Undernews For September 5, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
96 Maine Street #255
Brunswick ME 04011
202 423 7884

EMAIL US

REVIEW E-MAIL UPDATES
REVIEW INDEX
UNDERNEWS
XML FEED

Saturday September 5

WHY LIBERALS MISREAD OBAMA

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - During the campaign the Review pointed out a number of uncomfortable facts about Barack Obama, including that he:

Aggressively opposed impeachment action against Bush

Had argued that conservatives and Bill Clinton were right to destroy social welfare,

Supported making it harder to file class action suits in state courts

Voted for a business-friendly "tort reform" bill

Voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards

Had the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors in the primaries

Was even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain

Was the most popular of the candidates with K Street lobbyists

Was named in 2003 by the rightwing Democratic Leadership Council named Obama as one of its "100 to Watch." After he was criticized in the black media, Obama disassociated himself with the DLC. But his major economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, was still the chief economist of the conservative organization. Wrote Doug Henwood, "Goolsbee has written gushingly about Milton Friedman and denounced the idea of a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures."

Supported the war on drugs

Supported the crack-cocaine sentence disparity

Supported Real ID

Supported the PATRIOT Act

Supported the death penalty

Opposed lowering the drinking age to 18

Went to Connecticut to support Joe Lieberman in the primary against Ned Lamont

Lent his support, as Paul Street of Z Mag noted, " to the aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and other Wall Street Democrats to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. . . Obama was recently hailed as a Hamiltonian believer in limited government and free trade by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks."

Endorsed US involvement in the failed drug war in Colombia.

Voted for a nuclear energy bill that included money for bunker buster bombs and full funding for Yucca Mountain.

Came in at 48th in the ranking of senators by the League of Conservation Voters

Supported federally funded ethanol and was unusually close to the ethanol industry.

Promised to double funding for private charter schools, part of a national effort to undermine public education.

Supported the No Child Left Behind Act

Favored expanding the war in Afghanistan

Supported Israeli aggression and apartheid.

Favored turning over Jerusalem to Israel

Wouldn't rule out first strike nuclear attack on Iran

Called Pakistan "the right battlefield ... in the war on terrorism." Threatened to invade Pakistan

Opposed gay marriage

Opposed single payer healthcare

Supported restricting damage awards in medical malpractice suits

Favored healthcare individual mandates that would help insurance companies and banks but not citizens

Wanted to expand the size of the military.

Wouldn't have photo taken with San Francisco mayor because he was afraid it would seem that he supported gay marriage

Dissed Ralph Nader for daring to run for president again

Called the late Paul Wellstone "something of a gadfly"

Was ranked 24th in the Senate by Progressive Punch

Said "everything is on the table" with Social Security.

That's 38 reasons for starters why liberals might have been uncomfortable with Obama. Instead they treated him as if he had descended from heaven and heavily chastised those who failed to join their crusade.

Some of this was to be expected; for example, history and ethnic solidarity made black support unsurprising.

But even with Bill Clinton white liberal arguments on his behalf still had the tone of slightly embarrassed justification. With Obama there was nothing but idolatry.

Now, with a rapidity that surprised even this cynic, liberals are feeling uncomfortable with, and some even mad at, their instant hero. What went wrong?

Here are a few hypotheses:

- With the Clinton election, liberalism shifted from being an ideology to being more a combination of faith and socio-economic demographic that sought identity through favored icons rather than by preferred policies.

- The dominant white portion of the demographic found in Obama a black with whom they could identify - a handsome, well-spoken Harvard Law School graduate with none of the anger or aggressiveness of someone like Jesse Jackson. Obama was the black they had been waiting for: safe, suave, and soft spoken. They didn't notice that ethnically Obama was actually only half black and in politics he was all white.

- Many of the traditional liberal causes were now considered radical and lacking in support. Economic issues have nearly disappeared from liberalism, while supporting civil rights or opposing wars are considered just part of history. Constitutional rights are left to a small subset or to libertarians.

- With the media's help, liberals have learned to regard politics as a game rather than a cause. Pursuing a policy was the work of the naive; power is the goal, and it is assumed that once it is attained, the policies will take care of themselves.

The irony is that liberals didn't even learn anything from their successful opponents. The right had reduced politics to a few issues, which though logically were of minor importance, had become powerful- if false - symbols of righteousness. On not one issue over the past two decades, have liberals even come close to raising serious hell.

So now some liberals are beginning to notice that they have been conned again. But not much will likely occur as a result, So if anyone feels like starting a new movement - one that centers on doing the most for the most - it wouldn't be a bad time. Aside from a bunch of griping conservatives and grumpy liberals not much else is happening.

FLORIDA LOSES POPULATION FOR FIRST TIME IN 60 YEARS

NPR - Demographers report that Florida's population shrank last year for the first time in more than 60 years. . . Stan Smith, an economist at the University of Florida, says the state's population dropped by 58,000 last year. He says there are two main factors: The poor economy means there are fewer jobs to attract workers. And there's also that little problem with housing. . . Out of a total population of 18.3 million, a loss of 58,000 residents might not sound like much. But it's a trend that could cloud the future of places such as St. Lucie County on Florida's Atlantic coast. County Commissioner Doug Coward notes that just a few years ago, it was one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation. "At one point, we had about 100-plus thousand homes that were proposed by out-of-town developers - which would nearly double the housing stock for a community which has been in existence for more than 100 years," he says. "And they wanted to accomplish that feat in about three or so [years]. The amount of speculative building and development was just unprecedented." Today that boom is but a memory. Residential building has ground to a halt. As construction jobs dried up, many people left the area to find work elsewhere. Across the county, several thousand homes now stand vacant.

TOP EXECS CASH IN ON HUGE STOCK OPTIONS

NY Times - The top five executives at 10 financial institutions that took some of the biggest taxpayer bailouts have seen a combined increase in the value of their stock options of nearly $90 million, the report by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies said.

The report - which highlights executive compensation at such firms as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup - comes at a time when Wall Street is facing criticism for failing to scale back outsized bonuses after borrowing billions from taxpayers amid last year's financial crisis. . .

It's also the latest in a string of studies showing that despite tough talk by politicians, little has been done by regulators to rein in the bonus culture that many believe contributed to the near-collapse of the financial sector.

The report includes eight pages of legislative proposals to address executive pay, but concludes that officials have "not moved forward into law or regulation any measure that would actually deflate the executive pay bubble that has expanded so hugely over the last three decades."

26 DC SCHOOLS INVESTIGATED FOR CHEATING ON TEST RESULTS

Washington Post - District officials commissioned an investigation last summer into possible cheating at 26 public and public charter schools where reading and math proficiency on 2008 standardized tests increased markedly. The probe, an analysis of incorrect student answers that were erased and changed to correct answers, found "anomalies" at some of the schools that administered the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System test. But officials called the investigation, conducted by the test's publisher, CTB McGraw-Hill, "ultimately inconclusive." District officials did not name the schools that were investigated, and they did not release a copy of the CTB McGraw-Hill report, which was requested by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act.

COURT OF APPEALS: ASHCROFT VIOLATED RIGHTS OF CITIZENS AFTER 9/11

LA Times - Former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft violated the rights of U.S. citizens in the fevered wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by ordering arrests on material witness warrants when the government lacked probable cause, a federal appeals court said in a scathing opinion. In a ruling that said Ashcroft could be sued for prosecutorial abuses, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the former attorney general immunity from liability for his misuse of the material witness warrants in national security investigations. Members of the panel, all appointees of Republican presidents, said that they found the detention policy that Ashcroft authorized "repugnant to the Constitution, and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.". . .

BAD VOTING COUNTING HEADED TOWARDS A MONOPOLY

Rob Richie, Fair Vote - The United States' largest voting equipment vendor Election Systems & Software announced the purchase of Premier Election Solutions, our nation's second largest vendor, and a product of the Diebold Corporation's North American operations. If this sale goes forward, ES&S will control a huge majority of the voting equipment market in the United States. According to Verified Voting, more than 120 million registered voters live in American jurisdictions using one of these two companies' systems. In contrast, the nation's third largest elections vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, provides equipment in jurisdictions with only some 26 million registered voters -- and seems to be on shaky ground, having been sold several times in recent years and still waiting to have its latest optical scan system certified by the federal Election Assistance Commission.

Whether the sale goes through remains a question. According to election integrity activists at Black Box Voting, ES&S previously attempted to consolidate the voting industry in 1997 with a purchase of Business Records Corporation, but the purchase was blocked by the US Security and Exchange Commission on antitrust grounds, and the acquisition of BRC was split between ES&S and Sequoia.

Regardless of its ultimate outcome, this latest potential consolidation in ownership of our voting equipment highlights the broken nature of American election administration. We run democracy on the cheap at the national level, and pay for it with lost votes, untrustworthy software and exorbitant costs for public interest improvements due to companies recouping expenses by abusing their local monopolies.

Fair Vote has long suggested a full public ownership model, similar to what Oklahoma and other nations have done. We should keep pursuing this "public option," but also consider additional ways to gain control of the election process and foster, better, more reliable equipment. Some groups are seeking to hold vendors legally accountable for past failures to uphold election integrity. address a glaring problem: the process of certifying equipment.

FOREST SERVICE WARNS HIKES AGAINST LATINOS EATING SPAM IN THE WOODS

The Forest Service put out a warning on how to identify possible drug traffickers. Sings include "tortilla packaging, beer cans, Spam, Tuna, Tecate beer cans" not to mention people who speak Spanish or play Spanish music. If hikers were advised that in the event they were to run into such terrible things, they should "hike out quickly" and call the police. After word of the bizarre warning got out, it was withdrawn.

HOUSE FINDS JAZZ NOT PATRIOTIC ENOUGH FOR TELEPHONE HOLD MUSIC

The Hill - The House switched its on-hold telephone music back to patriot tunes after a three-week experiment with smooth jazz and elevator music was judged to be offensive. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) was so outraged that his constituents were subjected to more anodyne jazz selections that he wrote a letter to the office that oversees the music selection asking for the situation to be reversed

WILD WACKENHUT ALSO GUARDING NUCLEAR SITES

Michigan Messenger - Wackenhut, the private security company whose Armor Group employees were recently caught partying and neglecting security at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, is also responsible for guarding many nuclear facilities in the United States including Michigan’s Palisades power plant near South Haven. For several years, government oversight bodies, labor groups and whistleblowers have warned that the company’s lax behavior at nuclear plants endangers public safety. . . "The focus appears to be on creating the illusion of ’security’ not actually providing it." In a 2005 letter to then-U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called Wackenhut guards "the corporate equivalent of the Keystone Cops" and asked that use of the company at nuclear facilities be reconsidered. "In the past year alone," Markey said, "Wackenhut personnel have been found cheating on security tests, altering security training requirements, violating [Department of Energy] regulations, failing at security exercises and retaliating against whistleblowers — why hasn’t the company been permanently barred from guarding nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials?"

PUBLIC RADIO STATIONS HOLDING THEIR OWN IN RECESSION, SOME DOING BETTE

Washington Post - Four months into its new fiscal year, donations [to Washington's public radio station WAMU] are 50 percent higher than at the same time last year, and membership -- public broadcasting-speak for people who contribute -- is up 53 percent. . WAMU's numbers are at the sunny end of the spectrum, but things are looking up elsewhere in the Land of Pledge Drives. As money from government and corporate sources has shriveled, struggling public stations have found that the public is willing to step up. Stations across the country say contributions from viewers and listeners have held steady, and in some cases have been rising in defiance of the worst recession in decades.

WHY IS THE MEDIA DOWNPLAYING THE JOB CRISIS?

Robert Reich - The latest employment figures (released Friday)show job losses continuing to grow. . . Bottom line: almost one out of six Americans who need a full-time job either can't find one or is working part-time. Meanwhile, wage growth among people who have jobs has just about stopped. . . . At the same time, furloughs -- requiring workers to take unpaid vacations -- are on the rise: recent surveys show 17% of companies imposing them. More than 20% of companies have suspended their contributions to 401(k)s and similar pension plans.

So why isn't the media screaming? Partly because these job and wage losses are not, for the most part, falling on the segment of our population most visible to the media. They're falling overwhelmingly on the middle class and the poor. Unemployment among those who have been in the top 10 percent of earnings is closer to 5 percent, and their earnings continue to climb -- although, to be sure, much more slowly than before the meltdown. It's much the same with health-care and pension benefits. Among people under 65 who are in the bottom 20% of incomes, only 21.9% have employer-sponsored health insurance -- if they have a job at all. Half of all people nearing retirement age have a 401(k) balance of less than $40,000. . .

MAJORITY OF U.S. FORCE IN AFGHANISTAN ARE MERCENARIES

Op Ed News - Contractors now make up 57 percent of the Pentagon's Afghanistan personnel. The highest ratio of contractors to military personnel recorded in any war in the history of the United States now exists in Afghanistan, according to a recently released report by a congressional research group. Of particular importance, the report concludes that “abuses and crimes committed by armed private security contractors and interrogators against local nationals may have undermined US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

INDICATORS

Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones - In the first half of 2009, 123 TV news shows were canceled, 106 newspapers folded, 110 bureaus closed, 556 magazines died, and 12,000 journalists lost their jobs.

DEFENSE SECRETARY TELLS MEDIA NOT TO SHOW PHOTOS OF DYING SOLDIER

One of the reasons we continue to have pointless wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan is because the government and the media work hard to limit unpleasant photos of military conflict. It is okay to bomb wedding celebrations but to show a dying soldier is a breach of "common decency."

Politico - Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting "in the strongest terms" to an Associated Press decision to transmit a photograph showing a mortally wounded 21-year-old Marine in his final moments of life, calling the decision "appalling" and a breach of "common decency."

The AP reported that the Marine's father had asked - in an interview and in a follow-up phone call - that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published.

The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it "conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.". . .

CHICAGO LOSES INTEREST IN SUBSIDIZING THE OLYMPICS

Chicago Tribune- Support in Chicago for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games has dwindled, with residents now sharply divided over whether the city should host the Games, a Tribune/WGN poll has found. Nearly as many city residents oppose Mayor Richard Daley's Olympic plans, 45 percent, as support them, 47 percent. And residents increasingly and overwhelmingly oppose using tax dollars to cover any financial shortfalls for the Games, with 84 percent disapproving of the use of public money.

DOWN EAST LOCAL

Highlights from the Coastal Packet: With lobster prices plummeting, the crustacean is showing up on the menus of less expensive restaurants across the land. . . Maine is second in the nation for obligating highway stimulus funds. . . Gay marriage on the ballot after religious extremists get nearly 100,000 signatures. . . Portland's School Committee voted six to three, to buy laptop computers for high school students in the city. . . The FBI is investigating recent posts on Craigslist that offered to sell "Maine Indian scalps" to "white people only."

US MILITARY LARGEST SINGLE CONSUMER OF OIL IN THE WORLD

Planet Green - The U.S. military is the single largest purchaser and consumer of oil in the world. "All the tanks, planes and ships of the U.S. military burn about 340,000 barrels of oil per day," explains Michael Graham Richard at Tree Hugger. "If you break it down, the Air Force uses the most fuel, followed by the Navy, and then the Army. If the Department of Defense were a country, it would rank about 38th in the world for oil consumption, right behind the Philippines, a country with a population of 90.5 million people."

Some facts on U.S. military fuel usage since 2003:

Spending: 2003: $5.21 billion 2007: $12.61 billion

Consumption: 2003: 145.1 million barrels (397,500 barrels per day) . . .
2007: 132.5 million barrels (363,000 barrels per day)

2007 U.S. military fuel consumption equals: 90% more than Ireland's annual consumption 38% more than Israel's annual consumption 20 times Iceland's annual consumption

OBAMA ADMIN RETREATS FROM ATTEMPT TO PROPAGANDIZE SCHOOL KIDS

Washington Times - President Obama's plan to inspire the nation's schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to "help the president."

Presidential aides acknowledged the White House helped the U.S. Education Department craft the proposal, which immediately was met by fierce criticism from Republicans and conservative organizations who accused Mr. Obama of trying to politicize the education system.

[The Review was a lonely progressive voice reporting the news]

White House aides said the language was an honest misunderstanding in what was supposed to be a inspirational, pro-education message to America's youths.

Among the activities the government initially suggested for prekindergarten to sixth-grade students: that they " write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president."

Another task recommended for students immediately after listening to the speech: to engage in a discussion about what "the president wants us to do."

WASHINGTON REDSKINS SUE BROKE FAN FOR $66K

Washington Post - In the hallway of her modest home south of Alexandria, the 72-year-old grandmother points out the burgundy-and-gold Redskins hook rug she made. In her bedroom, she shows off the pennants from two Redskins Super Bowl games she attended, and she opens a music box on her dresser that plays "Hail to the Redskins." Now, Hill says, her beloved Redskins are forcing her into bankruptcy.

Last year, Hill's real estate sales were hit hard by the housing market crash, and she told the team that she could no longer afford her $5,300-a-year contract for two loge seats behind the end zone. Hill said she asked the Redskins to waive her contract for a year or two. The sales office declined.

On Oct. 8, the Redskins sued Hill in Prince George's County Circuit Court for backing out of a 10-year ticket-renewal agreement after the first year. The team sought payment for every season through 2017, plus interest, attorneys' fees and court costs.

Hill couldn't afford a lawyer. She did not fight the lawsuit or even respond to it because, she said, she believes that the Bible says that it is morally wrong not to pay your debts. The team won a default judgment of $66,364.

"It really breaks my heart," Hill said, her voice cracking as the tears well and spill. "I don't even believe in bankruptcy. We are supposed to pay our bills. I ain't trying to get out of anything."

Hill is one of 125 season ticket holders who asked to be released from multiyear contracts and were sued by the Redskins in the past five years. The Washington Post interviewed about two dozen of them. Most said that they were victims of the economic downturn, having lost a job or experiencing some other financial hardship. Redskins General Counsel David Donovan said the lawsuits are a last resort that involve a small percentage of the team's 20,000 annual premium seat contracts. He added that the team has accommodated people in hard-luck circumstances hundreds of times. He said he was unaware of Pat Hill's case.

WHAT WE ALL CAN LEARN FROM FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE

From an extremely interesting speech by danah boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Reprinted by Alternet

dana boyd - For decades, we've assumed that inequality in relation to technology has everything to do with "access" and that if we fix the access problem, all will be fine. This is the grand narrative of concepts like the "digital divide."

Yet, increasingly, we're seeing people with similar levels of access engage in fundamentally different ways. And we're seeing a social media landscape where participation "choice" leads to a digital reproduction of social divisions. . . .

Let's deal directly with a very specific case study: MySpace versus Facebook. . .

Two weeks ago, comScore released numbers showing that Facebook and MySpace were neck-and-neck in terms of unique user visits in the U.S. The meta-narrative was that Facebook was winning in the States, and that MySpace was dying.

I would argue that the numbers can be read differently. The numbers show that MySpace has neither grown nor faded in the last year, while Facebook has expanded rapidly and has finally reached the same size. . .

But we still need to account for the fact that as many people visit MySpace as Facebook . . . Even if you think that Facebook is winning the game, we need to account for the fact that 70 million people in the U.S. visited MySpace. That's not small potatoes. . .

I'm an ethnographer. For the last four years, I've been traveling the United States, talking to American teenagers about their use of social media. During the 2006-2007 school year, I started noticing a trend.

In each school, in each part of the country, there were teens who opted for MySpace and teens who opted for Facebook. (There were also plenty of teens who used both.) . . .

MySpace came out first and quickly attracted urban 20-somethings. It spread to teenagers through older siblings and cousins, as well as those who were attracted to indie rock and hip-hop music culture.

Facebook started at Harvard and spread to the Ivy Leagues before spreading more broadly. The first teenagers to hear about Facebook were those connected to the early adopters of Facebook (i.e. the Ivy League-bound types). The desirability of the site spread from those college-bound teens.

As word of these sites spread, teens went to where their friends were. The origin points of these sites explain many of people's choices, especially when it comes to first adoption, because people adopt the sites that their friends adopt. Yet, it doesn't explain why people some people left MySpace to join Facebook and others did not.

One way of thinking about the transition from MySpace to Facebook is through the frame of fashion cycles and fads. MySpace was first; arguably, some people got sick of it and, when Facebook came along, voila! This is certainly true for many teens (and adults), but this explanation would only work if MySpace was dead, or if users of MySpace thought of it as uncool.

The fact is MySpace is still quite popular among a certain segment of the population. Only a month ago, I was doing fieldwork in Atlanta, where I found heavy usage of MySpace among certain groups of youth. They knew of Facebook but had no interest in leaving MySpace to join Facebook.

Herein lies the reality that makes all of this quite messy to deal with. .

Whites were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. The educated were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from the suburbs were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those who deserted MySpace did so by "choice," but their decision to do so was wrapped up in their connections to others, in their belief that a more peaceful, quiet, less-public space would be more idyllic.

This dynamic was furthered by the press, an institution that stems from privilege and tends to reflect the lives of a more privileged class of people. They narrated MySpace as the dangerous underbelly of the Internet, while Facebook was the utopian savior. . .

The fact that digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban white flight should send warning signals to everyone out there. And if we think back to the language used by teens who use Facebook when talking about MySpace, we should be truly alarmed.

Those who are from privileged backgrounds tend to be far more condescending toward those who are not than vice versa. . .

The data have consistently shown that MySpace is not a site of increased risk for youth and that risky behavior is more likely to occur in chatrooms than on MySpace. Yet, if you're a parent of a teen in this room, you're probably scared shitless of MySpace.

Why? What are you scared of? Are you scared of the site, or the possibility that your child might be exposed to values that are different than yours? Are you scared of the display of sexuality, or just the display of working-class sexuality? Needless to say, that's a topic for a whole different conversation. . .

Unlike teens, who are often straddling MySpace and Facebook, most adults are active on one or the other, unless they have a specific professional or hobby-based reason to be on both. . .

In many ways, adult worlds are even more divided than teen worlds. Adults are less likely to know other adults who aren't like them than teens are.

There's a concept in sociology called "homophily." It means birds of a feather stick together. Whites know whites. Democrats know Democrats. Urbanites know urbanites. Tech people know tech people. Rich people know rich people. . .

One thing to keep in mind about social media: the Internet mirrors and magnifies pre-existing dynamics. And it makes many different realities much more visible than ever before. . .

So why am I telling you that Facebook and MySpace are divided by race, class, education and other factors? Because it matters. And we need to talk about and address the implications of this divides.

First off, when people are structurally divided, they do not share space with one another, and they do not communicate with one another. This can and does breed intolerance. . .

Think about this in the context of the politics around gay rights. The No. 1 predictor for how someone will side in issues of gay rights is whether or not they know someone who is gay. . .

When you choose MySpace or Facebook, you can't send messages to people on the other site. You can't Friend people on the other site. There's a cultural wall between users. And if there's no way for people to communicate across the divide, you can never expect them to do so.

But here's the main issue with social divisions. We can accept when people choose to connect to people who are like them and not friend different others. But can we accept when institutions and services only support a portion of the network? When politicians only address half of their constituency? When educators and policy makers engage with people only through the tools of the privileged?

When we start leveraging technology to meet specific goals, we may reinforce the divisions that we're trying to address.

If you want people to connect around politics and democracy, information and ideas, you need to understand the divisions that exist.

Many of us in this room see social-network sites as a modern-day incarnation of the public sphere. Politicians log in to these sites to connect with constituents and hear their voices. Campaign managers and activists try to rally people through these sites. Market researchers try to get a sense of people's opinions through these sites. Educators try to connect with students and build knowledge-sharing communities. This is fantastic. But there isn't one uniform public sphere. There are numerous publics (and counter-publics).

In many ways, the Internet is providing a next-generation public sphere. Unfortunately, it's also bringing with it next-generation divides.

MADISON PICKS PINK FLAMINGO FOR OFFICIAL BIRD

Reuters - The city council of Wisconsin's capital voted to designate the plastic pink flamingo its official bird. . . In 1979, University of Wisconsin students planted roughly 1,000 of the pink plastic birds on a grassy incline outside the dean's office. Alderman Marsha Rummel told the Wisconsin State Journal the council's 15-4 vote ensured the event was "captured in our imaginations forever."

ONE THIRD OF WORKERS UNDER 35 LIVE WITH PARENTS

Art Levine, AlterNet - The AFL-CIO released the results of a disturbing new Peter Hart survey, "Young Workers: A Lost Decade" that found that about a third of workers under 35 live at home with their parents, and they're far less likely to have health care or job security than they were ten years ago. . . A quarter of young workers say they don't earn enough to even pay their monthly bills, a 14% rise from the last survey. . . Thirty-five percent are significantly less likely to have health care than older workers, only 31 percent make enough money to pay their bills while putting anything aside in savings, and almost half are more worried than hopeful about their economic future.

TARP REVENUE A TINY PERCENT OF BAILOUT FUNDS

Pro Publica - Recent reports have drawn attention to the billions in revenue that the Treasury Department has collected from companies early in returning their TARP investments. While those returns have been encouraging, there's no question that the taxpayer remains deep in the red.

In total, $392.6 billion remains outstanding to 641 recipients ($297 billion under the TARP and $95.6 billion that's gone to Fannie and Freddie). That total excludes the 35 companies that have returned a total of $71.6 billion. . .

Put all that together, and you get a total of $12.4 billion in revenue. Compared to the $392.6 billion in bailout funds still outstanding, it's reason for cooling any thoughts, at least for now, of the taxpayer pulling a profit.

OVER ONE IN TEN AMERICANS ON FOOD STAMPS

Reuters - More than 35 million Americans received food stamps in June, up 22 percent from June 2008 and a new record as the country continued to grapple with the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The food stamp program, which helps cover the cost of groceries for one in nine Americans, has grown in step with the U.S. unemployment rate which stood at 9.4 percent in July.

HEALTHCARE DEBATER CAUSES OPPONENT TO NEED HEALTHCARE

LA Times - Authorities are searching for a healthcare reform activist who they said bit off the finger of a 65-year-old counter-demonstrator during a fight at a MoveOn.org rally in Thousand Oaks. . . The incident occurred about 7 p.m. Wednesday at a “We Can’t Afford to Wait Vigil” organized by affiliates of the activist group Move On, which drew supporters of President Obama’s healthcare plan, Buschow said. The rally also attracted several counter-protesters, he said. During the rally at Lynn Road and Hillcrest Drive, near the Oaks Mall, the two men got into a heated argument and began fighting. “At which point, one man bit off the left pinky of the other,” Buschow said.

ROAD HOGS MISLED ABOUT HOW 'SHOVEL READY' THEY WERE

Elana Schor, Streets Blog - During debate over the White House's $787 billion economic stimulus law, transit advocates watched as their projects were shortchanged and more "shovel-ready" road projects got the lion's share of the transport pot -- about $8.4 billion, compared with $26.5 billion for highways and bridges. But transit money is getting put to use on the state level just as quickly as highway money, according to state-level stimulus data released Wednesday by the House transportation committee.

Across the 50 states, 5 percent of transit stimulus money has been spent (as opposed to allocated for for future projects), according to a Streetsblog Capitol Hill analysis of the House data. Just 3 percent of road stimulus money has gone out the door. . . Sixty percent of stimulus dollars for roads have started to move through the contracting process, according to Wednesday's House data, while 57 percent of transit stimulus money is already "out to bid."

FURTHERMORE. . .

TEACHING PRISONERS ABOUT SLAVE SHIPS AND PIRATES

HOMEOWNERS FORCED TO BECOME LANDLORDS

WHAT MANHATTAN LOOKED LIKE IN 1609

posted by TPR | 12:09 AM | 0 Comments
FREE EMAIL UPDATES
SEND US A DONATION
ABOUT THE REVIEW
NEW ARTICLES
READERS' PICKS
ALSO OF INTEREST
POCKET PARADIGMS
ESSAY ARCHIVES
SAM SMITH'S BIO
SAM SMITH'S BOOKS
SAM SMITH'S MUSIC

ENDS

© Scoop Media