Chairs the Board of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI Alliance). Since 2002 she has been President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, based in New York, which is an organization she founded to make human rights the compass which charts a course for globalization that is fair, just and benefits all.
Janet Davison Rowley
Janet Davison Rowley, M.D., is the Blum Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics at The University of Chicago. She is an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers. Rowley is internationally renowned for her studies of chromosome abnormalities in human leukemia and lymphoma, which have led to dramatically improved survival rates for previously incurable cancers and the development of targeted therapies. In 1999 President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Science--the nation's highest scientific honor.
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu is an Anglican Archbishop emeritus who was a leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. Widely regarded as "South Africa's moral conscience," he served as the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) from 1978 - 1985, where he led a formidable crusade in support of justice and racial reconciliation in South Africa. He received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work through SACC in 1984. Tutu was elected Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, and the Chair of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995. He retired as Archbishop in 1996 and is currently Chair of the Elders.
Muhammad Yunus
Dr. Muhammad Yunus is a global leader in anti-poverty efforts, and has pioneered the use of "micro-loans" to provide credit to poor individuals without collateral. Dr. Yunus, an economist by training, founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 in his native Bangladesh to provide small, low-interest loans to the poor to help better their livelihood and communities. Despite its low interest rates and lending to poor individuals, Grameen Bank is sustainable and 98% percent of its loans are repaid - higher than other banking systems. It has spread its successful model throughout the world. Dr. Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work.
ALBANY -- In the weeks since the Senate stalemate ended, the chamber's Democrats have showered rehabilitated turncoat Sens. Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens with hundreds of thousands of dollars in pay raises and new staff, including a newly created $120,000 job for Espada's son.
Pedro G. Espada, a former New York City councilman and state Assemblyman, took a position last week as deputy director of intergovernmental relations, a new position that will be based in the Senate's Manhattan offices.
"It's such a hard sell," Carmen Rizzo tells me from his Los Angeles studio. "There are so many artists who are from other countries who want to do American Idol bullshit, or be the eastern Coldplay. I say: Why?"
The topic of discussion is Inbar Bakal, an Israeli/Iraqi/Yemenite singer who re-rooted herself in the City of Angels to forge her way into a dance-pop career. Then she met Rizzo, whose credits include work with Paul Okenfold, Seal, Jem, and many other well-known acts. He persuaded her to make a U-turn -- her heritage, he said, would be so much more interesting. Rizzo himself had been tinkering with some incredible global music projects, including the Persian-electronica trio Niyaz, and another trio featuring a singer once going by the name of Rosey, Lal Meri. His instincts proved correct.
Bakal, as Rizzo says, called his bluff, and asked him to record a track together. They did; it turned into six, which formed the basis of her excellent self-titled debut on Rizzo's own Electrofone Records, a boutique label which at the moment features only three acts. "It's important that labels have identity," he says, "which is often missing. If you think of Six Degrees or Ninja Tune, they have such strong identities that you just buy it because you know it's going to be good. That's something I'm trying to form."
The third act -- outside of Bakal and Rizzo himself -- was the topic of discussion: a Tuvan group of musicians known as Huun Huur Tu. The band formed in 1992 and is pretty well known in the world music circuit; they have a strong following, being known as a breakthrough throat singing project. Outside of Yat-kha, which features a former member and co-founder of Huun Huur Tu, Albert Kuvezin, and Sainkho Namtchylak, not much is heard from the polyphonic sprees of Siberia.
These musicians try to be heard, however. Namtchylak has performed with numerous orchestras and recorded with Armenian duduk player Djivan Gasparyan. Even more outlandishly, Kuvezin and Yat-kha released Re-covers in 2006, which featured throat sung versions of "When the Levee Breaks," "In a Gadda Da Vida," and "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Novelty, yes, but the album is damn good on its own merits. Then you have Huun Huur Tu, which has released twelve albums, plus two with Bulgarian Voices, leading to their current release with Rizzo, Eternal.
It is a phenomenal album, something I've personally been waiting for since I first heard this band nearly ten years ago: throat singing tempered by electronica. Don't think four-on-the-floor dance cuts; instead, envision powerful and tasteful low-end, percussively intelligent, moving and sweeping in the landscape while strings and voices grace the surface. There is something inspired in their vocals; with traditional instrumentation, it is an extremely powerful live experience. I've just never heard anything that captures the style so well on record. You're not going to hear throat singing turning on whatever radio stations still exist, which is part of the reason Rizzo launched the album from his own label.
After being asked to mix the album by producers Vladimir Oboronko and Mark Governor, Rizzo took the bold step of stating "in my opinion it needed a lot more than mixing." He wasn't being facetious -- he knew the band had the world music crowd locked down. He wanted to "attract the yoga crowd, the Whole Foods crowd, the KCRW and NPR crowds. I wasn't convinced that that audience was ready to hear a pure throat singing record. Hopefully they're going to find a new audience with this album."
There is a strong possibility of that, from my perspective. I've been spinning tracks from Eternal in my yoga classes over the past few weeks, and a number of people have approached me after class singling out their tracks. As it is, I don't believe in such a thing as "yoga music"; it's more about finding and sequencing music that fits the mood, and Rizzo nailed it for the structure of a class. Yet there is so much more to these eight songs than scoring a movement class, albeit meditative as some of the songs are. The album is dynamic and graceful in a way that Tuvan music has yet to be presented.
"I kept telling them: having nothing to do with me, you need to make a different record," he says. "I know you've worked with Ry Cooder, the Kronos Quartet, even Frank Zappa, but there has not been a Huun Huur Tu record showing Western sensibilities. What I did not want to do was a remix record. It would have been too easy to pick apart what they did and make some sort of coffee table remix album. That would have been disrespectful. I really wanted it to become collaborative. It naturally evolved to that."
The challenge was one that defied time, literally: the Tuvans did not use a click track, so their sense of time and tone proved extremely different to a Western ear. (This is partly why this form of music challenges the American listener, much like Gamelan drumming and Chinese opera.) Performing "surgery" on a number of tracks, Dr. Rizzo retuned and retimed to his heart's content. While this might be a generic statement, it is nowhere near false to say this is unlike anything you've ever heard. The parts are all recognizable, and you instantly feel a sympathetic connection to the creation, which adds to its beauty.
The future of Yemenite wedding music and shamanic throat tunes lies in the realm of independent releases. Then again, it always did. Rizzo has used his successes in mainstream music to fund and fuel his love for the music of the world. Electrofone might be a boutique, but its goods are worthy of broad attention. With the care and detail he's placing in each of the acts he's helping launch -- such a basic and yet lost instinct: to help artists establish actual careers in music rather than churning out sonic rhetoric -- he is helping redefine what it means to be an independent musician, and only further proving that quality has nothing to do with quantity.
Once all the TARPs are tidied up and the quarterly profits no longer a revelation, American consumers will still be swaddled in debt. What's to stop them from just walking away from it -- and who's to say, if the banks keep this kind of behavior up, we don't want them to?
In The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics, an account of post-bubble Japan, Richard C. Koo illustrates that highly-indebted corporations with depressed asset holdings and a positive cash flow will embark on sustained debt repayment until their balance sheets are healthy once again. He argues that this happened in Japan over the last two decades and also happened in the U.S. over the four years of the Great Depression. This ongoing debt repayment created decades of economic stagnation, particularly because the fiscal response was so fitful and inconsistently applied.
But does it follow that sustained debt repayment will be the response of a household sector in the U.S. with destroyed asset holdings and high debt? To our way of thinking, it is unclear. This is especially the case with respect to mortgage indebtedness; U. S. households have non-recourse mortgage loans and can walk away from their debts rather than pay them down.
Public opinion polls reveal that Americans are angry about the current economic, health care, housing and environmental crises. Polls also document that a significant majority of Americans want the federal government to do something to fix these problems. But you've also got the makings of a huge neo-populist anger brewing, largely because (in the words of Frank Rich), "What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media."
The approach to financial reform that we have adopted so far is a classic illustration of this problem. Financial institutions are now back to business as usual and have provided limited help to the non-financial sector. In fact, some of them are clearly committed to worsen households' financial position and have oriented their activity toward this end in order to maximize their profitability. They have received commitments from the taxpayer totaling $23.7 trillion.
On the other side, households and other non-financial institutions, whose dire finance is at the heart of the crisis, have received very limited help. Loan modifications programs and fiscal measures to raise their income and restore their creditworthiness have been too small to deal with the massive size of their financial problems, as we discussed in an earlier post. All of this should suggest that it would not take that much to create a situation where you have a widespread debt revulsion. It might come to that, given the paucity of decent alternatives, of which there were ample historical precedents.
Consider the case of German reunification in 1989. If you recall, the East Germans, like their West German counterparts, had banks with deposit liabilities and loans to firms. With unification, Est marks and D-marks were converted at 1-to-1, so all those firms now owed DM and the households had DM deposits. The old East German banks would have been instantly bankrupt since their assets went to zero on a commercial "mark to market" basis. Had things been left there, it would have meant that the households lost all their deposits-not a good political or economic solution. So the answer was to merge the East and West German banks, but the West German banks were not about to take on all those deposits against the bad assets, so the Government gave the banks special issue of government debt of an amount equal to the deposits to balance the books and give the bank some additional asset income.
How to fill the gap today? So far we have been letting the banks swap the assets at more or less full value for treasury securities from the Fed while we do nothing for the households. Yet both have notional losses that we don't want to recognize until the household walks and then we have to. The alternative would be to have the government absorb the difference, but by issuing, say, 50-year bonds to the banks against the banks writing down the loans.
For the rest of the story and more from Marshall Auerback's ideas, view the complete post at NewDeal2.0.
1. CALIFORNIA PROVIDES CRITICAL SERVICES: The recent State budget is deeply flawed. It relies upon questionable income assumptions and possibly illegal raids of county and city funds. But, to our thinking, the worst problem is that California has balanced its budget on the backs of those least able to pay: the poor, children, senior citizens, the disabled... California is cutting critical services to the least fortunate in a time when services are the most needed.
2. GET STIMULUS MONEY TO MARKET: No matter how serious California's governance problems may be, the TARP banks are worse. Money to California would more quickly and efficiently reach the general economy than has money to the TARP banks. Of the $17.8 billion of stimulus money provided by the federal government, California has already spent $8.6 billion dollars on maintaining jobs and keeping basic services going. The same cannot be said of the original TARP banks who paid over $32 billion in bonuses last year. Also, regardless of what you may think of Governor Schwarzenegger and other top elected officials, they are not awarding themselves astronomical non-performance based bonuses.
3. NO MORE MIDNIGHT GOVERNMENT: Vice President Joe Biden has made sure that California moves its stimulus money to market. If we do bailout California, we want Biden not Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at the helm. Putting the state's restructuring in Biden's office rather than the backrooms of Sacramento is a better way of restructuring California. A little sunlight will surely disinfect many questionable practices and decisions made in Sacramento so far.
4. MORAL HAZARD/HAZARDOUS MORALS: Failure to bailout California puts the weight of the financial crisis on the backs of those least able to shoulder the cost. We have given TARP money to pay lavish bonuses to the fat cats who caused the financial crisis but draw a hard moral hazard line and refuse to continue children's health insurance in California. By not bailing out California, by not stitching up the safety net, what sort of hazards are we creating, what sort of morals do we reinforce? In fact, maybe the employees of the nine original TARP banks should donate a portion of their $32.6 billion dollars of bonuses to cover the $656 million dollars cut from welfare and health care programs.
5. THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IS A MAJOR EMPLOYER: According to the Census in a report published in early 2009, California employs the equivalent of 387,168 full-time positions. The largest employer of the top 10 TARP bailout recipients, CitiGroup, employed 323,000 in 2008 and the top 10 TARP recipients (including General Motors and Chrysler) employ an average 142,000.
6. CALIFORNIA HAS A LEAN GOVERNMENT: And before you say that the problem with California is that it has too big a payroll and that bloat should be no justification for bailout, consider that, on a per capita basis, California is the fourth smallest employer of any of the states. The myth is that California is big and bloated, the reality is that California is lean relative to the population of the state.
7. CALIFORNIA'S DEBT AIN'T THAT BIG: Secretary of Treasury Geithner is now going to Congress to ask to increase the federal debt limits. The federal government now owes, $11.7 trillion. That's about $38,000 per individual. California is in debt on the order of $60+ billion. This amounts to less than $2,000 per Californian.
8. SAVE CALIFORNIA'S NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS: At a time when foundations have lost an average 20 percent + in asset value and when corporate and individual giving have ebbed, California nonprofits are in an especially tough spot. When California shirked its contractual obligations to pay for services during the last couple rounds of budget negotiations, many small organizations, organizations with small cash reserves, single purpose nonprofits (e.g., childcare providers with State contracts) were forced to close their doors. With the current budget cuts, more organizations -- including many long-standing, well-managed and well-respected organizations -- will be pushed to the brink. Many will not survive. Not only is the public safety net being lost in California (point number one, above), the private safety net is also being unraveled.
9. STOP THE FIRE SALE OF PUBLIC ASSETS: In the midst of the budget crisis, the State prepared a list of some 30,000 publicly owned assets (parks, government facilities, etc.) that could be sold to balance the budget. Even if you think this is a good idea for the State, this is a dumb time to be doing it. For the State to get the best return on these public investments, it should NOT be selling them at a time when everybody knows the seller is desperate and at a time when the real estate market is depressed. The rich people/companies with the money to buy right now will be getting California assets at bargain basement prices -- California taxpayers will be getting pennies on the dollar. That said, the logic driving California's Investment Commission seems to say that it's worth selling the Golden Gates for scrap given the price of gold.
10. DON'T UNDERMINE THE STIMULUS: Under the first round of the stimulus package, California entities have received over $25 Billion in funding commitments for a variety of projects designed to create new jobs, improve California infrastructure and give a boost to the California economy. But if the State's house is not in order, the impact of the stimulus will be offset by the problems of the State.
Reusable shopping bags and compact fluorescent light bulbs are an easy place to start, once you've resolved to curb your carbon footprint. But why not go for some low hanging fruit that you could actually pick? Growing food in your front yard is a simple and tasty way to combat climate change.
Maintaining a lawn, on the other hand, is an exercise in monocrop masochism. As architect and edible landscape advocate Fritz Haeg wrote in Edible Estates: Attack On The Front Lawn, "...there is nothing remotely natural about a lawn. It is an industrial landscape disguised as organic plant material."
Those innocent-looking, wispy green blades are just a façade; at its roots, a lawn is a high maintenance monster, demanding regular feeding, seeding, weeding, watering and mowing.
And squandered resources are only the start. Gas-powered lawn mowers generate tons of air pollution. Excess fertilizer seeps out of our lawns and encourages equally lush growth in our waterways, where nitrogen-fed 'algal blooms' choke all kinds of aquatic life.
Yet, for so many Americans, a patch of green grass is still the gold standard when it comes to landscaping. As Haeg notes:
In the United States we plant more grass than any other crop: currently lawns cover more than thirty million acres. Given the way we lavish precious resources on it and put it everywhere that humans go, aliens landing in any American city today would assume that grass must be the most precious earthly substance of all.
Why not feed ourselves, instead of the grass? That's the simple goal of Haeg's Edible Estates project. Starting in 2005, Haeg enlisted the help of a small army of grow-your-own volunteers, and began converting lifeless lawns into productive food gardens, one front yard at a time. He's helped folks all over the country plant gardens that nurture themselves and their neighbors, and documented the happy end results in Edible Estates, published in 2008.
Since the book came out, the homegrown revolution's moved full steam ahead, with a big boost from Michelle Obama--not to mention an economy that's got folks growing their own food on a scale we haven't seen in decades.
So it's time for a new, expanded edition of Edible Estates. Are you the proud owner of a once sterile, now fertile front yard farm? Do you live in hardiness zones 3,4, 5, or 9? If so, Fritz Haeg wants to hear from you:
For this new edition of the book (Metropolis Books, 2008) we are looking for more reports from across the country from those that have decided to engage in "full frontal gardening". Have you replaced the lawn in front of your house or apartment building with a completely edible garden? We will be selecting one garden story from each zone, with each contributor receiving a copy of the book.
The deadline for submissions is Monday, August 31st, and you need to submit:
- a 500 word story about your garden - 4 or 5 photos of your garden at the highest resolution - your name, mailing address, size of garden, date established, and USDA Plant Hardiness Zone
Zone 9 includes: Houston, Central Florida Zone 5 includes: Des Moines, Chicago Zone 4 includes: Minneapolis, part of Wyoming Zone 3 includes: Northern Minnesota and Montana
Send your questions and submissions to assistant@fritzhaeg.com. Here's your chance to help wean your fellow citizens off the grass and sow the seeds for our homegrown revolution. Kitchen gardeners of the world, unite and take over!
Why Wall Street Is Pleased By the Focus On Debating Health Care
New York, New York: The thermometer is in the red as the heat of August blends into the steam of the health care fight. These two hot subjects seem to be fogging up TV screens during these dog days as the righteous right take up the tactics of the militant left to create the impression that health care reform is a commie plot. For his part, President Obama insists a bill will pass and that "sensible proposals" will prevail.
What is sensible these days?
You can count on that gruesome threesome -- Bill, Glenn and Sean -- to go ballistic whenever it appears that our government is going to do anything beneficial for the people. There's always a million reasons why it won't work, or worse, sink the Republic. Rush Limbaugh alternates between arguing that President Obama is a racist, a communist or a Nazi.
George Orwell would be staggered about how prophetic he had been.
These summer soldiers and sunshine patriots and their tea baggers and the dispatch a mob they've incited to yell at members of Congress are strangely silent when it comes to questioning profiteering by health care insurers and the banks. It is as if the only enemies are in Washington, not on Wall Street. They are mostly silent about the bank bonuses and pervasive corporate crime.
If health care reform is at risk, financial reform seems like a non-starter. The empire is striking back, and suddenly what were once considered modest reforms are running into roadblocks as they are branded the work of Bolsheviks.
On the issue of bonuses -- the one financial matter that seems to piss off the public the most -- in 2007, banks gave out bonuses worth a staggering $1.6 billion -- there is now a debate about allowing bonus guarantees. These were once tied to performance but even that criteria is being watered down.
The New York Times tell us, "A guaranteed bonus might strike many people as a contradiction in terms. But on Wall Street, banks have become so eager to lure and keep top deal makers and traders that they are reviving the practice of offering ironclad, multimillion-dollar payouts -- guaranteed, no matter how an employee performs."
Not a bad job if you can get one -- you can a bonus even if you do lousy. This debate led the newspaper of record to observe. "The resurgence of bonus guarantees underscores just how difficult it is to control Wall Street pay, despite the public outcry over how taxpayer money is being spent."
But is worse than that, much worse. I had to go to Canada to find a more comprehensive press report on how the fraud factories are winning the battle against new regulation.
David Olive writes in the Toronto Star, "You would think after global financiers triggered the current, unprecedented worldwide recession and credit crisis, they might embrace inevitable reforms that their reckless conduct made necessary.
"You would be disappointed."
And that's an understatement, (or to quote Ellen Brown, "its an understatement to call it an understatement,") Olive tells us that the banks, having bought up much of the Congress, now feel emboldened enough to tell the reformers to shove it:
"For the financiers, to their dishonor, have not so much as tendered an apology for their craven, mass departure from prudence, or what Barney Frank, the Democrat representative for Massachusetts, labels their "moral deficiency."
"Instead, the financiers and their powerful lobby groups are resisting any new legislated constraints on the behavior by which they nearly brought themselves and the global economy to ruin. Adding insult to injury, banks have jacked up credit card rates to 27 per cent and more on the same Main Street taxpayers who rescued them."
Everyday brings more news of their arrogance and avarice.
The Financial Times reports: "US banks stand to collect a record $38.5 BILLION in fees for customer overdrafts this year, with the bulk of the revenue coming from the most financially stretched consumers amid the deepest recession since the 1930s...The fees are nearly double those reported in 2000...
"The Federal Reserve is working on rules on overdraft fees, and rules on customer charges could be a priority of the Obama administration's proposed Consumer Protection Agency if approved by Congress."
No wonder the banks want to kill the proposed agency.
Bear in mind, this crisis did not happen by accident or just by some mistakes. It was not an accident argues the The Bond Tangent Blog (Via Baseline Scenario):
"Financial institutions did not amass trillions of dollars of toxic assets and tangle themselves up in a destructive web of credit derivatives by accident. Financial institutions did not produce and maintain technology allowing them to take advantage of traditional investors by accident. A thief was not able to operate a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme for decades by accident. We are not talking about the occasional rogue trader here who has bribed his compliance officer. Even within the existing regulatory architecture, these activities required a considerable amount of complacency (to be polite) by financial regulators across agencies, over the course of many years, and through many cycles of political appointees from both parties."
Was it complacency or more like complicity? Nothing is likely to change unless there is pressure from below. And that pressure is not going to come from the right.
So where should it come from?
As for the cost of inaction: Obama spoke to that on July 22: "If we don't pass financial regulatory reform, the banks are going to go back to the same things they were doing before," he said "In some ways it could be worse, because now they know that the federal government may think they're too big to fail. And so if they're unconstrained (by stricter regulations) they could take even more risks."
Write that down. Put in a bottle or a time capsule, text it as a memo to yourself on your iPhone and twitter your followers. If the Banksters are not brought to heel, we will have survived this crisis only until the next one erupts. Mediachannel's NewsDissector Danny Schechter is finishing The Crime of Our Time," a film and book on Wall Street Fraud. (newsdissector.com/plunder.) Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org.
Kids like Roller-coasters - they're biologically wired for the moment where your stomach hangs in the air. Between the gruesome clickity click up the hill, and the 'ugh' as you head down - well, you probably remember.
Most adults get to a place where they try and avoid the high highs and the low lows. Maybe it's responsibility, or just the wisdom to know that feeling isn't always a good thing.
But I didn't learn that.
I like the Roller-coaster, both the experience and the analogy.
Let me explain. I'm a Startup guy. I look at a blank piece of paper and see possibilities, rather than a void. So over the course of my career, I've found myself at the crossroads of change. The places where old business models die a gut-wrenching, fitful, dramatic death, and new ideas emerge. That's the fun part, I tell people. But lately folks seem a bit suspicious. You really LIKE this? This media evolution? This fast motion trip with blind corners and corkscrew twists and turns?
Yep. I do.
Here's why. From the day I was old enough to think about what TV was, I was pretty sure it wasn't what it could be. I wrote high school papers about Newton Minow's "Vast Wasteland" speech. High school. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_Speech
Published in 1977 - the book is broken in to 4 sections:
First, that far from being "neutral," television predetermines who shall use it, how they will use it, its effects and what sorts of political forms will inevitably emerge.
Mander argues that while television may seem useful, interesting, and worthwhile, it boxes people into a condition perfect for the emergence of autocratic control.
The second argument portends consolidation of voices and points of view, here of course he was spot on.
The third argument concerns the effects of television upon humans - the "Coach Potato Syndrome".
The fourth argument suggests that TV is anti-democratic. The effect is to drastically confine all human understanding within a rigid channel.
This all seemed perfectly reasonable to me, as a high-school student. The only thing I didn't agree with was the inevitability of it. I was SURE that the universe would note these faults and therefore would emerge a solution that uses visual media to replace one-way, non-democratic TV with something better.
The good news is - I was right.
The bad news is - it's taking a longtime, and the changes are both economically and socially complex and painful.
We're back to my metaphorical rollercoaster. As I've suggested, you need to like the ride, not just the high points.
Which is why you can almost tell who's going to come out on top of this media upheaval. First of all, media companies have been pounding into audiences ears for years now that they need to 'trust' their large media friends, while at the same time, these media sources have become more combative, less careful, more opinionated, less balanced. Of course, if you're struggling to remain BIG, then being more controversial and noisy will attract attention. But - the audience has MORE choices, so they're going more places. The bottom line, you're fighting a losing battle if you try and keep your economics big to while your audience thins out.
So, the Rollercoaster requires thinking that is more about innovation than protecting your core audience. It's about acknowledging a fundamental change in media makers and consumers, and shifting from 'Preaching the News' to 'Teaching The News'. Convening a conversation is a very different task than standing at the podium and lecturing to a passive crowd.
I know that all this makes some folks crazy - but I think it's exciting as hell.
I told someone the other day - we're alive during the invention of electricity. It's like the web turns the lights on for ideas. How cool is that. Business models - well, what was the business model for candle makers after the electric light bulb came along?
Ideas as electricity. Now there's a metaphor I can chew on for a while.
MIAMI — The U.S. government and Swiss banking giant UBS AG have reached an agreement in a case seeking names of some 52,000 suspected American tax evaders with billions in secret Swiss accounts, but details may remain under wraps until next week, officials said.
Lawyers for the government and UBS told a federal judge in a brief conference call they had initialed a deal after a delay last week to settle undisclosed details.
The Internal Revenue Service, which initiated the case against UBS earlier this year, said in a statement the deal "protects the United States government's interests." But the two-sentence statement from IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman added only that more details will be released when the Swiss government signs the agreement as early as next week.
The IRS earlier this year asked U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold in Miami to force Zurich-based UBS to turn over names of some 52,000 American clients believed to be hiding nearly $15 billion in assets in secret accounts.
UBS and the Swiss government had resisted, arguing that to do so would violate Swiss banking confidentiality laws that date back centuries.
The Swiss and U.S. governments announced at the end of July they had agreed in principle on major issues but released no details. They had hoped to present a final deal at a hearing Aug. 7, but resolving their differences has taken longer.
At the latest hearing Wednesday, the judge asked Stuart Gibson, the lead Justice Department lawyer in the case, whether an agreement had been reached.
"The answer is 'yes,' your honor," Gibson answered. "The parties have initialed agreements. It will take a little time for the agreements to be signed in final form."
An attorney for UBS, Eugene Stearns, thanked the judge for allowing the case to be brought to what he called a "successful conclusion."
The phone conference lasted less than three minutes.
UBS paid a $780 million penalty earlier this year and turned over names of about 300 American clients in a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department. In that case, UBS admitted helping U.S. citizens evade taxes, which experts say is not a violation of Swiss bank secrecy laws.
So far, three UBS customers whose names were divulged under the prior agreement have pleaded guilty to tax charges in federal court. Hundreds of others holders of secret accounts at UBS and other Swiss banks have voluntarily come forward to the IRS under an amnesty program that requires payment of taxes and penalties but generally does not include the threat of prison.
That amnesty program ends Sept. 23.
New York-listed shares in UBS were trading 2 percent higher at $15.
Since its Sundance debut, (500) Days of Summer has delighted both moviegoers and critics with its delightfully clever approach to "Boy meets girl." The film has been hailed by some critics as "this generation's Annie Hall" and is largely based on writer Scott Neustadter's relationship past. If you loved (500) Days of Summer as much as the rest of us, you're probably just as curious as I was to learn Scott's own take on falling in and out of love.
RF: How would you have written the film if it was told from a female perspective and the roles were reversed?
SN: I'm not sure anything would be different, to be honest. Guys break up with girls, girls break up with guys -- if you like the person, the hurt is the same. For us, this was never about gender. It was always age. Tom has some growing up to do. He's ignoring the warning signs and projecting his own feelings onto this person with almost no regard for what's really going on. It's like the Radiohead song, "just because you feel it, doesn't mean it's there." I think at one point in our lives we all do that, regardless of gender.
Now if you're asking how we would have told this story from Summer's perspective, well now that would be radically different! Good idea for a sequel...
RF: Do you feel that obsessive-like tendencies and falling in love go hand in hand?
SN: It's funny. In movies, characters are always doing these big dramatic gestures to win the other person's love. And in real life, most of that shit would get you arrested. Lloyd Dobler, outside her house with the boom box, that's a restraining order waiting to happen. And yet it's romantic, isn't it? No one questions the intent. I think you're right that it would be perceived way differently in reality, especially if the person trying to sleep wants nothing to do with the guy blasting the music on her lawn. But we see him doing that and we recognize it in ourselves and we've been there, least I have.
As you get older I think (I hope), you can better recognize that the feelings accompanying the early stages of falling in love -- while amazing -- are histrionic and ephemeral. And maybe you can keep yourself in check a little more. But there's an argument against that which says why would you want to? You don't feel like that very often.
RF: In your opinion, what is falling in love the "immature" way and how does one know the difference?
SN: My feeling is you don't, certainly not while it's happening. (500) is based on an experience I had (twice, to be honest) in which I fell head over heels for someone I never really took the time to know. I liked how she looked, I liked that we had similar taste in things, and I liked how I felt when I was with her. Looking back, it was an extremely immature (but in its own way, pretty rational) way to feel. I can see that now, of course, but during the relationship, not a chance.
I think the sentiment is best articulated in the scene from the film where Summer is telling Tom about a dream. And while she's describing it, opening up to him in a way she never normally does, all he can think about is how it affects him. He's not even listening to her, really. That's for me a very telling moment which decodes the essence of this relationship and why it's doomed to fail. Real love, mutual love, mature love -- simply isn't so selfish.
RF: Do men recall the events of former relationships differently than women?
SN: Again, I'm not sure it's a gender thing. As we all know, there are two sides to every story (maybe even three). We decided from the outset that we were going to strictly tell Tom's version of these events. And we were going to tell them through the prism of memory which is not always the most reliable thing.
Making this choice both frees and restricts us in a number of important ways. First, there are gaps in the information. He can't tell us what he doesn't know. Second, the girl is idealized in a way that can't possibly be accurate. He's projecting his feelings onto her. Summer doesn't get to tell her side of the story which you just know would be entirely different.
Weber and I flirted with a scene in which Summer stops everything and demands to have her say. But this would have gone against the rules we set out for ourselves in the beginning. These are Tom's memories and we're in his head the whole time as he's sorting things out.
RF: What are your favorite "coping strategies" for unrequited love that didn't make it into the film?
SN: Well, writing this script was a coping strategy for me. And I think I included every strategy I knew in it somewhere. Keeping busy, listening to music and watching movies that make you feel better, hanging out with friends and family, exercise (I was in the best shape of my life after all this went down). Basically just find the thing that makes you happiest and do it as often as you can.
RF: How did you come to the realization that you were truly over your breakup?
SN: We started writing this when I was most definitely not over my breakup. And you can tell this because in many of the early scenes we wrote, Summer is a villain. She's the bad guy. She's to blame. A strange thing happens in the script that also happened in real life and that's that both Tom and I realize she isn't. Because there's no such thing as villains in real relationship stories, just two people who don't feel the same. It sucks but it's nobody's fault. I think that was the wake-up call for me and once I recognized it I was able to move on.
RF: Have you found your "Autumn"?
SN: Yes! And we met because of this screenplay. Which is kind of amazing when you think about it.
Scott Neustadter hails from Margate, NJ and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He moved to New York in 1998 and was hired to work in the story department of Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions, first as story editor, then as Director of Development. Neustadter left Tribeca in 2002 to attend the London School of Economics. Graduating with a Masters in Communications, he moved to Los Angeles and decided to try screenwriting "for real." Seven years on, Neustadter has now sold projects to Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and Fox Searchlight, including the recently released "Pink Panther 2" (co-written with Steve Martin) and the semi-autobiographical "(500) Days of Summer."
There you have the main course of a documentary feast tracing the influences, talents and stories that make up the complex, delicious and very loud history of the electric guitar. During It Might Get Loud Page's double-neck guitar, The Edge's array of effects pedals and White's new mic, custom built into his guitar, jam live. This footage is intercut with individual portraits of each artist as they take us to the sites of their most influential musical moments. Jimmy Page takes us on a tour of Headley Grange, a former poorhouse, where "Stairway to Heaven"was composed and where Led Zeppelin recorded many of their tunes, the foyer doubling as an echo chamber for John Bonhams' legendary drumming. Then there's the cinder block the classroom where U2 first got together to make what the Edge admits was embarrassing but heartfelt attempts at music. We also see Jack White at his Tennesee farm building a makeshift guitar from scraps of wood, wire and glass and then composing a song as we watch. Each takes on a musical journey to share their own strongest influences, most memorably a visibly passionate Jimmy Page playfully accompanying Link Wary on air guitar to illustrate what a profound revelation his "Rumble" was to him as a young artist splitting time between learning the guitar and studying painting and dabbling in his original career choice of biological research. 
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