Undernews For September 2, 2009

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Wednesday Sept 2

NO CHILD LEFT OUT OF OBAMA'S REELECTION CAMPAIGN

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - Barack Obama is giving a national speech to school children on September 8. In a stunning example of the administration's intrusion on local public education, the Department of Education has produced a "Menu of Classroom Activities" to be used in connection with the speech.

For example, it is suggested that before the speech, children are asked, "Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?"

During the speech, student should "write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. . . What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?"

After the speech the students should be asked: "What do you think the President wants us to do?. . . Does the speech make you want to do anything?. . . Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?"

It is not clear whether any of these questions will be used in the next No Child Left Behind Tests. What is clear is that the president, for political purposes, is abusing the nation's classrooms.

GREAT MOMENTS WITH HARRY REID

Politico - The Reno Gazette-Journal has a sit-down with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who addresses the Ted Kennedy question in, um, an interesting way.

Q: How will U.S. Sen. (Edward) Kennedy's death affect things?

A: I think it's going to help us. He hasn't been around for some time. .

BLOWING THE MYTH OF ARNE DUNCAN

Andy Kroll, Mother Jones - When Arne Duncan stepped down as the head of the Chicago Public Schools to become the secretary of education in January, the school district he left behind had little to brag about. While Duncan served as its chief executive officer, CPS received mostly average or below average rankings in "The Nation's Report Card," a Department of Education assessment of the country's largest urban school districts. Its high school graduation rates lingered at around 50 percent, well short of the national average of 70 percent. And since 2004, CPS has failed as a district to meet No Child Left Behind's "adequate yearly progress" standards. In one area, however, Chicago's schools stood out: In large part to Duncan's efforts, they were-and remain-the most militarized in America.

Nearly 10,500 of Chicago's 203,000 sixth- through twelfth-graders participate in some kind of military program on campus, from joining the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps to enrolling in Pentagon-sponsored JROTC academies. As the district's CEO (and previously as deputy chief of staff to his predecessor, Paul Vallas), Duncan oversaw the controversial move to bring full-fledged military academies to the Windy City. The district's first, the Chicago Military Academy at Bronzeville, opened in 1999, and three more followed during Duncan's tenure. Today, Chicago has six military high schools run by a branch of the armed services. Six smaller military academies share buildings with existing high schools. Nearly three dozen JROTC programs exist in regular high schools, where students attend a daily JROTC class and wear uniforms to school one day a week. And at the middle school level, there is a JROTC program for sixth, seventh- and eighth-graders.

HOW THE MILITARY IS INFILTRATING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

BRITISH CITY BANS FACEBOOK FOR EMPLOYEES

BBC - A council is to ban Facebook on its computers after it was revealed staff spent on average 400 hours on the site every month. Portsmouth City Council said it had decided to change its policy and block access to the social networking site. It added the figures equated to each of its 4,500 staff, who have access to computers, spending between five and six minutes a month on the site. The ban will come into force in the next few weeks and will also see the Bebo, Twitter and eBay sites blocked - YouTube had already been banned.

AFL-CIO WON'T SUPPORT HEALTH CARE BILL WITHOUT PUBLIC OPTION

Salon - The AFL-CIO, a key ally of the White House on healthcare reform, won't support legislation unless it includes a public insurance option. "Let me be as clear as I can be -- it's an absolute must," Rich Trumka, the labor group's secretary-treasurer, and its next president, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday morning. "We won't support the bill if it doesn't have a public option." That could add to the pressure on the White House and Senate Democrats to pull the plug on bipartisan talks aimed at bringing Republicans along with the plan.

HOW DC GETS AROUND THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Christian Davenport Washington Post - It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.

Oh, and the votes of five Supreme Court justices. They're the ones who really made it possible for me, as a District resident, to own a handgun. .

Reluctantly, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration set up a process through which about 550 residents -- now including yours truly -- have acquired a handgun. But as my four trips to the police department attest, D.C. officials haven't made it easy.

Which was exactly their intent. The day the Heller decision was announced, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) vowed that the city was still "going to have the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows." Fenty decried the ruling, saying that "more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence.". . .

If I lived in Virginia, I'd simply walk into a shop, show my ID, fill out forms and then wait while the store calls for my background check, which can take all of three minutes. If I pass, the gun is mine. Or I could buy a gun from a private citizen and forgo the background check. . .

In Maryland, the process is more involved (though nothing close to what you have to go through in the District): There's an application, a background check, a mandatory 45-minute safety video and then a seven-day waiting period. . .

It may be legal to own a gun in the District, but you still can't buy one within the city limits. At least not in a gun store because there are none. Instead, you must make the purchase in one of the 50 states and have the weapon transferred into the custody of one man: Charles Sykes, who plays an odd role in the transaction.

As a licensed firearms dealer, he could, theoretically, sell guns. But he chooses not to because "I don't want to have to carry an inventory," he says. "Too much liability." Instead, he's the middleman, the only licensed dealer willing to help D.C. residents acquire handguns, a nice little side business for which he charges $125.

Progressive Review - The irony in all this is the DC's strict gun law has been a bust. As John and Maxim Lott pointed out last year:

"The ban went into effect in early 1977, but since it started there is only one year (1985) when D.C.'s murder rate fell below what it was in 1976. But the murder rate also rose dramatically relative to other cities. In the 29 years we have data after the ban, D.C.'s murder rate ranked first or second among the largest 50 cities for 15 years. In another four years, it ranked fourth. For Instance, D.C.'s murder rate fell 3.5 to 3 times more than Maryland and Virginia's during the five years before the handgun ban went into effect in 1977, but rose 3.8 times more in the five years after it."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, INTERNET

National Geographic - On September 2nd 1969, in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, two computers passed test data through a 15-foot gray cable. Stanford Research Institute joined the fledging ARPANET network a month later; UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah joined by year's end, and the internet was born. . . The Internet didn't become a household word until the 90s, though, when Lee, a British physicist invented the Web and service providers like America Online connected millions of people for the first time.

A MINI BIKE GARAGE FOR COMMUTERS

NPR - Just outside Washington, D.C.'s central train station, construction is under way on a sleek, modern, glass-and-metal bike garage. . . Once completed, the Bikestation will hold 130 bikes, lockers and a small shop for repairs. Located next to the Metro subway exit at Union Station, the system will provide secure bike storage for commuters who want to cycle through Washington once they arrive from feeder cities like Baltimore. . Levered arms inside the bike garage allow bicycles to be stored one on top of the other.

CITIES HURTING BADLY

CNN - More than nine out of 10 cities are slashing spending this year as the recession wreaks havoc on their sales and income tax revenue, a new study found. And the future looks even worse, as the housing market's steep declines continue cutting into property tax revenue, according to the National League of Cities, which issued the update on city fiscal conditions Tuesday. City finance officers' pessimism is running at its highest level in the history of the group's 24-year survey. The economic situation on the local level has grown more dire in the seven months since the group released its last report. . . To combat declining revenues, 62% of cities are delaying or canceling infrastructure projects, the study found. That's a 20 percentage point increase from the league's February status report. Some two-thirds of cities are laying off workers or instituting hiring freezes, roughly the same figure as reported earlier this year. . Some 45% of cities have increased fees for services, while 25% have upped property taxes. More than one in four have added fees.

AFL-CIO PUSHING STOCK TRANSFER TAX

Alexander Bolton, The Hill - The nation's largest labor union and some allied Democrats are pushing a new tax that would hit big investment firms such as Goldman Sachs reaping billions of dollars in profits while the rest of the economy sputters. The AFL-CIO, one of the Democratic Party's most powerful allies, would like to assess a small tax - about a tenth of a percent - on every stock transaction. Small and medium-sized investors would hardly notice such a tax, but major trading firms, such as Goldman, which reported $3.44 billion in profits during the second quarter of 2009, may see this as a significant threat to their profits. . . Taxing every stock transaction a tenth of a percent could raise between $50 billion and $100 billion per year.

WORD

The Corporation of Harvard College are robber barons bold and always seeking whom they may devour - Clover Adams, The Letters of Mrs Henry Adams

USERS LIKE SAN FRANCISCO'S PUBLIC OPTION

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of enrollees in Healthy San Francisco, the city's health care access program for the uninsured, reports high rates of satisfaction and signs that the program has improved access to care for those uninsured residents who have enrolled. All uninsured city residents not eligible for other public coverage programs are eligible to enroll. As of August 2009, more than 45,000 people had enrolled in the program. Participants report high levels of satisfaction (94% are at least somewhat satisfied with the program) and endorsement of HSF (92% would recommend to a friend and the same share think other cities should create similar programs).

MUSICIAN ROBBED OF INSTRUMENTS WHILE ASLEEP ON SUBWAY

NY Times - Matthew Jodrell, a jazz musician, was riding the subway home after a Sunday night performance in Lower Manhattan. Then he made the mistake of nodding off. "When the train went under water, I fell asleep, somewhere there around Queensboro Plaza," Mr. Jodrell said on Tuesday. "My pocket was slashed, but he did not manage to get my wallet. He was really slick. He must have slit my pants swiftly and quickly." The thief did not take Mr. Jodrell's money, but he did take two beloved brass instruments: a flugelhorn made in Switzerland and a Bach Stradivarius trumpet, together worth nearly $10,000. The thief moved so fast, Mr. Jodrell said, that he did not feel a thing. When he woke up, as the train approached the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard stop, he saw that the black leather case holding the horns, as well as three mutes, three mouthpieces and other equipment, was gone from a spot on the floor between his legs.

SOME GREAT BOOGIE WOOGIE

HOWARD'S 14-YEAR-OLD SOPHOMORE EYES OBAMA'S JOB

NBC Washington - As the school year gets under way at Howard University, one of the new faces on campus already has done enough work to rise to sophomore standing. And he’s only 14 years old. . .

The D.C. teen is Howard’s youngest student, having completed his high school requirements in just two years. His Howard classmates are shocked by his age and accomplishments, but many said they admire that and respect Ty for it. . .

“I wouldn’t knock down the offer to be president, like Barack Obama,” he said.

A political science major, Ty rose to sophomore standing with the help of community college classes and online courses. He plans to spend no more time as an undergrad than he did as a high school student. . . .

As a 3-year-old, Ty began to learn Chinese, giving him a leg up on his classmates -- and pretty much the vast majority of the rest of us -- when he started the first grade at 4 years old.

BEST BOOK TITLE OF THE DAY

THE NEW MEDIA: TWITTER NOT SCOOPS

David Carr, NY Times - On Aug. 12, the employees of The Journal News, a Westchester daily owned by Gannett, were told that there would be further staff reductions at the daily paper, which covers Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties in New York. No surprise there.

But the suburban newspaper is at the vanguard of the industry: reporters at The Journal News don't work in a newsroom, they are part of an "Information Center"; they don't cover beats, they cover "topics"; and in a new wrinkle to an old story, the staff was not being laid off, but becoming part of a "comprehensive restructuring plan."

Specifically, the 288 news and advertising employees at The Journal News were told that jobs were being redefined and that they all would need to reapply for the new positions and that by the time the re-org music stopped, 70 of them would be without jobs.

For the last three weeks, employees at The Journal News have lived in a netherworld in which they were asked to justify their existence in a changing, shrinking world. After filling out an application on Sharepoint, a corporate Web site, that asked them about their new-media skills, among other things, and then being interviewed by corporate human resources executives pulled in by Gannett, they were called up to the third floor of the offices in Westchester and given an offer letter in a thin white envelope - "Thank you for your participation in the restructuring of the Information Center department at The Journal News. I am pleased to extend you an offer. ..." - or a much thicker manila envelope explaining their departure and severance. . .

One longtime worker who received a manila envelope, but still asked to remain anonymous - "This is not a great time for me to make waves" - was bitter about the process.

"How is the fact that I don't have a Twitter or Facebook account relevant to what I do?" he said. "

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLES FOR CLUNKERS

KELO, Sioux Falls - During the month long [cash for clunkers] program, Billion Automotive sold close to a thousand vehicles but has only been reimbursed for 272 of them. Vern Eide sold over 200 cars and has only been paid for 27 of them, and that's fueling lots of concerns in the auto industry. Billion Automotive cashed in during Cash for Clunkers, but owner Dave Billion is still waiting for the rest of his money from the government run program, $3.2 million. "I wonder how long they'd wait if I owed them $3.2 million. I think they'd be at my door or at least my banker's door," Billion said. When Cash for Clunkers was first announced, dealers were supposed to be reimbursed within 10 days of a sale.

HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAUGHT SUBURBANITES TO BE RACISTS

[FDR's Home Owners Loan Corporation, the HOLC,] figured out how real-estate markets worked and systemized an appraisal methodology that would help banks, lenders, and home owners guarantee the investment value of their properties. People were not about to take out mortgages to buy homes in neighborhoods that might go down in value. Banks were not inclined to lend the money, either. The long-term financial commitment of a thirty-year mortgage meant ensuring that the main characteristics of a neighborhood remained stable over time.

Instead of measuring this stability in terms of civic participation, church membership, community reinvestment, or local volunteerism, the HOLC evaluated neighborhoods through more familiar statistics: age, jobs, income, housing materials, and, most of all, race. The new, mathematically justified system for classifying neighborhoods became known as "red lining." The scheme used colors, letters, and numbers to code the desirability and investment value of different neighborhoods. Green was the best - a homogeneous, perpetually high-demand area, occupied by white businessmen and professionals, with no Jewish infiltration. Blue was next, for desirable areas that had already reached their peak. Yellow was for neighborhoods in decline, and red was for those already fallen. "Full decline" meant that black people already lived there. . .

Appraisers learned to see any mixing of races as a sign of instability and impending price drops. This logic trickled down to home owners who were tied to big mortgages and had more of a stake in the value of their property than the quality of their lives or, least of all, the eradication of their prejudices. Besides, recognizing the precursors to a neighborhood's infiltration by blacks or Jews meant getting out in time to win a good price for one's home and pay back the mortgage. Getting out too late could mean owing more on a house than it was currently worth. Thanks to the way the federal government promoted home ownership, suburbanites learned to become more racist as a means of financial survival. - Life, Inc.: How The World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back, by Douglas Rushkoff

MAKING CITIES BLACK & POOR: THE HIDDEN STORY

TAX PAYERS FUND JINDAL'S CHURCH ATTENDANCE

Americans United - The Louisiana governor spent $180,000 in taxpayer funds during his first eight months in office to travel by a state police helicopter to many of the same churches he visited while on his campaign trail. He wasn't just attending these churches for quiet prayer; he spoke out during the church services, telling the same tale of his conversion to Christianity that he did while campaigning. Now, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate, Jindal has since spent another $45,000 traveling to even more churches. . . He says he mixes these church visits with meetings with local officials throughout the state and insists these trips have nothing to do with maintaining his gubernatorial seat come next election.

PASSINGS

Review patron saint Chris Connor

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT FOREIGN HEALTH CARE

Trudy Lieberman, Columbia Journalism Review - In [the] Washington Post, T.R. Reid, a former Post reporter . . . busts five myths about foreign health care, in an article based on reporting for his new book, The Healing of America. . .

Myth one: It's all socialized medicine out there. No, says Reid. Some countries, like Britain and Cuba, provide health care in government hospitals with the government paying the bills. But in other countries, like Canada, private-sector providers give the care that is paid for under their national health systems. "In some ways, health care is less socialized overseas than in the United States," he writes.

Myth two: Overseas care is rationed through limited choices or long lines. Generally not, Reid points out. In most places, patients can go to any doctor or have choices of providers. There are no limits like we have in the U.S.--no lists of in-network doctors and pre-authorization forms. In Canada, he acknowledges, some people wait for non-emergency care, but Britain, Germany, and Austria outperform the U.S. when it comes to waiting times for appointments and elective surgeries. Waiting times are so short in Japan, most people don't bother making appointments. . .

Myth three: Foreign-health care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies. All other payment systems are more efficient than ours, Reid writes. U.S. health insurers have the highest administrative costs in the world, spending about twenty cents of every dollar for paperwork, marketing, and claims review. Japan controls costs better than any other country, even though its population uses more services than Americans use. Quality is high, and life expectancy and recovery rates for major illnesses are better than in the U.S.

Myth four: Cost controls stifle innovation. That assertion is just plain false, Reid says. While groundbreaking research comes from the U.S., it also comes from other countries with much lower cost structures--like France, where hip and knee replacements were invented, or Canada, where the breakthrough in deep-brain stimulation to treat depression was made.

Myth five: Health insurance has to be cruel. In America, insurance companies routinely reject applicants with preexisting medical conditions, and rescind policies of those who accumulate big medical bills. That doesn't happen in other countries, where all the national insurance schemes must accept everyone and pay all the bills that citizens present. Reid observes that the key difference between the U.S. and other systems is that foreign health plans exist only to pay medical bills; they aren't in business to make a profit.

The most persistent myth of all, says Reid, is that "America has the finest health care in the world. We don't." When you compare results, most other industrialized countries have much better statistics. . .

USING TWITTER FOR TWEAKING

Progressive Review - Although we think Twitter is the most overrated technological development of modern times, we had to high five this site, which has found a magnificent use for the 140 character limit. The target in this case is Adrian Fenty, the arrogant, ego driven mayor of Washington DC, but the principle would work well elsewhere.

BOOKSHELF: THE PINK LADY

THE PINK LADY
Sally Denton

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - Sally Denton has written an enthralling and long overdue account of Helen Gahagan Douglas, until now relegated to the character role of being Richard Nixon's first major victim. As Denton notes, it was a role that froze her "in a time and place, overshadowing not only the accomplishments and complexities of her long and fascinating life but allowing the press, her male political colleagues and rivals, and her later biographers, to define her and then dismiss her from the national stage."

Douglas was, in fact, also a Broadway and opera star, three term member of Congress, close associate and advocate of FDR, lover of LBJ, and an activist in issues ranging from housing to public education and nuclear disarmament. Her unsuccessful race for Senate against the nasty Nixon ended her political career but she remained a force for humanitarian goals the rest of her life.

Douglas was only the 33rd woman elected to the House of Representatives. In fact, if all women ever elected to the House were to sit there today, they would still be only barely a majority of its votes (53%). As it is, women hold only 17% of the seats.

As Douglas moved from a highly successful stage career to politics, she was indefatigable. In one FDR campaign she gave 250 speeches for the ticket.

Once, after watching a film at the White House, she turned to President Roosevelt with a plea for migrant children. FDR eyes filled with tears and his voice broke as he said, "Don't tell me anymore, Helen. You and Eleanor, you must stop ganging up on me." Douglas looked on Eleanor Roosevelt as her 'fairy godmother.'

Douglas' view of women was that they must be "willing to compete on an equal basis with men and expect no favors. . .They must neither ask nor give quarter."

Men in the media and politics did not treat her well. When she spoke at the 1944 Democratic convention, one correspondent called her voice "shrewish" and a politician called her a "self-seeking, highly perfumed, smelly old girl." Denton writes that she was called a "sexpot, a glamour puss, an uppity woman, and a fluttering satellite."

None of this slowed her down. She was even one of the few members of the House to vote against a permanent UnAmerican Activities Committee, that cesspool of disreputable American activities. Not surprisingly, J. Edgar Hoover had already opened a dossier on her.

The sort of things that might have made it into the file are described by Denton: "She was the first to hire a black congressional aide. . . She forced the desegregation of the House cafeteria, nominated a black man to West Point, and introduced legislation rescinding the tax exempt status of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who had refused allow black singer Marian Anderson to perform in Constitution Hall."

Her race against Nixon, writes Denton, "would go down in American history as the dirtiest ever. . . "Did you know that she's married to a Jew?" So began the telephone slander campaign against her. . . There were vague allusions to Helen as Stalin's favorite pinup girl."

The Daily News dubbed her the "pink lady." And the sexist slurs were of the same ilk, including the GOP official who wrote that Douglas was trying to convince people that "being a woman, she had a right to change her mind, and her record."

At one point the Nixon camp argued that during five years in Congress she
had "voted 353 times exactly as has Vito Marcantonio, the notorious Communist party-line congressman from New York."

Meanwhile Kyle Palmer in the LA Times called her a "a veritable political butterfly, flitting from flower to flower."

And it wasn't just the press and the Republicans. President Truman declined to endorse her and Joseph Kennedy gave $150,000 to the Republican candidate against whom, ten years later, his son John would have to run.

For Douglas, it got harder: "The worst moment, a sight I couldn't shake, was when children picked up rocks and threw them at my car, at me. I knew that in order to survive I would have to accept the rocks and the Nixon campaign, shrug them off and move on."

She lost by 700,000 votes, the largest margin of any senatorial contest in the country. And America's history was forever changed.

Reading this book, the question arose: why are such women so forgotten and ignored? You can largely blame sexism until you compare it to black history, which seems to have a done a better job of retrieving lost heroes, including many black women.

One hypothesis is that the women's movement has been of a higher economic and social order. The very term "glass ceiling," which came out of the women's movement, suggests that the oppressed must be well enough along to be looking at the ceiling and not still scrubbing floors. In fact, Nine to Five was one of the few women's groups to specifically target less educated and more lower class victims in the tradition of the civil rights movement. The best advocate of poorer women has not been the feminist movement, but ethnic civil rights organizations and labor unions.

The women's story has other gaps. When attorney Hillary Clinton entered the White House, it was given a uniqueness that only held up if one ignored Lady Bird Johnson, who had turned a $17,000 initial investment in a radio station into a $150 million business, becoming the first president's wife to be a millionaire in her own right.

Johnson also toured the south campaigning for her husband's civil rights agenda, something white women didn't do in those days, and yet history has largely hidden her.

And why so little attention to Frances Perkins, FDR's labor secretary who was a major force behind social security, unemployment insurance, child labor laws and a minimum wage?

History plays such tricks on us, which is why we are lucky to have folks like Sally Denton around to tell so well the stories it has forgotten or chosen to hide.

THE DEADLY COST OF THE DRUG WAR

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POLITICO: OBAMA SCUTTLING PUBLIC OPTION

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