WASHINGTON — A North Carolina congressman who supports an overhaul of the health care system had his life threatened by a caller upset that he was not holding a public forum on the proposal, his office said Friday.
Democratic Rep. Brad Miller received the call Monday, one of hundreds the congressman's office has fielded demanding town-hall meetings on the health care proposal, said his spokeswoman, LuAnn Canipe. She said the callers were "trying to instigate town halls so they can show up and disrupt."
"We had one of those kind of calls that escalated to what we considered a threat" on the congressman's life, said Canipe. "These are some strong-arm tactics, and we are trying to deal with and trying to talk to people in good faith about health care reform."
Democratic lawmakers expected protests and demonstrations as they headed back to their states and districts over the August recess to sell health care reform legislation. Earlier this week, White House officials counseled Democratic senators on coping with disruptions at public events this summer.
In the week since the House began its break, several town-hall meetings have already been disrupted by noisy demonstrators.
The latest occurrence was at back-to-back town hall meetings held by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., which got so raucous police had to escort people out.
Dingell vowed Friday to push ahead with Democratic-led efforts to extend coverage to all, saying he won't be intimidated by protesters.
"I am eager to talk about the bill with anyone who wants to discuss it. That doesn't open the door to everyone who wants to demagogue the discussion," Dingell said in a statement.
The boos, jeers and shouts of "Shame on you!" at the events in a gym in Romulus, Mich., mirror what other Democrats are encountering around the country. Activists have shown up at town-hall meetings held recently by Arlen Specter, D-Pa. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was greeted by about 200 protesters at an event in Denver, about half supporting Democrats and half opposed.
In Saratoga Springs, N.Y., about 20 protesters showed up at an event held by Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy to let him know they oppose the health care plans in Washington. They carried signs saying: "Obamacare Seniors beware! Rationing is here," and "If socialized medicine is best ... why didn't Ted Kennedy go to Canada?"
The episodes have drawn widespread media attention, and Republicans have seized on them as well as polls showing a decline in support for President Barack Obama and his agenda as evidence that public support is lacking for his signature legislation.
Pushing back, Democrats have accused Republicans of sanctioning mob tactics, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused protesters earlier this week of trying to sabotage the democratic process.
Miller never had plans to hold a town-hall meeting during the August recess, Canipe said. Instead, he was sitting down with smaller groups of people to discuss the plan. During one of those smaller gatherings on Friday, hundreds of people from a group called Triangle Conservatives peacefully protested at Miller's Raleigh office.
The threatening caller, when told by a staffer that Miller was not planning a meeting, claimed the congressman didn't want to meet with people face to face because he knew it would cost him his life, according to Canipe. The staffer then asked if the caller was making a threat. The caller, said Canipe, replied that there are a lot of angry people out there.
The U.S. Capitol Police confirmed Friday they were looking into a threat against a congressman, but wouldn't provide further details.
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Associated Press Writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.
LA GRANDE, Ore. — A mouse found inside an automatic teller machine – along with a nest it had built with chewed-up $20 bills – gave an Oregon gas station employee the surprise of her life. The mouse, discovered Thursday, had thoroughly torn up two bills and damaged another 14 to line his nest. Employee Millie Taylor said she screamed and slammed the machine's door shut.
The bank replaced all the money that wasn't extensively damaged, and the ATM has continued to work just fine. The mouse also got a reprieve: He was evicted from his nest but set free outside the station.
Other workers at the Gem Stop Chevron in La Grande in eastern Oregon say they're mystified about how the mouse got inside the machine.
WASHINGTON -- When 10 members of Congress wanted to study climate change, they did more than just dip their toes into the subject: They went diving and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. They also rode a cable car through the Australian rain forest, visited a penguin rookery and flew to the South Pole.
The U.S. Labor Department released on Friday its July report showing that the American economy shed 247,000 jobs, the lowest monthly number since August 2008, and representing a continuing declining trend since the beginning of this year when job losses hit a record high 700,000 in January.
To be sure, 247,000 jobs lost in one month is both staggering and sobering and an indication that the economy is still struggling. Yet when you measure it against 700,000, it's abundently clear that, like other leading economic indicators that have shown consistent improvement this year, the jobs market is nearing a bottom and according to most economists will likely begin to recover sometime next year. This is not only very good news for the economy and those looking for work, it's a feather in President Barack Obama's cap and a sign that his administration's stimulus plan is indeed working.
But do you think Republicans are giving the president any credit for this marked improvement in the economy? Fat chance. Typical of conservatives' reactions to the steady stream of positive news has been radio host Bill Bennett, who said on his program earlier this week: "Yes, the economy is beginning to turn around, but the stimulus package is not why."
Sure Bill, the economy is stimulated, but it's not because of the stimulus package. All of the economy's critical benchmark indicators are just turning around by themselves. The $3-trillion or so injected into the nation's financial framework has had zero impact, while America's magic fairy dust has been sprinkled over Wall Street, the housing and banking markets, corporate earnings and the jobs market. Gotta love that magic fairy dust....
Now we all know that Republicans would be screaming for Obama's head if at this point in time the economy had continued to slide deeper into recession; if the GDP continued to appreciably contract, if job losses mounted, if GM went under, if the housing market worsened, etc. Simply put, they so desperately want to claim failure for Obama and his stimulus plan, and no matter how positive things turn, or how bright the future outlook becomes, they will never credit him for reviving this abysmal economy that George W. Bush created during his miserably-failed eight-year administration. But in 2010 and 2012, voters will, and that's all that matters.
I thought you were supposed to be tough. I heard you were a fighter. I didn't know you'd be fighting against real health insurance reform. I didn't know you'd be fighting against the millions of people like me who elected Barack Obama.
No, your compromises and politics over people attitude are stupid. People's lives and health are at stake so you're worse than stupid, worse even then f**king stupid - you're deadly.
Those protesters at the town hall meeting actually DO have a point, as misguided as they are in attacking health insurance reform. The government ISN'T listening to the American people - not the crazy minority the hooligans represent but the majority of us.
Listen to the people, Rahm. There is a majority out here that counts on Barack Obama and people like you to keep his promises on the two issues intertwined here - real health care reform and ending the corrupt culture of lobbyists in Washington. The way to weed out those lobbyists is to shine a bright light on the Senators and Congresspeople that they've paid off, no matter what party they are in.
I had been thinking the biggest enemy to real health insurance reform was Montana Senator Max Baucus but I'll be damned if now I don't think it's you, Rahm.
If you want crazy, blind, suicidal loyalty...become a Republican.
In the meantime, I continue to churn out my own health insurance reform videos. And they attack Democrats, too, sometimes. And if you don't like it, too f**cking bad.
If there's one thing Democrats should have learned from the contentious and unsuccessful attempt to pass public healthcare reform in the Clinton Administration, it's this: never lose control of the narrative.
Though much attention is paid to how President Clinton brought his own complex bill to Congress in '93-94 - in contrast to President Obama's decision to let Congress carry the ball this time - the real story of that disaster was the framing of the issue in public.
Then, Democrats lost control of the gut-level, short-story branding of public healthcare. Despite endless public hearings, townhalls, and polite op-ed discussions, the enemies of progress in this country succeeded at making a simpler, more direct case against healthcare for more Americans.
And the bad guys won.
So what's new this summer? Well, the top-down strategy of the Clinton years is gone. The Obama Administration has ceded the crafting of reform to Congress, while still making the issue its top domestic priority. Congress has pulled together five or six different plans, while predictably running an overhaul of the nation's expensive and lagging healthcare system through the leadership destruction juicer known as "bipartisanship." Now, you can argue whether that was the right call. And you can worry about Blue Dog Democrats, the leadership of the Speaker and Majority Leaders, various moderate Republicans, and the versions of various bills winding their way through committees.
But you can't argue this: once again, Democrats have lost control of the narrative.
As Congress began its recess, town hall meetings are erupting in staged dissent and violence. Democrats who expected polite discussion over the various facets of reform - cost controls, healthcare co-ops, prescription plans - are being met with sharp elbows, loud bellowing voices, and hateful disinformation. Public healthcare is being compared to Nazi medicine. The specter of euthanasia is used as a scare tactic to rile up the elderly. Obama is compared to Hitler. Or wears white face as the Joker. Of course, commentators like Steve Perlstein are right:
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
And so we wring our hands, and decry their low, inherently evil tactics - expecting somehow that common decency will prevail, and that the general polity will somehow rise in disgust against the bullies. And while we're all screaming about Rush Limbaugh and arguing over astroturfing "activists," the forces arrayed against public healthcare are stealing the narrative, like the sticky-fingered back half of crack pick-pocket team.
Sure, it's outrageous. And the mainstream media immediately goes into its fair and balanced relativism act, thereby showering the belligerent anti-reform mob with legitimacy. Yeah, Paul Krugman is right:
Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there's no comparison. I've gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can't find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.
But they don't have to be right. They just have to be loud. And quite frankly, Democrats - from the President to both delegations in Congress - have done a lousy job of framing the issue, or making the clear and simple case for why public healthcare is good for all Americans.
It shouldn't have come to this. Our ducks should have been in line months ago. Simple and straightforward slogans. Effective advertising. Famous spokespeople and surrogates. Millions of boots on the ground. All of it wired for action and success by a killer social media operation. You know, like the campaign. But as Peter Daou pointed out earlier this week, this is far different than an election campaign. Of the reasons Peter cited, one stood out to me:
Inside baseball is less effective when you're on the inside. The media manipulation that helped win the White House, the masterful messaging, the leaks, the back-scratching, the hard-hitting conference calls with strategists and advisers while the candidate stayed above it all, the playing of one outlet and one reporter against the other, the smart turns of phrase, the snarky retorts, the outsider vs. insider kabuki, all these lose a good deal of potency when campaigning gives way to governing. Especially when bankers are running away with taxpayer money, polls are shifting and the public is hurting.
Yeah, exactly. Yet one aspect to this whole looming disaster (and I say anything less than a legitimate public option is a disaster for this Administration and this Congress) really is surprising.
And that's the level of Democratic surprise itself.
This was easy to see coming. This is the real kitchen sink thrown against Barack Obama. It was inevitable. Indeed, the conservative leadership that follows Limbaugh was transparent in both their strategy and their organizing - they said were out to hand the President a landmark defeat. They wanted him to fail. And no they've put thugs on the ground in pursuit of that goal. This was hardly a sneak attack. And for a political operation that was incredibly savvy, fast-moving and professional during the 2008 campaign to somehow seem flat-footed against the lame-ass birthers, and tea-baggers and Rush fans seems is dispiriting. As Josh Marshall wondered aloud this week, "where's the other team?"
I could go on about what the Administration has to do to save the day, but I just don't have the energy. It feels to me like the narrative battle's been lost, and it'll be hell to get it back. Besides, you kind of sense the will isn't necessarily there among our leaders to fight this one to the finish. So maybe Bob Stein's right to grab a few lines from Yeats to sum up his despair:
Carolyn, a woman who attended one of our seminars had a problem - she had so many goals she didn't know where to start. She felt good that she had lots of interests, but also felt like a bit of a slacker because she couldn't get started. Carolyn didn't know it, but her problem was not unique. Prior to working with us, many of our coaching clients had difficulty prioritizing multiple goals. We developed a strategy to address competing priorities in our book, GOAL! and helped Carolyn think through hers.
On her list of goals, none of them were time sensitive and none of them were dependant on accomplishing other goals. However, there was a subset of her goals that were mutually exclusive, so she did have to make a decision among those. The other goals were not mutually exclusive and theoretically, she could have picked any one out of a hat and just started. She hadn't started on anything so far because she was unsure on how to proceed.
Carolyn's goals were: Starting a business (mutually exclusive options) finishing her degree, writing a book and volunteering her time.
Here's how we helped Carolyn get going: For Goals That Are Not Dependant on Other Goals - If there's no sequence to your goals (i.e., none depend on the completion of other goals) then look at other factors. For example, is one an event driven goal? Those goals are tied to some specific future date, like losing weight to attend a college reunion or planning for retirement. If that's the case then the date is going to drive when you should start these. If it's not an event driven goal then you need to determine which goal is more advantageous versus the other.
Figure Out Which Goal Has the Advantage - If there are goals that have a common objective, ("I've identified two businesses which I can start that will both net me $100k"), figure out which one of those has an advantage over the other. Which one will require less time and energy? Which is less risky? Which one requires less capital? Or, which one will give you more joy? Figuring out the advantages will help you decide which one to go after.
If Both Goals Are Equal? If they are both equal in every aspect and you can't figure out which one you should do, just arbitrarily pick one and start on that one. If they're not mutually exclusive, when you reach one goal then start on the other. It's important to take action because people will often end up doing nothing because they can't decide between two good goals.
A Grid for Multiple Goals - Again, if all your goals seem equal and you can't figure out which one to start first, you may want to make a grid. We can hear you analytical types saying "yes!". Vertically down the page list the various goals you have in mind. These could be things like finishing up your college degree, writing a book and volunteering your time. Across the top of the page, list horizontally the key factors in your decision process, like: time, financial investment, enjoyment doing, satisfaction on completion, ability to involve your spouse, etc. You choose the criteria. Now you have created a grid. Give each of these a value from 1-10, 10 being the highest value to you (the shorter the time the higher the value, the lower the cost the higher the value). When you have filled in all the spaces on the grid, add the totals across for each goal and see which goal has the highest total. This will lead you towards the top goal(s). This puts you in a better position to choose which goal to tackle first.
What If You Can't Identify a Goal? We always tell people to start with what they like doing. Sometimes people will say they're not sure. If this is the case, start with what interests you and see if that leads you to something you like. For example, if you're trying to select a career goal, start out with what you like doing or at least are interested in and figure out what careers would satisfy that. If you can't figure it out on your own, hire a career coach and he or she can help you identify the careers that will leverage your strengths and be most fulfilling. If your goal is to find a fun hobby then again, start with what you're interest in. A lot of people are interested in photography. Take a course or spend time photographing things and see where that leads. Someone we know had an interest in photography and noticed that all of her pictures tended to be of plants. That led to a garden hobby.
Goals can be incredibly fulfilling and amazingly frustrating if you don't know where to begin. Lots of goals require lots of time, so get started now. The sooner you start the more fulfilling your life will be. Carolyn started business "A" and is volunteering her time on the weekends. She's never been busier and never been happier, "Once I got started, everything fell into place."
Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation. The State Department contract is scheduled to run through September 3. In May, the State Department announced it was not renewing Blackwater's Iraq contract, and the Iraqi government has refused to issue the company an operating license.
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia's police department is investigating why an officer used his police car's computer to run a criminal background check on President Barack Obama.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said Friday the officer could face discipline for performing the check Wednesday morning. The Secret Service alerted the department after it learned about the incident from National Crime Information Center.
Ramsey says he wants to know what the officer has to say for himself. Police didn't release the officer's name, but he remains on duty.
Two Atlanta-area police officers are accused of a similar unauthorized background check on the president July 20. DeKalb County officers Ryan White and C.M. Route were placed on paid administrative leave.
The latest figures from the Department of Labor show that 247,000 more jobs disappeared last month. And right about now, many of the people who had those jobs probably wish they had something more coming to them than some severance pay and a small check from the state unemployment department.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is recommending a most unusual name for a slot on the U. S. District Court bench in Chicago: the brother of the man he defeated in the 2002 general election.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - At least 21 people in Colorado and 10 other U.S. states have been sickened by a salmonella outbreak that prompted the recall of more than 800,000 pounds of ground beef, federal and state officials said on Friday.
Raw hamburger associated with known illnesses in Colorado was traced to Beef Packers Inc. in Fresno, California, a unit of Minneapolis-based agribusiness giant Cargill Inc, officials said.
Britney Spears had a shoot at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey, and the pop princess was looking absolutely amazing in this sexy white bikini! Looks like a little time off from the Circus tour hasn't hurt her tanned physique one bit!
STURGIS, S.D. — Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry says lead singer Steven Tyler suffered a broken shoulder and has stitches in his head after falling from a stage during a concert near Sturgis, S.D.
Perry told The Associated Press after a stop at a Chicago radio station Friday that Tyler has been flown to Boston and was meeting with his own doctor.
The 61-year-old front man was injured Wednesday night when he tumbled from the stage while dancing around during "Love in an Elevator." The singer was jumping and spinning on stage and then fell.
Perry says there were apparently no internal injuries.
The guitarist says band members are to get on a conference call to discuss what to do about the band's tour. A Friday night show in Winnipeg, Canada, already has been postponed.
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Associated Press Writer Carla K. Johnson contributed to this report from Chicago.
Folks, some folks in the press, um, forgot to fact-check when they reported that the US Marines banned the use of social media. It only had to do with the use of limited networks, which makes sense; you sure don't want sensitive networks compromised.
... the Marine Corps said, "Marines are encouraged to tell their stories on social networking sites, using personal accounts, remembering the importance of operational security and that they are Marines at all times."
So, how did news sites around the world, including Nextgov, erroneously report the Marines had banned access to sites such as such as Twitter, YouTube and MySpace?
The simple answer is that the collective "we" -- myself and all the other digit stained wretches who reported on the supposed ban -- were guilty of herd mentality, following and believing the Associated Press story linked above.
On a more positive note, the UK government encouraging their troops to use social media:
According to the Online Engagement Guidelines, U.K. troops "can make full use of Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube as long as they follow the same high standards of conduct and behavior online as would be expected elsewhere; always maintain personal information and operational security and be careful about the information they share online; and, get authorization from their chain of command when appropriate."
The Defence Ministry added that troops and civilian workers could post to social networking sites without prior authorization as long as they adhere to the guidelines on operational security and online behavior. The policy, touted in a Defence blog, represents "an important change over earlier rules, under which personnel always needed to seek authorization before publishing any work-related material," the ministry said.
As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we're saying not just no, but hell no!
The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.
Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president's health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.
We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back. Ronald Reagan once wrote, "Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." Let's stop and think and make our voices heard before it's too late.
Palin included a video of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), another fierce and hyperbolic critic of the president, saying Obama's plan would mean depriving senior citizens and disabled people of proper care. Watch:
Bachmann has described her opposition to reform as "like having a mother bear protecting her little cubs, and she's seeing that she has to move heaven and earth to get her child what her child needs."
If you gravitate to old guys like I do -- my dad used to say old guys are interesting even when they're being quiet -- you hear a lot about how Chicago used to be. Enough, sometimes, to feel a little sorry you didn't live back then.
I live on the near West Side. So I hear the old Italian talking about how, before the UIC campus wiped out the neighborhood in the '60s, you could smell spaghetti gravy all the way up and down Taylor street, from Halsted to Western. Spaghetti was all anybody cooked back then, because it was cheap and "nobody had any money," he says, wistfully.
Another Italian guy, a cab driver, picks me up near my house near Ashland and Grand; says he grew up here, but left the neighborhood when the Puerto Ricans moved in, in the 1960s and 1970s. "God, I hate Puerto Ricans," he says. "Know how I know? I married one! Big ass, big tits, big mouth."
These old guys might be sentimental on one hand and a little kooky on the other, but they're not stupid. A prominent preservationist went to the Polish/Catholic Union looking for political support for saving the Polish St. Boniface church from the wrecking ball. "Aw Christ," he was told, "the only people who care about preservation are florists and hairdressers."
More satisfying is to try to see the neighborhood as the old-timers remember it -- see vestiges of how things used to be.
I see them everywhere I go. I go everywhere I see them.
The funeral director at Walter Sojka Funeral Home sits on his bench gazing across Chicago Avenue into the open-windows at the trendy Five Star bar. His face tells the young revelers (tells me, anyway): Have your fun now, my young friends. You'll have to cross the street someday.
No one fights the hot summer nights by sleeping at Eckert Park, as they used to do before air conditioning. But my five-year-old daughter and I sometimes sleep on the back porch, under the stars.
Like every barkeeper worth his salt in the old days, Joe Tunk of the Chipp Inn at Greenview and Fry, can casually recite all the brewing industry mergers and buyouts, strikes and lockouts going back toward the beginning of the 20th century.
The half-dozen men behind the counter at the Bari market on Grand are so cheerful as they make your Italian sub that you're grateful for the privilege of giving your money to the sardonic, slightly disapproving mother-figure at the cash register.
On the other hand: At Duk's hotdog shack on Ashland, the only time the employees stop fighting with each other is when the old owner rolls up in his 1990 white Cadillac convertible and graying white linen suit and matching fedora.
Instantly they drop their truculent attitudes, they stop squabbling over who splashed whom with more fryer grease and they hop to it. Mister this and mister that. Can we get you some ice water, sir? But they can do no right. In front of the customers, the boss grumbles ominously about everything from the overflowing trashcans outside to the unkempt grill. The moment he leaves, it's back to the usual slovenly stuff.
When we visit Candy's corner grocery store at Noble and Ohio, my daughter has strict instructions not to ask for a lollipop, but to take one only if it's offered. By the time, she was making small talk with the clerk, "Hello, how are you today? It's beautiful weather we're having, don't you think?"
Once or twice a week in the summer, I get my exercise by shooting hoops around lunchtime at the playground at Talcott School on Ohio Street. Often kids sidle up -- little kids and grown kids, on one occasion a group of emotionally disturbed kids from the nearby Esperanza school -- and ask if I mind if they join them. I've never minded yet.
One day the other day a little Mexican kid came up, and then a pair of black kids, slightly older. We started playing two on two, the Mexican and me against the older partners. For some reason, one of the black kids, who identified himself as "Superboy," started calling the Mexican kid "Chinaman." The Mexican kid said nothing to defend himself. I thought about stopping the game to give a lecture about name-calling.
Instead, I decided to make sure that we won handily and see that the Mexican kid made a most of the baskets.
When the winning basket went through the chain, I said, "Looks like the Chinaman just whipped your ass, Superboy!"
And we all laughed.
I thought I handled that one pretty well.
You know, like they might have done it in the old days.
The taxi belongs to the State but the need is yours. So you sit in front of the steering wheel with one clear objective: to get everything you can from your customers. They blame you for wanting to prosper, but every night you must give sixty convertible pesos* to the company you work for. You can only collect that much through cheating, small swindles that let you earn something for yourself. If you go several days without paying up, they order you out and there are many who want to take the seat of your white Russian-made Lada.
You've bought an enormous rearview mirror which completely covers the meter, which you've manipulated so it always shows more. You also have the knack of saying, "I don't have any small coins," which lets you keep the difference if your fare doesn't have exact change. The bad days, you risk more and don't even turn on the digital display that shows the cost of the trip; you travel for a fixed price that goes totally into your own pocket. Even though they've installed a sensor in the back seat to detect if you're occupied, you ask the people to sit on the edge and this way the income ends up in your hands and not those of Cubataxi.
The costs of repairing the car are charged to you, because no one is more interested that the tires aren't flat and that the tank always has gasoline. But when they sack you from your job you'll have to leave everything you've invested in this taxi which they will give to someone else, someone who will repeat the same deceptions that you do today. So you try to get the greatest benefit out of your fourteen hours of work and pick up tourists in the street, who don't know the distance between one place and another in the city. You tell them the situation is very bad and you have three children, meanwhile you take them from the Capitol to Santa Maria by the longest route. When they get out you ask them for three times the cost of the kilometers traveled and calculate that with this you won't have to give all your earnings to Him** today. Thanks to these repeated scams, you can take at least a part of your earnings home.
** "He/Him" is the pronoun reserved for the power, the state and the president.
*Translator's note: Sixty convertible pesos is more than $60 U.S.; the average monthly wage in Cuba is about $17-$20 U.S. Cuba has two currencies: Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUCs), and Cuban Pesos. One CUC is worth about 24 Cuban Pesos.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
The government reported Friday morning that the unemployment rate declined one-tenth of a percentage point to 9.4 percent after the economy shed 247,000 jobs in July. But if that many people lost their jobs, how could the unemployment rate go down instead of up?
The answer is that size of the labor force shrank by over 400,000 people. In June, the Labor Department estimated there were 154.9 million workers in the civilian labor force. In July, that number shrank to 154.5 million.
When the labor force shrinks even more rapidly than the job market, the unemployment rate goes down.
So why did the labor force shrink so fast? Well, maybe it didn't. "These numbers are somewhat erratic," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy research, in an interview with the Huffington Post. The Labor Department makes its estimate based on a survey of 60,000 households.
Baker said that if the labor force consistently shrinks in a big way over the course of several months, that's something to be worried about. But so far it hasn't; the average size of the labor force actually increased from the first to the second quarter this year.
If the labor force contraction does turn into a trend, Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute said it could indicate that people were giving up on looking for jobs entirely. And she pointed out that the government's data on labor market flows shows a substantial increase in the number of unemployed people who abandoned the labor force last month.
"That entirely explains the decline," Shierholz told the Huffington Post. "When you see a decline in the labor force in a market as crappy as this one, the bulk of what's happened is people are looking around saying, 'I've knocked on every door ten times. I'm just not looking anymore until things get better.'"
All of which means that there is nothing really to celebrate in the unemployment rate going down. The cold reality is that another quarter million jobs were lost.
And yet, that isn't entirely bad news. The 247,000-job-drop represents the smallest monthly loss in a year, meaning employers are beginning to ease up on layoffs.
NEW YORK (AP) -- An appeals court says the federal government does not have to release information about wiretaps from the investigation that brought down former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found Friday that The New York Times had not shown it has a First Amendment right to the material.
A lower court had ordered the release of the FBI documents, which could reveal details about the origins and scope of the investigation.
The Times said it is disappointed and is reviewing the decision. It said public access to such records would provide ''a valuable check on law enforcement agencies and on the courts.''
The documents named other clients of the Emperor's Club VIP prostitution service.
David Paterson became governor in March 2008 after Spitzer resigned in disgrace.
I had the opportunity to speak with supermodel Christie Brinkley this week as the fifty something supermodel and political activist is promoting her new line of jewelry, CeleBrate, with Ross-Simons.. Naturally, the conversation took a political turn and the effervescent "Uptown Girl" had some strong words for Sarah Palin...
American Psychological Association • conclusion of that therapeutic efforts -- or even extreme measures like exorcisms -- to change people's sexual orientation from gay to straight (the only kind of change there seems to be much demand for) don't work
At the Movies • Ben (I Am Legend is "one of the greatest movies ever made") Lyons and Ben (never said anything quite that stupid, at least not on the show) Mankiewicz are fired as co-hosts of
Barrett, Justin • lawsuit is filed by against the Boston Police Department (and the police commissioner and mayor) demanding compensation for the "pain and suffering; mental anguish; emotional distress; posttraumatic stress; sleeplessness; indignities and embarrassment; degradation; injury to reputation; and restrictions on personal freedom" endured by as a result of the suspension and threatened termination of for sending an e-mail renowned for its racism but insufficiently recognized for its misogyny and illiteracy
Beck, Glenn • fans of are urged by not to vent their frustrations by going out and killing a bunch of people because it would be very bad for Republicans
Chirac, Jacques • 2003 phone call is recounted by in which George W. Bush said "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East" and the only way to keep the biblical prophecies of the Apocalypse from being fulfilled was to invade Iraq
Church of Scientology • more defectors from tell more horror stories about • response by to horror stories told by defectors from • ridiculous fashion statement is mandated by for global staffers of, possibly leading to more defectors from
Clinton, Bill • two American journalists are freed from North Korean jail thanks to the diplomatic efforts of, which, of course, greatly upsets the ultimate undiplomat John Bolton and the nasty little troll Dick Morris
Fox News • ignorance of just exactly where some of those Middle Eastern countries are, anyway, is hilariously displayed by
Fromme, Lynette (Squeaky) • imminent parole of is announced -- of all times -- mere days before the 40th anniversary of the Manson murders
For mockery of, among others, Ryan O'Neal, Sarah Palin, Dylan Ratigan, Orly Taitz, and the Washington Post, click here.
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra 2009 118 minutes Rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a movie that remembers the very basics that so many big-budget action films have forgotten. The action scenes are creative and cleanly edited with a clear sense of time, space, and geography. While there is plenty of CGI vehicle destruction, there are also plenty of real stunts and real rough-and-tumble fight scenes. The heroes are engaging and distinguishable amidst the carnage, and the villains are appropriately colorful and entertaining. At its best, the film resembles what adventures you might create if you took your action figure playsets and gave them a $175 million budget to work with. And yes, I mean that as a compliment.
A token amount of plot - Following a prologue set in France in 1641 (no kidding...), the film opens in that oh-so-convenient 'not-so distant future'. Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are entrusted with delivering a new 'nanobot' weapon created by arms merchant McCullen (a terrifically scenery-chewing Christopher Eccleston). Little do they know that the Scottish Tony Stark is playing both sides, and they are soon ambushed by a terrorist organization bent on stealing the weapon for their own nefarious purposes. At the last minute, rescue comes in the form on an elite group of international fighting men and women. Known only as GI Joe, the group prevents the theft and whisks our heroes to safety. Duke and Ripcord use Duke's prior knowledge of The Baroness (Siena Miller) to gain admittance into this top-secret organization. Can the Joes stop this mysterious terrorist network from using the nanobot technology to settle a four-hundred year-old vendetta, or will McCullen and his venomous plans lead the world to destruction?
Look, none of this is intended to be high art, but the film mostly works in ways that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen could only dream about. The difference is that this adaptation from a popular 80s toy line actually gives moviegoers what they came to see. Rather than pad a few action beats with overly contrived exposition, crude ethnic stereotypes, and vulgar sexual slapstick, director Stephen Summers stays strictly business for most of the film's brisk 118-minute running time. You want a film about bad ass GI Joes facing off against the organization that will eventually become Cobra? That's exactly what you get. You want memorable villains and square-jawed heroes? You've got at least half a dozen notable heroes and at least five representatives of evil (which is key to having an exciting action scene, so you always have someone familiar to cut to). You want high adventure and action scenes that give you stunts that you've never seen before? There's a 10-15 minute chase scene through Paris, the only one involving those infamous 'accelerator suits', that is absolutely breathtaking both in its logistics and its narrative logic. Yes the collateral damage in this scene is astonishing, but I never cared about innocent bystanders when I played with my action figures either. Frankly, the picture is every bit as violent, gruesome, and as corpse-ridden as the action dramas I mapped out when I was ten-years old, which makes me shocked that it got a PG-13.
Considering the source material, the plot makes a surprising amount of sense, give or take a few minor plot holes (it helps that the storyline is as simple as possible). While the film is mainly bereft of clever dialogue, it also wins points for not trying to be particularly witty or self-satisfyingly clever. These are adults who deal in the business of death, and they only crack wise when they need a distraction from the bullets or explosions. While the film doesn't particularly take itself seriously, it also refuses to wink a the audience. While no one in the cast will put this at the top of their highlight reel, only Sienna Miller and Channing Tatum offer what might be called mediocre performances. Most refreshing is the treatment of the female characters. While both Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) and the Baroness are acknowledged as very attractive women, they neither give or receive special treatment in the action scenes. Both inflict and take severe punishment and Summers never does the whole 'wow, it's girls kicking ass... how progressive!' bit that so many others stoop to.
There are four major action set-pieces, and each one both moves the plot along and gives each major character a specific purpose and role. Unlike other ensemble films where the big star got most if not all of the major action beats (think Mission: Impossible 3 or The Kingdom), every Joe and every 'not-yet-Cobra' villain gets various highlight moments. You get ninja duels (Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow go at it several times), crossbow shoot-outs, fights to the death above high precipices, vehicle chases, and everything else you want to see in a movie like this. Unfortunately, the kinetic blast that carries the film right up to the climax is undone by a screenwriting trap that cannot be plausibly be written out of. First of all, there is a lack of suspense in the climax, as we are given several heroes and villains who more or less cannot be killed for the sake of the eventual sequel. Furthermore, the token attempt at back story creates a quagmire that causes several increasingly stupid climactic revelations. This climaxes in the neutering of a major fan-favorite character that will likely infuriate hardcore fans.
But for at least that initial ninety-minutes or so, the movie is an effective action-adventure spectacle. This is absolutely a GI Joe movie in the sense that the kid in us only dreamed about seeing onscreen. It works despite its flaws and inherent silliness. It's fun, exciting, occasionally eye-popping, and completely entertaining. It has great actors (Christopher Eccleston, Jonathan Pryce, Dennis Quaid) hamming it up and inventive action scenes that are worth seeing on a big screen. How can you not love a movie that casts famous Brit Jonathan Pryce as the President of the United States and lets him keep his accent? But in a movie like this, getting the action adventure basics just right is half the battle right there. I think you can guess what the other 50% is.
The coup in Honduras -- and the at best grudging and vacillating support in Washington for the restoration of President Zelaya -- has thrown into stark relief a fundamental fault line in Latin America and a moral black hole in U.S. policy toward the region.
What is the minimum wage which a worker shall be paid for a day's labor?
Supporters of the coup have tried to trick Americans into believing that President Zelaya was ousted by the Honduran military because he broke the law. But this is nonsense. A Honduran bishop told Catholic News Service,
"Some say Manuel Zelaya threatened democracy by proposing a constitutional assembly. But the poor of Honduras know that Zelaya raised the minimum salary. That's what they understand. They know he defended the poor by sharing money with mayors and small towns. That's why they are out in the streets closing highways and protesting (to demand Zelaya's return)"
This is why the greedy, self-absorbed Honduran elite turned against President Zelaya: because he was pursuing policies in the interests of the majority. The Washington Postnoted in mid-July,
To many poor Hondurans, deposed president Manuel "Mel" Zelaya was a trailblazing ally who scrapped school tuitions, raised the minimum wage and took on big business.
In a statement condemning support for the coup by U.S. business groups, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation expressed its concern that under the coup regime, there are
worsening working conditions, and in particular at efforts to claw back a wage increase ordered by President Zelaya six months ago in order to reflect the increased cost of food and other essentials. In reality the increased wage barely covered 90% of basic food needs and less than a third of a living wage covering basic needs such as food, rent, transport, education, and medical care.
It's not just in Honduras that raising the minimum wage provoked a coup. In reporting about efforts by Haitian lawmakers this week to raise the minimum wage in Haiti, APnoted:
Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in 2004, in part after business owners angered by his approval of an increased minimum wage organized opposition against him.
This May, the Haitian Parliament approved a proposal to triple the minimum wage to about $5 a day. But President Preval rejected this, saying
the increase should omit workers at factories producing garments for export. Preval said those workers should receive an increase to about $3.
What's the argument in Haiti against raising the minimum wage?
The debate has fueled unrest across the impoverished Caribbean nation, with some critics arguing that an increase would hurt plans to fight widespread unemployment by creating jobs in factories that produce clothing for export to the United States.
There are the magic words I search for in these articles, often buried at the bottom: "United States."
So, the argument is being made that Haiti can't afford to raise the minimum wage for workers in the export sector to $5 a day, because if they did Americans would buy clothes and shoes produced in some other countries.
Let me underline this, dear reader. You, as an American consumer, you are being invoked in Haiti as the reason that the minimum wage cannot be raised to $5 a day.
Of course this is nonsense. The overwhelming majority of Americans, along with the overwhelming majority of Haitians and Hondurans, would be absolutely delighted if Haitian and Honduran workers producing clothes for the U.S. market would be paid more. Labor costs are a small fraction of the prices that consumers face. Wages are so low because that yields even more profits for those who already have more money than they can ever spend; the low wage floor is being determined by government policy in Washington, Haiti, Honduras, and elsewhere, not by the desires of consumers. No magic formula of economics determines the minimum wage that can be sustained in Haiti and Honduras. At the margin - whether the minimum wage shall be $3 a day or $5 a day in the export sector in Haiti -- it is determined politically.
If you say that the leverage of the U.S. consumer market should be used to support higher wages for poor workers in poor countries, rather than the opposite, you're likely to be told that this is not allowed. This leverage has been allocated to something else. The power of the U.S. market can only be used for things like forcing developing countries to enforce the patents, trademarks, and copyrights of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, software companies, and Hollywood.
Indeed, if you say that we should be supporting efforts to raise the minimum wage in Honduras and Haiti, you'll likely to be accused of "trying to impose American values." But this is a baldfaced lie, the twisted-mirror image of the truth. The majority of Hondurans and the majority of Haitians want the wages of workers producing for export to the United States to be raised. Far from imposing "American values," in Honduras and Haiti, we're imposing Wall Street values, every day, through U.S. government policy, against the wishes and interests of the majority of the population, there and here.
And by its failure to help effectively Latin American efforts to restore President Zelaya, the Obama Administration is helping to drive down the minimum wage in Honduras, Haiti, and throughout the world. And the reason that the Obama Administration is, de facto, taking the side of the corrupt and greedy ruling elite in Honduras, is that, as usual, U.S. foreign policy is being determined by Corporate America, not Main Street America, because the power and efforts of Main Street America to affect U.S. foreign policy in Honduras -- the U.S. labor movement and its friends, basically - is too weak, compared to the infrastructure and efforts of Corporate America's actions to shape U.S. policy.
Count this too as a casualty of the failure of Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. If the Employee Free Choice Act were law, and more American workers were organized into unions, Main Street would have more power in Washington, and Corporate America wouldn't be calling the shots on U.S. policy towards Honduras.
So, the next time some lying moron invokes "economics" to "explain" to you that the wages of impoverished third world workers who produce for the U.S. market cannot be raised, remember the coup in Honduras, and how Washington sat on its hands while a democratically elected government was punished by greedy elites with a military coup for trying to raise the minimum wage.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has done a great job encouraging moms to breastfeed their babies exclusively for the first 6 months of life. As it turns out, very few moms are able to do this. Some estimates are that about 25-30% of moms are still breastfeeding at 6 months and less than 10% are exclusively breastfeeding. This is way short of the goal of 50% of moms breastfeeding at 6 months.
I wrote Your Personal Guide to Breastfeeding and have helped countless moms successfully breastfeed their babies. But I've also been practicing for over 20 years, and have learned a few things about how real women react in real life situations.
The fact is that most babies do drink some infant formula in their first 6-12 months of life. The problem is that moms who are bottle feeding are not getting enough information according to a review of research published in July in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
"Inadequate information and support for mothers who decide to bottle-feed may put the health of their babies at risk," according to the study authors. "While it is important to promote breast-feeding, it is also necessary to ensure that the needs of bottle-feeding mothers are met."
My experience working with moms echoes these findings. Many of the moms who can't breastfeed, for whatever reason, feel tremendous pressure to breastfeed, that they don't quite measure up, which can lead to feelings of guilt, shame and anger, when things don't work out the way they expected. I've treated too many moms with postpartum depression that was triggered by loss of sleep and inability to breastfeed.
Homemade Formula?
I've also heard of too many moms cooking up their own formula recipes at home, because of misinformation, which can have long lasting serious consequences to their child's growth and development.
Despite what you might have read on the internet, home-made formulas can be very dangerous and lack important nutrients or have too much of one ingredient or another which can lead to kidney damage, poor growth, serious anemia and many other complications, which parents may not see until it's too late.
What's concerning is when we insist that every mom breastfeed and set up goals that sound great in the abstract, but may be impossible in many mom's day to day lives, we can set moms and their babies up for failure. The fact is that many moms must return to work, which sorry guys, influences breastfeeding rates.
Healthy Babies Is The Goal
So if most babies are fed formula, then for goodness sakes, let's make sure their parents have enough education on how to properly prepare the formula and the bottles. The authors in the study also found that, "Mothers received little information on bottle-feeding, they did not feel empowered for decision-making, and they often made mistakes when preparing bottles, which could increase the risk for infection, excessive weight gain, or malnourishment."
In my mind, breastfeeding is Plan A, and of course, we're promoting, educating and practically standing on our heads to get more moms to breastfeed. Let's also remember to have Plan B, our just in case, back up plan, in case Plan A doesn't work out the way we want it to, and support and educate all parents about how to prepare formula, so they're not left without the resources they need to provide their babies with the best nutrition possible for healthy growth and development.
I should take up hobbies that don't involve hot oil on warm summer days. I refer to making doughnuts. I think. Or possibly fruit blogging. I'm not sure.
At any rate, it was clearly too late for that when I was standing over the bubbling oil, having started the doughnuts the night before, when I set out the yeast, flour and water to ferment overnight. Or a few days before that when I checked out The New York Times Dessert Cookbook from the library. Or a few days before that, when we had donut peaches at the farmers market.
I wanted yeast-risen, jelly doughnuts.
First, I made the filling.
To make the filling, I peeled about five peaches. I could tell you how I did this, or I can tell you the way you should do this: Drop the peaches into boiling water for a minute and then plunge them into ice-cold water. The skins should peel off with the help of a sharp knife.
I chopped the peaches and set them in a saucepan with about a quarter cup of sugar. I let this mixture sit for about an hour, allowing the sugar to draw out the juice from the peaches. Then, over medium flame, I cooked the peaches and sugar until they achieved a jammy consistency. (If the 54 vanilla beans -- 54! -- that I ordered from Amazon had come that day instead of the next day, I might have added a few inches of a vanilla bean, which I would have then slit in half lengthwise to expose the seeds.)
You can make the filling a day or two ahead of time.
You can also stop right there. Because at this point you have some kickass peach jam, which will easily hold in your refrigerator for a week or two and would be fantastic on waffles or pancakes, or as a stir-in for plain yogurt -- which of course you also make yourself at home, right? You know, last week I made jam, and bread, and yogurt. And then I turn around and wonder why I never have any freaking time to do anything I'm supposed to do. Maybe because I spend my time making jam and bread and yogurt and doughnuts?
Oh, right. The doughnuts.
This recipe is adapted from the Bing Cherry Doughnut recipe from the restaurant Oceana in New York City, as featured in The New York Times Dessert Cookbook.
I'm really torn when I write out a recipe like this because, on the one hand, most people are accustomed to using volume measurements and may not even have a kitchen scale. That said, I'd much rather use weights for most ingredients when I bake. The volume of flour can vary according to how tightly it's packed in the measuring cup, but the weight is a constant. Also, our system of measurement in this country is absurd. I'd much rather use grams than ounces.
Half of you are nodding in agreement. The other half are nodding off.
What?
Oh, right. The doughnuts.
Ingredients:
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 packets of active dry yeast (that's about 4 1/2 teaspoons) OR 3 teaspoons instant yeast
1 2/3 cups sugar
1/4 cup milk
6 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Vegetable oil for frying
Directions:
1. The night before, place 2 cups of flour, half a packet of active dry yeast (or 3/4 teaspoons instant yeast) and 2/3 cup of warm water in a large bowl. Mix until blended and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit overnight, until doubled in volume. If you're not ready to finish the recipe, you can refrigerate the mixture at this point.
2. Set aside 1/3 cup flour. Place the remaining flour in the work bowl of a stand mixer. Add the risen flour mixture, the remaining yeast, milk, egg yolks, 2/3 cup sugar, and butter. Work it together until it forms a sticky mass. (You can also do this by hand: Make a mound of flour with a well in the center. Add the other ingredients to the well and form the dough by working from the outside to the center.) Knead by hand or machine for about 15 minutes, adding more flour if necessary. You want a barely sticky, very elastic dough. Place the dough in a floured bowl and cover. Refrigerate for at least an hour and a half.
3. On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Allow to rest for 20 minutes. Place remaining sugar on a plate.
4. In a large wok or pot, heat 2 or 3 inches of oil to about 360 degrees. Using a glass or biscuit-cutter with a floured rim (about 3 1/2 inches in diameter), punch out about 8 rounds. The scraps can be kneaded and then re-rolled. Place the rounds, one or two at a time, in the oil and fry until brown -- about 60 to 90 seconds on each side.
5. Place the cooked doughnuts on paper towels to absorb the excess oil and then roll the still-warm doughnuts in the sugar.
6. Poke the handle of a wooden spoon in the doughnut to create an opening for the filling. Using a pastry bag -- in my kitchen, the pastry bag has a nickname: zip-top bag with a small slice scissored off in the corner (it doesn't roll off the tongue but it works) -- squeeze the peach filling into the hole.
You have peach doughnuts now.
They're great.
But maybe I should have just stopped at the filling.
Us Weekly seemed hardly able to contain its glee when it reported Tuesday that Jon & Kate Plus 8's ratings have dropped 61 percent after a month-long hiatus following the couple's on-air announcement that they were separating. The first line of the news item read:
"Jon and Kate Gosselin returned to TLC Monday night, but many of their fans didn't."
The piece went on to mention that the ratings for Monday night's back-to-back episodes "were also down significantly from the May 25 premiere, which brought in 9.8 million viewers," implying that viewers are less interested in Jon and Kate now that they're not one big happy family anymore.
But in reality, the exact opposite is true. The last episode before the show's month-long hiatus was the one in which viewers learned that Jon and Kate were separating after 10 years of marriage. There was significant media build-up prior to that episode that suggested the couple would be announcing their intention to divorce on-air. So, a record 10.6 million people tuned in.
The May 25 premiere, which set a show-ratings record at the time, also followed intense media speculation--weeks of it, in fact, by folks like Us Weekly--that one or the other of the pair was cheating and that their marriage was in trouble.
Compare these numbers to the ratings for last season's Jon & Kate finale: 4.6 million. That was back in March, when no one thought anything was wrong with Jon and Kate's marriage (except, maybe, that Kate was a nag), and, at the time, it was the highest-rated episode of the show EVER. The ratings for Monday night's episodes that Us claims lost so many fans, meanwhile, were in the same range: 3.9 million for the first half-hour, 4.1 million for the second.
The conclusion here? Viewers of Jon & Kate Plus 8 doubled when their marriage started to tank. Those new viewers weren't fans so much as schadenfreude-junkies. People's lives falling apart--isn't that the grist of reality TV? Once the Gosselins revealed that their marriage was, in fact, over, there wasn't enough of a carcass to pick over anymore. Moving on... If you look at the numbers closely, the show doesn't appear to have lost any of its loyal fan base (although god knows why, we've never been able to sit through an entire episode, too many children crying at once, thank you very much).
So why report it this way? Perhaps because Us Weekly has profited enormously from the Gosselins' marriage failing--producing six consecutive covers this summer featuring either Jon or Kate--and they're not quite done feasting off that carcass' bones?
WISE, Va. -- On a sunny Saturday at the county fairgrounds in this Appalachian community, the gaps in the American health care system were on vivid display.
Lured by the promise of a weekend of free checkups, surgeries and dental care, thousands of people turned up two weeks ago in the far southwest corner of Virginia, as shown in the video documentary that accompanies this article.
Many of those families would have much better access to medical help under the reform plans being debated in Congress. But a close look at the most recent data indicates even the most sweeping proposals are likely to leave some of them outside the safety net.
About 50 million people in the United States are now uninsured, according to new figures from the Congressional Budget Office. If an overhaul of the system is launched this year, as many as 17 million people would still be without health insurance by the end of the decade, according to preliminary analyses by the CBO.
Up to half of those falling through the cracks would be that portion of the working poor who make too much to qualify for free care or federal subsidies, but feel too cash-strapped to buy their own policies. Most of the rest would be undocumented immigrants.
The three-day free clinic that began July 24 at the Wise County Fairgrounds was run by a charity called the Remote Area Medical Corps, which gathers doctors and nurses who volunteer their services.
Whole families waited for hours in animal stalls set up as temporary offices for mammograms, diabetes tests and checks on various aches and pains.
Hundreds were shut out of eye and dental exams when doctors and medical staff were overwhelmed by the numbers. No one, among those interviewed, could afford to go elsewhere.
"The need has always been great. What we are seeing now, of course, are more people who have lost their jobs or lost their insurance," said Stan Brock, founder of Remote Area Medical Corps, which has been sponsoring clinics around the world and in the United States for two decades.
People at the Wise fairgrounds voiced conflicting thoughts about their status. Some openly feared a government takeover of health care. Others said they doubted that politicians could challenge the special interests that influence the cost and availability of treatments. All admitted they had no inkling if they would be better off after the historic overhaul.
All health care proposals now moving through the House and Senate are aimed at requiring people to carry insurance. People who fall below an expanded poverty line -- $14,403 for an individual or $29,326 for a family of four. Families and individuals who earn too much for Medicaid would qualify for direct government subsidies to buy health insurance, either privately or possibly through a government-run option -- up to an income cutoff level that is still being debated in Congress.
The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that subsidies could cost as much as $773 billion from 2013 to 2019.
But there are significant differences between the House and Senate over how much to spend on broadening the medical safety net.
The current House proposal would support subsidies for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level. That means a family of four earning up to $88,200 a year could qualify for some federal help to offset their premiums. An individual could earn up to $43,320 and qualify for some aid.
Talk in the powerful Senate Finance Committee has suggested a more restrained scale of help for those currently uninsured. People could qualify if they earn no more than 300 percent of the poverty level. That means $66,150 for a family of four and $32,490 a year for an individual.
People earning above those levels would begin to pay full premiums and deductibles - although under the current proposals they would be eligible for government aid if they had to pay more than 12 percent of their incomes toward health care.
Doctors familiar with the expectations and needs of the working poor said they are concerned about where the lines of assistance will be drawn. "There will probably still be some people who fall through the cracks," said Wende Kozlow, a staff physician at University of Virginia who has volunteered at the Wise clinic in previous years.
Those who just miss qualifying for the subsidy might figure it would be cheaper to go without insurance, pay the federal penalty - proposed to be up to 2.5 percent of their income - and hope they don't get sick.
"The House bill would help a lot...But the one emerging from the Senate Finance Committee troubles me," said Wendell Potter, a former health care executive who was motivated by Remote Area Medical's work to change his own career and advocate for reform.
Jennifer Tolbert, an analyst for the Kaiser Family Foundation who has monitored the shifting sands of the health care proposals, said the Obama administration has undertaken ambitious reforms. But, she said, universal coverage will be elusive no matter what legislation emerges in the coming weeks.
Some people will inevitably be left behind, Tolbert said, because "we're building on a flawed system."
MORE VIDEO: Al Jazeera's Fault Lines program visits a Remote Area Medical Corps clinic in Tennessee as part of a special report on health care reform.
Hillary Clinton vigorously defended her husband's trip to North Korea to help free two imprisoned journalists in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria -- laughing off criticism of the trip as some kind of capitulation.
"Should we even go on?" Zakaria joked. "No, you really shouldn't," she responded. But Clinton did address Bolton's critique.
"We've done this so many times before," she said. "We've had former presidents do it. We've had sitting members of Congress do it. It is something that, you know, it is absolutely not rewarding them. It is not in any way responding to specific demands. It is a recognition that certain countries that I think are kind of beyond the pale of the rule of law hold people and subject them to long prison terms that are absolutely unfair and unwarranted. And maybe it's, you know, the fact I have a daughter, but I believed that if we could bring these young women home, we should bring them home. It had nothing to do with our policy."
She concluded with her own joke: "You know, you mentioned somebody who heavens, if President Obama walked on water, he would say he couldn't swim. "
It's hard to get the best results from any kind of work without the right tools. So why are policymakers and administrators in a world of diminishing resources using antiquated tools to decide which programs will do the most to help children and families survive the poverty of these hard times?
"They do have the latest tools," people may say, knowing that their taxes have funded state and local IT budgets. And yes, in some pockets of government, public servants are using new technology to analyze program and performance data to make sensible cuts and overhaul programs to better educate, protect, treat, train, employ and counsel vulnerable children and families.
But as the old truism states, "what gets measured gets done," and more often than not the quality and quantity of data that drive these human decisions fall way short. We must empower decision-makers by counting what counts in the lives of children and families.
Last week, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the 2009 KIDS COUNT Data Book. The Data Book responds to the need for quality data by providing a consistent, reliable source of information about children's well-being. Data on 10 key measures are now available at the state, county and city level, providing policymakers with the most comprehensive source of information.
Improving the quality of data -- counting what counts -- will help make sure our programs are working and give us the ability to evaluate them, adjust them or eliminate them if they are not. Good data will make us more accountable to our commitment to meet the needs and boost outcomes for vulnerable children.
Today in Washington, officials are working their way through two critically important "data" decisions. The outcomes matter to children nationwide.
First, it's time to update the poverty measure. The current U.S. poverty measure is a 1960s creation - needless to say a lot has changed since then. The Casey Foundation recommends moving forward with a model developed by the National Academy of Sciences which would account for costs related to work, child care, taxes and out-of-pocket medical expenses, and adjust for regional differences in the cost of living. It also would adjust to reflect actual spending on food and housing. The new measure would recognize non-cash benefits, such as earned-income tax credits, food stamps and housing vouchers provided through federal and state anti-poverty programs - making it possible to gauge the impact of our major anti-poverty programs on reducing poverty.
Second, Congress should pass legislation creating a state-level child well-being survey. As the federal government has shifted greater responsibility to states for programs that benefit children and families over the past decade, the need for accurate and timely state-level data has become increasingly dire. Further, the data that is available is frequently so outdated and incomplete that it cannot effectively guide policymaking. For these reasons, the Annie E. Casey Foundation supports the State Child Well-Being Research Act of 2009, a bipartisan bill that would provide timely state-specific data on child well-being. The importance of this legislation to state policymakers is underscored by its recent unanimous endorsement from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
With quick action on the poverty measure and a state-level child well-being survey, our leaders in Washington will move us closer to counting what counts (PDF) in the lives of children and families.
A muddied up Heidi Montag graces the cover of the September issue of Playboy, which she unveiled with proud husband Spencer Pratt at a special screening of 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' Thursday night in LA.
Now, Ling-Ling was one of the two giant pandas (pictured with her mate Hsing-Hsing) given to the U.S. by China following President Nixon's historic visit there in 1972. You know, the same president that Liddy served under and served time for. It's only natural to assume, then, that Liddy is suffering from moderate dementia--symptoms of which include "forgetting names and faces" and "remembering events from the past as though they are the present"--and that's why he's confusing Laura Ling with Ling-Ling, a giant panda who died in 1992.
And we all know what a Wee-Wee is. (Lady Gaga even has one, evidently!) But why Liddy would conflate Euna Lee with a dick is beyond us. Perhaps he's been playing with his own wee-wee a bit too much lately?
Which would mean Liddy's brain is not only degenerating, it's moving rapidly from moderate to severe dementia, symptoms of which include..."uncontrollable movements."
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ian Millhiser and Nate Carlile
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Yesterday, the Obama administration embarked on a serious effort to fix one of President Bush's most catastrophic post-9/11 enterprises: the U.S. immigration detention system. In an effort to appear tough on immigration, Bush created a web of federal centers, state and county lockups, and for-profit prisons that came to constitute a multi-billion dollar "patchwork" of detention cells that continue to plague the already broken immigration system. Human rights violations soared, civil liberties were routinely ignored, and in 2008, the Washington Post reported that at least 83 immigrants had died in detention. Last week, immigration advocates and legal activists were deeply disappointed when the Obama administration rejected a petition last month to enact legally enforceable immigration detention rules, which would have guaranteed detainees' access to basic health care, telephones, and lawyers. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed that such "rule-making would be laborious, time-consuming and less flexible." But, yesterday's decision to reform the detention system by centralizing authority and expanding federal oversight is one step forward in addressing what has become a "human rights nightmare." JAILED WITHOUT JUSTICE: A study released last week based on inspection reports by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the American Bar Association, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees revealed that the U.S. detention system is "broken to its core" and concluded that the U.S. government has failed to comply with its own immigrant detention standards, which include visitation rights and basic telephone access. Earlier this year, Amnesty International released an alarming report, "Jailed Without Justice," documenting the massive civil rights violations endured by approximately 33,000 detainees -- including asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, longtime lawful permanent residents, and the parents of U.S. citizen children who are detained for breaking civil, not criminal, laws. Amnesty found that some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents were accidentally detained for months to years before they were able to prove that they were not "deportable." After suffering five years of torture and imprisonment in an Albanian concentration camp, one legal immigrant spent another four years locked up in a U.S. detention center fighting his deportation. Eighty-four percent of detainees are unable to obtain necessary legal assistance because individuals in U.S. deportation proceedings have only the "privilege" to secure counsel, which means those who cannot afford a lawyer will not be appointed one at the cost of the government. Amnesty International also indicated that detainees have a hard time accessing timely -- if any -- medical treatment, which has led to dozens of controversial detainee deaths. The Washington Post has reported a series of troubling abuses, including "health problems misdiagnosed or ignored, detainees injected with psychotropic drugs to make them easier to transport, [and] suicides that could have been prevented." Just last Friday, several detainees being held in a Louisiana center declared a hunger strike, following unanswered complaints about rats, mosquitoes, flies, and no access to soap or toothpaste for over a week.
BETTER BUT STILL BROKEN: In response to many of these criticisms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) head John Morton has announced that his agency will implement reforms that move away from the "decentralized, jail-oriented approach" of the Bush administration with the goal of bringing "improved medical care, custodial conditions, fiscal prudence, and ICE oversight" to the U.S. detention system. One of the more meaningful measures ICE has taken is the termination of family detention at the T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor, TX, which has been singled out for its "gross neglect and mistreatment" of child and infant detainees. Additionally, ICE will create an Office of Detention Policy and Planning (ODPP) which will be in charge of designing a "new detention system" and will work with the Office of Detention Oversight which is set to conduct more frequent inspections and review complaints and grievances. Morton is also assigning 23 detention managers to the largest detention centers in an effort to swiftly boost federal oversight. ICE plans on hiring an expert in health care administration and a detention management expert to staff the ODPP, along with a medical expert to independently review medical complaints. To help enforce current standards, ICE has proposed the formation of two advisory groups of local and national organizations that will provide feedback and input directly to Morton. "Pro-immigrant watchdogs" like Human Rights First, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center have applauded these efforts, but the organizations have been quick to point out that the administration "failed to address a number of critical holes in the current system," most notably the lack of enforceable standards for basic conditions and due process procedures. But none of these reforms will do much to address the approximately $1.7 billion taxpayers contribute each year to detain thousands of nonviolent immigrants.
SEARCH FOR A PERMANENT SOLUTION: Last week, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduced the "Protect Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act" and "Strong STANDARDS Act," which would require the DHS Secretary to issue minimum detention standards pertaining to medical care, access to telephones, the treatment of vulnerable populations, and the use of force. The Secretary would also have to issue rules regarding enforcement, report detainee deaths, and appoint a Detention Commission responsible for investigations and compliance reporting. The fate of these two bills is tenuous at best. However, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) believes that he will have a comprehensive immigration reform bill ready by Labor Day. Schumer has said his proposed reform will encourage legal immigration with the inclusion of a path to legalization for the undocumented and a more realistic visa system. Hopes are high that Schumer's bill will pass and establish a functioning immigration system that's supported by humane enforcement mechanisms that will eliminate the need to spend billions of dollars on the detention of thousands of harmless individuals interminably stuck in legal limbo.
John Hughes is gone and one more nail is in the '80s coffin. You can talk about Michael Jackson all you want but John Hughes was the soundtrack to my 1980s life. His movies introduced me to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Echo & the Bunnymen, Suzanne Vega, and Wang Chung. In retrospect, I could have done without the Wang Chung introduction.
Still, Hughes' taste in music was impeccable. He set the benchmark for a new era in film soundtracks where songs were as much the stars as the actors on the screen. He could hear a hit the same way a good A&R man smells the next big thing. Apparently, it runs in the family, Hughes' son, John III runs a Chicago indie electronica label called Hefty Records. Films like "(500) Days of Summer" and "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" with their song-driven plots would not exist without "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty in Pink."
John Hughes was the DJ of our youth. Here are some of his best mixes. Bring on the dancing horses and rest in peace.
"DON'T YOU (FORGET ABOUT ME)" "Hey, hey, hey, hey." The signature song from 1985's "The Breakfast Club" was written by an unlikely combo - disco producer Keith Forsey (the name behind "Flashdance... What a Feeling") and Steve Schiff, guitarist for German punk chanteuse Nina Hagen. Billy Idol and Bryan Ferry were both approached to sing it but they couldn't be bothered. Enter Simple Minds, who also refused initially. In the end, they recorded it in three hours and never really cared for it.
"WEIRD SCIENCE" The title song to Hughes' 1985 film (and subsequent TV series). It was supposedly Oingo Boingo's least favorite song and was rarely performed live. Maybe because it sounds a lot like Boingo's "Dead Man's Party."
"PRETTY IN PINK" The Psychedelic Furs released this song on the their 1981 sophomore album "Talk Talk Talk" which barely made a dent on the Billboard Top 100. Hughes dug the song so much, he wrote a script around it. The Furs re-recorded it for his 1986 film.
"IF YOU LEAVE" Another one from the "Pretty in Pink" soundtrack. The Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark song plays in the final scene as Andie (Molly Ringwald) and Blane (Andrew McCarthy) kiss outside the prom. The band recorded the song expressly for the film. Hughes gave them their biggest U.S. hit.
"OH YEAH" Swiss electronica band Yello released this song on their 1985 album "Stella" to little notice. Hughes brilliantly dropped in his '86 classic "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" to declare Ferris' (Matthew Broderick) obsession with Cameron's (Alan Ruck) dad's Ferrari. That scene gave the song a permanent place in pop culture. "Oh Yeah" is now shorthand for anything coveted, hot, or sexy. Sadly, no soundtrack was ever released for "Bueller" as Hughes felt the songs wouldn't work together as an audio-only experience.
"THIS WOMAN'S WORK" By the late '80s, Hughes' characters were growing up. Kate Bush wrote this song for the 1988 film "She's Having a Baby," Hughes' ode to newly-found adulthood and suburban adjustment. The next year Bush put the song on her own album, "The Sensual World."
A sixth victim was found murdered in what is believed to be a spate of attacks on members of Hungary's large Roma community, BBC reports.
The woman, Maria Balogh, was killed in her own home, and her 13-year-old daughter, Ketrin, was shot at multiple times. Ketrin is currently recovering in intensive care.
Police are treating the attack as the work of a group believed responsible for several murders in the past year. In April, a Roma man was shot dead in front of his home in north-eastern Hungary, two months after a Roma father and his five-year-old son were killed in front of their home south of Budapest, which was then set on fire. Those deaths followed the murder of a Roma couple in north-eastern Hungary last November.
Some youth wearing "White Hungary" t-shirts were reported to have beaten up a young Roma boy and a pregnant woman in the village.
Another 49 people have been injured in attacks since last July on the outskirts of small villages across the country.
Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai did not attend Balogh's funeral but issued a statement condemning the perpetrators' actions.
"To drive back extremism, to hold society together and to improve on the condition of Gypsies is not simply a government task," Bajnai said. "It is also a national responsibility."
The reward for any information leading to the murderers capture was increased to 100 million forints (530,000 dollars).
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald could take it when he was demonized as a heartless Southern prosecutor in the movie that fictionalizes his real-life jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
President Obama says the worst might be over, the market is rising and unemployment has stabilized. But for many, it will be a long-haul back to recovery.
I've had a roller coaster financial life: well-off (early) and scrappy and single (later) and everything in-between. It started in childhood, as my father was a professional gambler who rarely did well, but there were years when he must have hit the daily double big-time. As a kid I lived in a mansion with marble floors and a buzzer on the floor in the dining room to call the help - but barely any furniture. Consistency was not a word I understood.
I married my high-school sweetheart and we innocently spent his ample inheritance on travel and a grand house, and it was loads of fun. When I got divorced I got the house, and I made enough to get by as a freelance author, and corporate writing instructor. And sometimes I wound up in relationships with well-off men. (I always insisted that I was looking for brains.) So I've lived in penthouses featured in the front pages of papers, and tooled around in a series of foreign roadsters that turned heads and engendered thumbs up as I cruised past -- top down, hair blowing.
And then I'd be back on the bus. And was ok with it --grateful for the former good times, but living within whatever my means at the moment.
When I married for the second time it was for love, and we were doing alright. I felt I had achieved a comfortable balance. And then he died.
The headlines say the recession is just about over (except for those of us suffering); I just had to sell my New York condo at a loss, and have been on austerity for six months with my fixed income in the toilet. But I figure that no matter what happens to the market, by cutting back I've learned better habits. Here are fifteen of my easy cutbacks --add some more of your own and you'll be surprised how easy it is to save, no matter what your means, now or later --whether the recession ends or not:
-- manicures but no pedicures, or neither-- do it yourself;
-- cut and color your own hair (I'm getting compliments);
-- eat out rarely, eat at reasonable venues, and bring food home when you do;
-- clean house for exercise;
-- rent movies;
-- avoid packaged, precooked food, and focus on cooking fresh veggies, legumes, grains and fruits;
-- buy in bulk;
-- limit wine to one glass a night (and find good wine under $10 a bottle);
-- read the news online, and focus even more on blogs like Huffpost;
-- take a time-out on clothes shopping (jeans and a tee are fine as a cut-back uniform);
-- use public transportation whenever possible -- or bike or walk;
-- drink tap water versus bottled;
-- read library books rather than purchases;
-- avoid drycleaning;
-- drink coffee at home -bye bye Starbucks.
I have an overall plan to be sensible as needed, and to treat myself well each day with simple pleasures, such as picnicking with a view or listening to favorite music. I can make do with less. I'm especially aware that I have more things than most people on this earth, and I can certainly enjoy a good life with or without luxuries. (Yes, being comfortable is best, but hey, it's not always possible.)
In short, whether or not my fixed-income increases again or whether the recession hangs on, I'm damn lucky I'm plucky, and damn grateful it's been a long, interesting ride.
"[Our national parks system is] the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, [our national parks] reflect us at our best rather than our worst." Wallace Stegner, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.
The National Park System, an American first, began with the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, and continues today with the National Park Service overseeing close to 400 sites across the nation for the enjoyment of this and future generations.
In sharp contrast to the unprecedented preservation of this nation's most beautiful and rich natural resources is the lack of protection afforded the world's oceans.
World Oceans in Peril: Jellyfish Joyride
Grossly polluted, overfished to the point of near collapse of many fish stocks, and home to giant "dead zones" incapable of sustaining life, the oceans are in a state of dire threat.
The one species that is on the rise, jellyfish, have been dubbed "the cockroaches of the sea" in reference to their ability to survive even the most hostile conditions. According to marine biologists, the abundance of jellyfish is an ominous sign of deeper problems, such as: severe overfishing of natural predators, rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming, and pollution from fertilizers and sewage that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.
"Mounting evidence suggests that open-ocean ecosystems can flip from being dominated by fish, to being dominated by jellyfish. This would have lasting ecological, economic and social consequences," says Dr. Anthony Richardson of the University of Queensland, Australia.
"We need to start managing the marine environment in a holistic and precautionary way to prevent more examples of what could be termed a 'jellyfish joyride'."
Oceans Suffer Tragedy of the Commons
The oceans have suffered the "tragedy of the commons," the ethical and resource management conundrum described by Garrett Hardin in 1968 in the scholarly journal Science. Dr. Hardin described how, in the absence of regulation for the common good, limited resources that are shared in common can be exploited to the point of collapse by individuals seeking to maximize their individual take. Thus fisherman who sought to capture as much as possible have overfished certain species to the point of extinction or near extinction.
There is also an opposite corollary to Dr. Hardin's model: the oceans have been treated as giant waste dumps for industrial pollution, sewage and municipal trash, with nobody accepting the blame or the responsibility for prevention and clean-up.
Marine Protected Areas to the Rescue
But a new generation of Americans, from marine scientists, surfers, and divers to fisherman concerned about the future of their livelihood, are organizing to establish a vast system of underwater parks. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) would be regulated for the preservation of their resources just as our national park system has served so ably on land. MPAs are designed to protect some or all of an ocean area's wildlife and habitat. Unlike traditional fisheries management tools, which regulate one species at a time, and have failed to adequately protect marine biodiversity, MPAs focus on protecting entire ecosystems -- from predators to prey.
And, most importantly, we know that MPAs work. A 2000 National Research Council study on MPAs around the world found that marine reserves perform much like their terrestrial counterparts to preserve natural resources and biodiversity.
MPAs: Good for Seafood
One significant benefit of MPAs would be to curb overfishing, both for the benefit of the fish and those who want to eat them. A new analysis of the world's fisheries by Boris Worm and Ray Hilborn, reported in a recent issue of Science, holds that more protection of the fish populations is not only good for the ecosystem, it's good for economics. Fishing below, not at the ecosystem's "maximum sustainable yield" -- the amount of fish that can be caught per year without population decline of each species -- makes long-term economic sense for the fishing industry. Lesser protections permit destruction of the ecosystem's balance--overfishing of some stocks and underfishing of others-and result in Hardin's tragedy of the commons. "Where the rate of exploitation is too high, both fisherman and ecosystems suffer, "says Dr. Worm. "The short-term cost of rebuilding is lost catch and revenue, the long-term gain is a sustainable source of income, and the ability to plan ahead. With overfishing, it's the other way around: short-term gain is offset by long-term pain."
MPAs: Good for the Planet
MPAs may preserve more than food sources. We are just starting to discover the potential benefits to humanity that can be found in the sea. Nine years into the first comprehensive census of the ocean's inhabitants, the Census of Marine Life, a $650 million dollar project began in 2000, has documented more than 5,600 suspected new species. The census is a catalogue of the smallest to the greatest creatures of the seas. Even the smallest creatures, like the single-celled arachaea, are being studied for what may be their crucial role in the carbon and nitrogen cycles, fundamental to the cycle of life.
But although the splendor and diversity of the ocean's inhabitants is thrilling, this data is not all about abundance. Forensic historians working on the project are able to compare today's marine populations with historic records of seafood consumed throughout history, and around the world. "What we are seeing is the loss of productivity is almost everywhere, not just in a few places," observes Dr. Andrew Rosenberg.
California Coast gets MPAs
Marine scientist-turned-filmmaker, Dr. Randy Olson, says the California coast is a prime example of "shifting baselines syndrome" where today's generation has lost track -- shifted the baseline -- of how rich and full of ocean life the coast used to be: "Divers today see a couple dozen large fish and feel like things are normal, but the older veterans can tell you about having seen ten times more fish."
California has been working to institute MPAs along its coast since that state's legislature passed the Marine Life Protection Act in 1999. This law requires the establishment of a statewide network of MPAs to protect habitats and marine life populations. The law is being implemented regionally, with Southern California's implementation process currently underway.
There is great hope for recovery. "Around the world -- from Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and throughout the Pacific -- the pattern is clear that MPAs do work -- they are effective tools in helping the ocean regenerate its marine life resources. This needs to be communicated to people so they can understand and support the MPAs." Dr. Olson has joined with grassroots organizations Heal the Bay and Surfrider to convey the simple message that "MPAs Work."
The time is now, to come together as we did for our national parks, for the benefit of our marine resources and our right to enjoy them, now and in the future. MPAs could be the second best idea we finally had.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Some saffron finches seized last month in an alleged Connecticut bird-fighting ring had sharpened beaks, and at least one had a sharp metal object attached to its beak, police said Friday.
Investigators said in an arrest affidavit unsealed Thursday that their search of a house in Shelton, west of New Haven, turned up superglue, antibiotics, skin and blood supplements, a mini digital scale and unknown powders that are being tested.
"We feel it was things to treat the injured birds or to increase their stamina or their ability to fight," said Shelton Police Detective Benjamin Trabka.
About 15 birds had serious head, neck and chest injuries, Trabka said. One had a sharp piece of metal attached to its beak and investigators were told spurs were attached to the birds' beaks, the detective said.
Trabka said the use of the sharp attachments appeared isolated, speculating that may have been a version of extreme fighting.
"It appeared beaks on some of the birds were ground to a point," Trabka said.
Police arrested 19 people from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey and seized 150 birds in the house raid. Most of the birds were saffron finches, which are small birds native to South America, and a few were canaries, officials said.
Female canaries perched in a separate cage above the fighting cage may have been used to entice the male finches to fight, Trabka said.
Police said they made the arrests July 26 just as spectators had placed bets and were getting ready to watch the birds fight at the home. Authorities say they seized $8,000 in alleged betting money.
Authorities often deal with cockfighting, but police and animal experts said they had not heard of fighting involving finches and canaries before.
The 19 people, all originally from Brazil, were charged with cruelty to animals and gambling. Police also charged the homeowner, 42-year-old Jurames Goulart, with interfering with officers.
Goulart, a landscaper, denied the charges, saying he had the birds for singing. A telephone message was left for him Friday.
"I take care of the birds," he told The Associated Press last month. "They're like my son."
But his wife, Maria, told the AP her husband and others trained the birds to fight and gave them some type of food, either protein or sugar, that made them more hyper.
The birds would fight for some 15 minutes, pecking each other in the legs, head and eyes, according to Maria Goulart. She said the fights have been going on for years around the region.
Experts say finches and canaries can be territorial and aggressive if placed in overcrowded conditions.
Recent changes to Dutch abortion law have caused international abortion provider Rebecca Gomperts to cancel upcoming campaigns for her renowned organization Women on Waves. For a decade, the Dutch organization has offered medical abortions in international waters to women from countries where abortion is illegal. Using ships registered in the Netherlands, they transport women offshore, where the laws of the country of registration apply onboard, and distribute the abortion pill at sea.
Until now, Dutch law did not interfere with a pregnancy under 6 weeks. The recent update of the Pregnancy Termination Act places the regulation of terminating an early pregnancy under the criminal code and states the abortion pill can only be administered in specialized clinics licensed for the procedure.
According to Labor Party MP Chantal Gill'ard, who supported the change to the law, the implications for Dutch women are minor because early abortion procedures are still legal and available. She described the new regulation as "a formalization of the current practice," posing "no change in the practical situation for women."
However, the updated law has dire implications for the activity of Women on Waves. Because the law requires that only licensed clinics can prescribe the abortion pill for early pregnancies, Women on Waves is no longer legally able to offer abortion medication on their campaigns.
Between 2001 and 2004, Women on Waves sailed a portable medical clinic built in a shipping container which wasequipped and licensed to provide surgical abortions. No surgeries were conducted in the clinic, largely due to Gomperts' shift in focus from surgical abortion to the provision and promotion of medical abortion.
Eliminating the need for surgery and the cumbersome portable clinic meant that Women on Waves' doctors could work with only the abortion pill, and on any registered Dutch vessel. In campaigns after 2004, they have conducted campaigns without the clinic. This has enabled them travel further distances, and travel plans were in the works for a campaign to several countries in South America.
"The medication is revolutionary," Gomperts says. "It is affordable, accessible, and women can administer it themselves."
Under the new law, Gomperts can no longer legally administer the pills without the onboard clinic. Sailing with the clinic to far destinations is financially and logistically unfeasible, and Gomperts has cancelled all upcoming ship campaigns.
She has also announced that she will rally other physicians, general practitioners, and lawyers to stage a procedure against the Dutch government. She claims that the process through which the law was changed is "undemocratic and unlawful," as it has not gone through Parliament as the Dutch legal system requires.
Gomperts' announcements have ruffled feathers of the Dutch Secretary of Health Mariëtte Bussemaker and other supporters of the law. Bussemaker told Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, "A boat does not meet the requirements. We also do not allow abortions in dingy basements in people's homes or in the bedroom."
Gomperts said that it was "quite painful" to hear her work compared to the practice of unsafe abortions, given her decade of service promoting safe abortion for women in need.
Over the past decade of its existence, Women on Waves has stirred diplomatic tensions for the Dutch government, and as the conservative right gains ground in the Netherlands, Gomperts' opponents are growing in strength. According to Gomperts, the Socialist party conceded to fundamentalist-influenced conservative factions to allow this law to pass. "Abortion is negotiated," she said, "Women's lives are always negotiated."
More importantly to Gomperts than the threat to her organization is the general restriction of medical abortion. The new law sets a precedent for limitation of the pill's use far beyond the reach of the Women on Waves' ships. According to Gomperts, medical abortion is crucial to the future of global women's health, and understanding its potential is critical to this debate.
In the United States, the medical community is uneasy about supporting the autonomous use of the abortion pill by women. They prefer that medical abortions are monitored by a doctor, although there are considerable efforts by the nursing community to increase access by licensing nurse practitioners to distribute the pill. Gomperts' work, however, is well past the comfort of a clinic; she works, quite literally, beyond no man's land.
The restrictions Gomperts faces today are comparable to logistical barriers she faced ten years ago, when her clinic was first navigating the necessary licensing to provide abortions off the coast of Ireland.
But this is not a woman, nor a movement, that concedes to setbacks. When faced with warships blocking her ship's entry into the Portuguese harbor in 2004, Gomperts appeared on live television to detail how a woman could find and take the abortion pill herself, without the need for a ship, a doctor, or permission.
This moment was a direct precursor to the establishment of Women on Web, an online distributor of the abortion pill, and to hotlines that publicize information about medical abortion. Hotlines currently exist in Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile, with more planned for the coming year.
As Gomperts plans to stage a legal procedure against what she deems an "outrageous" new law, it will be interesting to see what channels the Dutch government has inadvertently opened by attempting to ground her ship.
On the heels of Immigration and Custom Enforcement's announcement that it will stop holding children in Corrections Corporation of America's T. Don Hutto detention center, the nation's largest private prison provider assured investors that they still expect plenty of business from the federal government.
"In some respects there may not have been much of a change," said Damon Hininger, CCA's President and Chief Operating Officer during a conference call on Thursday with investors.
Hininger said CCA had "just learned yesterday that ICE wants us to renegotiate" the Hutto contract and that a timetable for the negotiations had not been set for transitioning Hutto to hold female immigrants. But he pointed to the Obama administration's expansion of the Bush administration's Secure Communities program as proof that demand for immigrant detention beds would continue.
Other highlights from CCA's 2nd quarterly earnings report:
* Revenues increased 5.7%, and average per diem rates are up 2.3% * Inmate populations were larger than expected at U.S. Marshall's facilities - likely from the ongoing Operation Streamline along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and Texas * During the next quarter CCA expects the commencement of a new 20-year contract with ICE to detain immigrants in a 502-bed former county jail that it just finished renovating in Hall County, Georgia
Seventy-year-old Barbara Harris can’t help crying when she walks around her neighborhood. She says she hates seeing possessions piled up on front lawns — the remnants of foreclosure. Three times, the Harrises received foreclosure notices and thought they’d be next.
For two years, the Harrises have been trying to get Wells Fargo to modify their mortgage to something they can afford. But they face one big catch: Though Wells Fargo services their mortgage and is participating in the federal modification program, it doesn’t actually own their loan. And the investors that do own the loan, Wells Fargo told the Harrises, won’t allow the modification.
Like one in eight homeowners, the Harrises’ loan is part of a mortgage-backed security, a bundle of loans packaged together and sold off to investors. Ambiguous rules and the dispersed web of interests involved in securitized mortgages have created little accountability, leaving homeowners trapped. For homeowners with securitized mortgages, once they’re told an investor says no, there is little recourse.
A Problem for the Federal Program
Homeowners with securitized mortgages could be disproportionately denied modifications under the federal Making Home Affordable program. Under the program, participating mortgage companies must modify loans (PDF) for allqualified borrowers; the only exception is when a contract with investors prohibits the modification.
As ProPublica and other news outlets have reported, the program is off to a slow start. Even Treasury Department officials say the servicers are lagging. In written testimony to Congress on June 3, James Lockhart, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, singled out securitized mortgages as "especially challenging" hurdles for the program.
Homeowners, housing counselors and legal aid attorneys say that servicers have pointed to agreements with investors as preventing loan modifications. Because the Treasury Department has not released information about the reasons why modifications are being denied, it is impossible to know the full extent of the problem.
The Harrises provide a good example of how a loan is packaged and resold to investors, and how that makes it difficult to modify their mortgage.
A Bad Loan from the Beginning
After carpenter bees damaged the Harrises’ siding and roof in 2004, they decided to refinance their mortgage so they could cash in on some of their home’s equity to cover the repairs. Barbara Harris saw an ad for a mortgage broker in the Georgia Bulletin, the weekly paper of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta. "I specialize in helping people. Good, bad, no credit … FHA, VA, St. Benedict’s Parishioner … Si Habla Espanol," the ad read.
Harris called the broker, Shawna Sullivan of White Star Mortgage. "She sounded very nice," Harris says. "We even discussed what parish she was in. And she said she could get a loan for us."
Harris was no longer working, and her husband was about to retire after a career of civil and military service. The Harrises say Sullivan told them not to mention that they would soon be relying solely on fixed income. She steered them away from a Veterans Affairs loan and eventually returned with an offer from Wells Fargo for a $234,600 loan with a 7.625 percent interest rate. That would give them $21,000 in cash.
Sullivan never told the Harrises that they had an adjustable-rate mortgage and their interest rate could rise to 13.625 percent, they say.
"Why would we agree to that?" Harris says. She admits that they didn’t read the fine print on the mortgage papers. "We really trusted her," she says.
Sullivan did not return our calls. Mark Collins, the CEO of America’s Mortgage Broker LLC, which owns White Star Mortgage, confirmed that the Harrises would have qualified for a VA loan. Collins said he could only speculate as to why Sullivan, who no longer works at the firm, steered the Harrises to a subprime loan.
Collins says it was reasonable for the Harrises to assume that their rate of 7.625 percent could be fixed, and that homeowners do not always understand that their loans will adjust. "You get so bombarded with so many papers and numbers, it’s really a shame," he says.
Stephen Krumm, the Harrises pro bono attorney from Atlanta Legal Aid, says, "An adjustable-rate loan is never appropriate for anybody who has a fixed income."
The Harrises’ monthly payment eventually jumped from $1,600 to $2,500.
From a Suburban Home to GSAMP Trust 2004-WF
The Harrises also didn’t know that in the months after they refinanced, Wells Fargo sold their mortgage to Goldman Sachs, which in turn bundled the loan and 2,827 others into a $435 million mortgage-backed security called "GSAMP Trust 2004-WF."
Goldman Sachs sold pieces of that security to outside investors. Now, Deutsche Bank is the trustee responsible for administering the security on behalf of investors, and Wells Fargo is the servicer on the loans, which means it collects the monthly payments and decides when to foreclose.
The names of investors who actually buy mortgage-backed securities aren’t publicly available, but typically they can be foreign governments, 401(k)s, college endowments and pension funds. In any given security, "there could be literally anywhere from one to commonly several dozen institutional investors, and those institutional investors will be representing literally thousands of pensioners and individual investors," says Bill Frey, head of Greenwich Financial Services.
‘The investors need their money’
Harris says she always heard a similar refrain when she called Wells Fargo: "They said the investors need their money, and how do we expect them to get their money if we don’t pay."
Spokesman Kevin Waetke says Wells Fargo is working with "the investor" to come up with a solution for the Harrises, but both Goldman Sachs (the issuer) and Deutsche Bank (the trustee) told ProPublica that they were not involved. Deutsche Bank spokesman John Gallagher said servicers are "solely responsible" for deciding all modifications.
Wells Fargo refused to provide additional information about the investor or how it works with investors. Experts say investors rarely are involved in an individual loan modification decision. "The investors are a convenient scapegoat," says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. "There's no way for investors to veto a loan mod."
Wells Fargo says "the investor" won’t waive past-due debt, which in the Harrises' case, adds up to over $80,000 in accrued interest, overdue debt and various fees. Krumm, the Harrises’ attorney, said Wells Fargo has proposed adding all this to the loan; the modified principal balance would be $314,000. Comparable homes in the Harrises’ subdivision have sold for between $86,000 and $140,000 this year, according to the real estate Web site Zillow.com.
Wells Fargo’s proposal offers monthly payments of $2,041 — $300 more than the Harrises would pay under a Making Home Affordable modification.
Latitude to Negotiate
Servicers like Wells Fargo rely on agreements with investors for guidance on when modifications are allowed. These pooling and servicing agreements (PSAs) are regularly cited as the reason a servicer can’t change a loan.
In reality, however, the contracts themselves generally don’t limit modifications. In a study due out this month, researchers at UC Berkeley’s law school looked at the contracts covering three-quarters of the subprime loans that were securitized in 2006. The researchers found that only 8 percent prohibited modifications outright. About a third of the loans were in contracts that said nothing about modification, and the rest set some limits but generally gave the servicers a lot to leeway to modify, particularly for homeowners that had defaulted or would likely default soon.
That’s the case in the contract (section 4.01) that covers the Harrises’ loan. Under the agreement, Wells Fargo has the authority to "waive, modify or vary any term" of a loan if the servicer makes a "reasonable and prudent determination" that the modification is in the investor’s best interest. It states that Wells Fargo must ask permission to modify only if the mortgage is not currently in default or in imminent danger of it.
"There typically is a fair amount of latitude to work with borrowers, which raises the question: Are servicers exercising their latitude?" says Pat McCoy, a law professor at the University of Connecticut.
The Threat of Lawsuits
Even though the PSAs generally are not very limiting, servicers still fear getting sued by investors. It has been one of the biggest obstacles to getting modifications, says a Treasury Department spokesperson.
"Servicers have indicated that they … are very concerned that if they do overmodifications of mortgage loans, that they would be subject to lawsuits," Tom Deutsch, the deputy executive director of the American Securitization Forum, said in a congressional hearing in November.
The contracts can be vague, and different investors often have different interests in the securities. "It causes the servicer to want to watch their back more," says Kurt Eggert, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. Doing little or nothing can be safest.
"It is not the job of the person running the investment to worry about whether the homeowners or the bank that created the loan is happy with the transaction," says Greenwich Financial’s Frey, who sued Countrywide in the only major lawsuit over modification. Frey says investment managers have a legal, fiduciary obligation to do what will make investors the most money.
He knows it sounds harsh, but he points out that the ultimate investors are generally ordinary people, through retirement plans and pension funds.
Questionable ‘Safe Harbor’
The government has attempted to address some of the legal barriers to modifications, but challenges in modifying securitized loans persist.
In late May, President Barack Obama signed a bill that included a "safe harbor" provision designed to protect servicers from being sued by investors. The original draft of the legislation included a clause that provided protection "notwithstanding any investment contract between a servicer and a securitization vehicle or investor," but after lobbying efforts by Frey and other investors, Congress removed that clause from the final version of the law.
"It may not be as safe a harbor as they think," Frey says. "If they were to modify these loans en masse, and the safe harbor was not sufficient to protect them, the financial solvency of the firms would be called into question."
A Treasury Department spokeswoman said the administration believes it can reduce the fear of litigation by standardizing the requirements for modification and including a calculation to determine if investors make more money by modifying through the federal program than by foreclosing.
But now, five months into the program and two months after the new laws, homeowners still say servicers point to investors when denying Making Home Affordable modifications.
Holding Out Hope
"I do believe that the president has made it possible that someone in the situation like my husband and I to be reprieved and helped," Harris says. But with so many players, when people like the Harrises are told the investor won’t allow a modification, there’s little recourse.
ProPublica will continue our reporting on the Making Home Affordable program. If you plan to apply for a modification, or already have, please tell us your story.
ProPublica is America's largest investigative newsroom.
A member of Mayor Richard Daley's team working to bring the Olympics to Chicago has quietly arranged to develop city-owned land near a park that would be transformed for the 2016 Summer Games, potentially positioning himself to cash in if the Games come here, a Tribune investigation has found.
Media people are deeply nostalgic for the media--for when it paid big money and was an exclusive sort of place. This nostalgia is behind Rupert Murdoch's new pay-for-content scheme--and his belief that he has a monopoly on what people want to read--which he will apparently debut in November at the Sunday Times in London.
But I have found an even better example of gross wistfulness. I missed it on Monday, when I was in deepest north England playing with sheep: A tearful lament by New York Times media reporter David Carr about Tina Brown's long-dead magazine, Talk, and the party she threw to launch it 10 years ago.
Truly, it's astounding that anyone would even bring it up. Brown's magazine was a clunker from the start, and her party an odd, ungainly, and soulless event that everybody snickered about at the time.
Do fat people tend toward being foolishly sentimental and soft? Does the word "namby-pamby" fit you? Fat, thin or regular sized, be brave and take this true/false quiz!
True or False? How many of these statements do you identify with?
1. You do things for other people that you really don't want to do that are clearly beyond the call of duty.
Example: Your neighbor pops in and asks if you can watch her kids for the afternoon. She says that she hasn't had a break for at least a week, and she wants to take herself to the movies. You say okay, even though you haven't had a break in ... geeze Louise, it's been so long you can't remember ... and you don't even like her kids!
True or False?
2. You lie because you want to accommodate someone else.
Example: Your daughter-in-law asks if you are busy on Friday because that's the day she that works best for her to get together, and even though you have a fully loaded day and will have to go to great inconvenience to reschedule all, you say, "Oh that's perfect, my calendar is free. Works for me!"
True or False?
3. When asked what your preference is, you defer to others, even though you strongly do have a preference.
Example: When asked what type of restaurant you prefer to dine in, you say, "Whatever you like." And then ... you end up going to a greasy spoon comfort food place that has absolutely nothing on the menu that you want to or should eat, and -- by the way -- you are miserable!
True or False?
4. You make vague comments about things and expect people to read your mind and then you play the martyr.
Example: You tell a friend, "Oh my back has been acting up a bit lately. Sometimes when I stand for long period of times or walk too slowly, it goes into a spasm." One week later, they call and say let's go to a museum, and you are really put upon and peeved that they don't get that a museum might activate your spasm.
True or False?
5. You stuff down your feelings with food.
Example: Instead of telling your son, daughter or friend that you are feeling neglected and yes, angry, that they forgot your birthday, you bake yourself a cake and stuff those feelings down with extra icing.
True or False?
6. You are so wanting every one in the world to like you that you start to unravel and shift rather quickly into a 'downward' spiral at the thought of anyone not liking you.
Example: Your new friend hasn't called you in a week and you begin to think, without even considering whether they are busy or not, that they just don't like you. Feelings of sadness rise to the surface, anxiety sets in and the unraveling begins!
True or False?
7. You think you are 'oh so good' for overriding your feelings, putting others before yourself and being the doormat that you are!
Example: You look at the above list and identify with each and every statement and think that you are a good person for being uber-available to all, and that those who don't drop their lives for others are selfish.
True or False?
6-7 Trues? You are the ... Biggest Namby-Pamby Ever. 3-5 Trues? You are ... somewhat stable. 1-2 Trues? You are ... strong enough! 0 Trues? You are ... super-empowered and perhaps, maybe even a little too inflexible?
What to do? How to change it around? How to move from Doormat to Empowered Woman?
Learn to say "No" in multiple languages.
Answer any and all requests with: "I'll get back to you on that later." Thus, creating thinking time so that you can think it through and possibly find the courage to say "no!"
Schedule 'non-negotiable' time for yourself.
Or you could lighten up, for goodness sake, and laugh at yourself. Buy one of these great doormats from amazon.com
Warrior, femme fatale, however, you slice it, some ladies got more game than others. Whether they fight in stilettos or tennis shoes, these chicks can tweet circles around most people. Remember the Sirens of Ancient Greece? What would Odysseus have done if they could not only sing but tweet? These are ten of Twitter's prettiest and fiercest females whose tweets can either freeze or melt hearts.
1. Serena Williams Serena conquers on and off the court whether she's after a Grand Slam or helping educate kids. She and Venus prove women can fiercely compete without losing their sisterhood. @SerenaJWilliams tweets about tennis, men and her baby. . . a Jack Russell terrier named Jackie. Her tweet groupies number almost 800,000!
2. Marissa Mayer Marissa combines beauty and brains to both conquer and heat up the geeks at Google. Hired as Google's first female programmer, Marissa quickly rose through the ranks. At 34 is a Vice President of Google overseeing everything from Google Maps to Google Earth. Don't let her good looks deceive you - when everyone urged her to change the design of Google, she went toe to toe with the boys, and she and Google came out on top. @MarissaMayer has discovered how to amplify her tweets to amass a following. With only 7 tweets, Marissa has 4,795 followers. 685 followers per tweet is pretty powerful. Maybe Marissa should govern California. Who knew a search engine could be so well packaged? 3. Queen Rania Al Abdullah
The Queen of Jordan, describes herself as "A mum and a wife with a really cool day job." Almost 570,000 people follow @QueenRania and her tweets range from the fun (loving U2) to the profound: "@Marie_2902 1st, learn more: http://bit.ly/12twMY. 2nd, tell your friends. 3rd, let your government know it's an important issue to you."
4. Natalie Aldern
Natalie aka "gotgame" lives to compete. As the community manager for www.ibeatyou.com , Natalie takes on hundreds of challenges daily on the site and still kicks butt. Whether it's a cutest dog, best eye or best looking armpit contest @ibeatyou tweets to compete. If Natalie aims to beat your pants off, hang onto your trousers, they don't call her "gotgame" for nuthin!
5. Maureen Shea
Maureen sparred with Hilary Swank for the movie "Million Dollar Baby." Proving a woman boxer can still be a lady, @MaureenShea tweets about her prefight manicure and pedicure.
6. Oprah Winfrey This beautiful superstar is a self-made millionaire who empowers people through positive action. @Oprah has almost 2,000,000 followers with only 56 tweets. With that much tweet power, Oprah is a warrior to be reckoned with!
7. Diana Scimone
Diana is both a journalist in Tehran and the driving force behind the Born 2 Fly Project to stop global child trafficking. @DianaScimone emits purposeful tweets. Her current goal is for 9,000 people to give $9 each on 9/9/09 to fight child trafficking.
8. Gina Carano
Gina may look like a girly girl when she wears a dress, but she literally kicks butt as a mixed martial arts fighter. Beyond butts, she can land a head kick that drops an opponent - just ask Kelly Kobold. @Ginacarano may be new to Twitter, but over 4,000 are already following her to catch the moment that she really tweets butt!
9. Pink
Pink is a fighting rock star unafraid of getting in anyone's face. Her lyrics proclaim her feistiness. In "Trouble," Pink proclaims: "I'm trouble/If you see me coming down the street/ You know it's time to go." @pink tweets about everything from blown lyrics to eating too much cheesecake. Over 300,000 followers say "So What - you're Pink have as much cake as you'd like.
10. Arianna Huffington
You can count on @ariannahuff to hold people accountable. When legislators filibuster rather than legislate, she's a tweet force to be reckoned with. 140 characters from Arianna can make a lazy politician tweet a different tune.
"WEIRD SCIENCE"
Serena conquers on and off the court whether she's after a Grand Slam or helping educate kids. She and Venus prove women can fiercely compete without losing their sisterhood. @SerenaJWilliams tweets about tennis, men and her baby. . . a Jack Russell terrier named Jackie. Her tweet groupies number almost 800,000!
Marissa combines beauty and brains to both conquer and heat up the geeks at Google. Hired as Google's first female programmer, Marissa quickly rose through the ranks. At 34 is a Vice President of Google overseeing everything from Google Maps to Google Earth. Don't let her good looks deceive you - when everyone urged her to change the design of Google, she went toe to toe with the boys, and she and Google came out on top. @MarissaMayer has discovered how to amplify her tweets to amass a following. With only 7 tweets, Marissa has 4,795 followers. 685 followers per tweet is pretty powerful. Maybe Marissa should govern California. Who knew a search engine could be so well packaged?
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