Mayors back parents seizing control of schools
By Stephanie Simon
Hundreds of mayors from across the United States called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to
private management.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/18/us-usa-education-trigger-idUSBRE85H0J620120618
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Amen: David Cay Johnston
Johnston deserves a Pulitzer or two. Sadly, none of what he writes about will change until we stop corporations from writing the rules
The numbers since the turn of the millennium point to even worse times ahead if we stay the course. Let's look at the official numbers in today's dollars and then what can be done to change course.
Internal Revenue Service data show that average adjusted gross income fell $2,699 through 2010 or 9 percent, compared to 2000. That's the equivalent of making it through Thanksgiving weekend and then having no income for the rest of the year.
Had average incomes just stayed at the level in 2000, Americans through 2009 would have earned $3.5 trillion more income, the equivalent of $26,000 per taxpayer over a decade. Preliminary 2010 data show a partial rebound, reducing the shortfall by a fifth to $2.8 trillion or $21,000 per taxpayer.
Wages per capita in 2010 were 4.3 percent less than in 2000, effectively reducing to 50 weeks the pay for 52 weeks of work. The median wage in 2010 fell back to the level of 1999, with half of workers grossing less than $507 a week, half more, Social Security tax data show. The bottom third, 50 million workers, averaged just $116 a week in 2010.
Social Security and Census data show that the number of people with any work increased just 1.5 percent from 2000 to 2010 while population grew 6.4 times faster. That's why millions of people cannot find work no matter how hard they try.
In May, nearly 23 million workers, 14.8 percent, were jobless or underemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. At shadowstats.com, a website dedicated to exposing and analyzing flaws in government economic data, economist John Williams also counts people who have given up hope of finding work. His figure for May brings the total to almost 30 million people, one in five.
PRESSURE ON WAGES
An economy with many millions more workers than jobs puts downward pressure on wages, especially for those without highly developed skills.
Now let's look at debt per American since 2000 using Federal Reserve data:
Mortgage debt grew 51 percent through 2010, even though incomes and wages fell, which should result in steady or lower housing prices, not higher prices.
(In 2011, as banks foreclosed on more homes, mortgage debt per capita declined, but was still 42 percent greater than in 2000.)
Consumer debt was virtually unchanged, at nearly $8,300 in 2010, helping explain weak sales of automobiles, furniture and appliances.
Now how about trade? Exporting more than we import creates jobs and riches.
From 2000, the year before China joined the World Trade Organization, to 2011 imports from China grew 62 percent faster than exports to China, Census data show. The annual trade deficit soared to $302 billion from $112 billion.
U.S. exports to China in 2011 ($106 billion) were smaller than US imports from China back in 2000 ($133 billion), showing the lopsided nature of trade with China, where workers lack rights, safety rules are minimal and pollution rampant.
Some 56,000 American factories have closed since 2000, as jobs and the knowledge that goes with those jobs moved to China.
Trade with China has destroyed every 55th job in America, nearly 2.8 million positions, analysis of government data by Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute shows. That equals wiping out every job in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area. Nearly two million of those jobs were in manufacturing, Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. International Trade Commission data show.
SHRINKING TAX REVENUE
And what of taxes? The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were promoted as keys to prosperity. Now Mitt Romney, virtually all Republicans and a fair number of Democrats say more tax cuts will make us prosper. President Barack Obama wants to cut corporate tax rates by a third.
Again, measured per capita, the IRS data show a pattern of shrinking numbers, with modest upticks in 2010.
Individual income taxes in 2010 averaged $2,995, down $1,654 or almost 36 percent from 2000. Use 2001 as the base year — because it was both a recession year and the first year of the temporary George W. Bush tax cuts — and in 2010 per capita income tax revenues were down one third.
In 2011, as the economy improved slightly, income tax revenues rose, but were still 26 percent smaller than in 2000.
The bottom line: less income, hardly any more jobs, sharply increased mortgage debt and Washington ledgers awash in red ink as voters are asked to endorse even more tax cuts.
How many years of evidence does it take to establish that a policy worked or failed?
Will continuing our current tax, credit and trade policies produce favorable results in the future? Will they produce higher incomes?
My reading of this and tons more data is that the Bush tax cuts utterly failed, the Fed's artificially low-interest rate policies under presidents Bush and Obama do far more damage than good (especially to savers), and that the United States is harmed both by the imbalance in the trade relationship with China and scores of trade agreements with South Korea and other low-wage countries that are deeply flawed at best.
We need to recognize that the tax cutters were snake oil salesmen, the Federal Reserve an enabler of damaging debts and that bilateral trade deals are written of, by and for global financiers, not workers.
To paraphrase the Huey Lewis song, we need a new policy.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Fwd: OADP Annual Meeting June 27
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/06/no_solution_for_fixing_the_dea.html
Annual Meeting
June 27, 2012
The Annual Meeting of Members of OADP will be held June 27, 2012, at 6:15 p.m. It will be held in:Moriarty Auditorium
Portland Community College, Cascade Campus
705 N. Killingsworth St.
Portland, OR 97217A campus map is available at this link. Moriarty Auditorium is located the building marked "MAHB."
Members will hear a report of the activities and financial condition of OADP and elect directors and officers for the coming year.
Following the Annual Meeting, at 7:00 p.m., OADP Board member and nationally known capital defense attorney Jeffrey Ellis will speak on the topic:40 Years Since Furman: How We Can Abolish the Death Penalty, Again
June 29th marks the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v Georgia, which ruled all state death penalty statutes unconstitutional. In the wake of four states replacing their death penalty in the past four years, the historic perspective on Furman and subsequent decisions sets the context for our current efforts in Oregon and nationally.
Jeff Ellis currently serves as Capital Resource Counsel for Oregon, providing assistance to Oregon attorneys representing individuals facing or under a death sentence. Mr. Ellis is also an adjunct professor teaching capital punishment law at Lewis and Clark Law School. He previously taught at the University of Texas and Seattle University law schools.
Please invite friends, family, neighbors and anyone who cares about justice in Oregon to this talk.
According to OADP's by-laws and Board resolutions, members eligible to vote at Annual Meeting are those who have made a financial contribution to the organization of $10 or more during the twelve months preceding the meeting. All supporters are welcome to attend, but only members meeting this test may vote. If you haven't made a financial contribution in the past year and would like to vote, please mail your check so it is received by June 25th, or make a contribution online at our website, www.oadp.org.
At the meeting, the current Board will propose slates of directors and officers to serve for the following year. If you would like to serve on the Board or as an officer, or wish to nominate someone to serve, please e-mail your nomination to info@oadp.org so that it is received by June 20th, or call 503-990-7060 by that date.
Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
P.O. Box 361
Portland, Oregon 97207-0361
US
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Just before Summer Solstice -- and despite all our Oregon "sunshine"
18 months after system first operational: 6 MW of solar power generated to power LOVESalem HQ.
GRIM but important - ClubOrlov: Fragility and Collapse: Slowly at first, then all at once
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2012/06/fragility-and-collapse-slowly-at-first.html
I wish I could find obvious holes in this. Meanwhile, Salem is blowing millions planning for an absurd multi-hundred million dollar highway bridge to handle the traffic demand of the hypothetical future that exists only in dreams of business as usual with cheap gas and more suburban sprawl.
I wish I could find obvious holes in this. Meanwhile, Salem is blowing millions planning for an absurd multi-hundred million dollar highway bridge to handle the traffic demand of the hypothetical future that exists only in dreams of business as usual with cheap gas and more suburban sprawl.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
The Handmaids tale arrives in FL
Court-Ordered Care--A Complication of Pregnancy to Avoid
Julie D. Cantor, M.D., J.D.
N Engl J Med 2012; 366:2237-2240 June 14, 2012
Samantha Burton was 25 weeks pregnant when her membranes ruptured. Burton's obstetrician admitted her to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital (TMH) and prescribed continuous inpatient bed rest. But with two young children and a job to consider, Burton found the prospect of a 3-month hospital stay overwhelming. She decided to go home. When she tried to leave, authorities barred her exit.
Soon, the machinery of court-ordered care started rolling. TMH's outside counsel, deputized by the local state attorney to act on Florida's behalf, petitioned for judicial approval to force Burton to follow doctors' orders. Within hours, the court heard argument from the hospital, state attorney and testimony from the obstetrician, now considered the unborn child's attending physician.1 Burton testified by phone from the hospital, without counsel.
The next day, the judge gave TMH, any attending health care provider, and members and employees of the original obstetrician's practice permission to administer any care they deemed necessary to preserve the fetus's life and health.1 He ordered Burton to comply and denied her request to change hospitals. Within days, doctors delivered a dead fetus by cesarean section. . . .
Moreover, the due-process considerations are profound. Because these cases are usually heard on an emergency basis, judicial decisions are made without full briefing on relevant law, medicine, and policy. Unlike alleged criminals, patients have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and they cannot instantaneously find expert witnesses to testify on their behalf. And hospital lawyers acting as state attorneys have a clear conflict of interest: as even the Supreme Court of Florida has noted, it is inappropriate for a hospital to argue zealously against the wishes of its own patient, and it cannot act on behalf of the State to assert the state interests when a competent adult refuses care (Matter of Dubreuil).
Coerced care also devalues the inherent risks to maternal health and life. Cesarean sections and blood transfusions are not risk-free, and bed rest is neither benign nor evidence-based. Obstetricians aren't omniscient and may defer to culture over data. Forced care also ignores individuals' and families' values, reinforces inequality between the sexes, threatens to drive women from care, and condones a culture of coercion. And the notion that court-ordered care will insulate providers from litigation seems misguided -- courts should be unsympathetic to patients with refusal remorse, lest they eviscerate the concept of informed consent, and an informed refusal, unaccompanied by malpractice, should be a shield from civil and criminal liability. Of course, subjecting a patient to forced care, even court-ordered care, may lead to a lawsuit for violations of civil and constitutional rights.
Finally, there's the slippery slope. As a Florida Supreme Court justice explained, forced care that is designed to protect the health of the fetus creates its own universe of troubling questions. Should the State have the authority to prohibit a pregnant woman from smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, both legal activities with recognized health risks to the unborn? (In re Guardianship of J.D.S.). Should pregnant women be prosecuted for adverse outcomes when they reject medical care? Should they be jailed until delivery? Such cases have already arisen. . . .
In 1976, a man dying of aplastic anemia sued his cousin, asking a court to order the forcible extraction of his potentially matching and lifesaving bone marrow. The court refused and explained, For our law to compel defendant to submit to an intrusion of his body would change every concept and principle upon which our society is founded. To do so would defeat the sanctity of the individual and raise the spectre of the swastika and the Inquisition, reminiscent of the horrors this portends (McFall v. Shimp).
Those horrors are no less salient here. Forced interventions undermine the liberty, privacy, and equality of pregnant women. But they are far more insidious. Because they betray foundational legal principles of our free society, they endanger the liberty of us all.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Low-cost spay & neuter grants for cats! Hurry!
PLEASE spay and neuter your pets. If you are on any public assistance, please take advantage of this quickly. Move fast!
The Willamette Humane Society has received a grant to provide subsidized spay/neuter surgeries for 350 cats whose owners receive federal or state income assistance.The Handsel Foundation, a family foundation dedicated to providing financial support to organizations working in the area of animal welfare, awarded the grant.
Families or individuals in Marion and Polk counties who receive some form of government assistance are eligible for the subsidized surgery rate of $20 to spay and $10 to neuter. Appointments are required, and the subsidized surgeries are on a first-come first-served basis.
Regular prices are $35 for a male cat neuter and $55 for a female cat spay.
The Willamette Humane Society Spay & Neuter Clinic is at 4246 Turner Road SE.
To make an appointment, call (503) 480-7729.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Awesomely cool
We have a few spots left for GeerCrest Farm'sFarm Life Experience!
Our Farm Life Experience Program is open to children from ages 8 to 16
Rates: $395 per week, including lodging and all meals and snacks.
Space available in the Following Sessions:
July 9 - 13, 16- 20, 23 - 27, 30- Aug 3,
Aug. 20-24
Go to our Farm's education page
Watch a video of education programs at GeerCrest Farm
GeerCrest is reviving the traditional homestead farm, where the multi-generational farm family grows a diverse supply of food, shares its agrarian way of life with children and promotes the welfare of its community. The Farm-Life Experience at GeerCrest Farm is based on the belief that children need to experience the daily rhythm of farm life because it gives them a foundation on which to grow into productive members of society.
GeerCrest Farm 12390 Sunnyview Rd NE Salem, OR 97317
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