Let's start in Philadelphia where Mayor Nutter is proposing, as part of his plan to improve the dire financial situation in the City, two new taxes. The first is an annual per household charge of $300 to pick up the garbage. (Each and every one of you over a certain age should have read "pick up the garbage" hearing Arlo Guthrie's voice in your head.) Also a 2 cent per ounce tax on sugary sodas. The garbage tax is a minor slope: most people pay to have their garbage picked up. The problem in Philadelphia is that they haven't looked at what it actually costs to pick up the garbage as opposed to privatizing the service. The real issue is the soda tax. Most people are up in arms about it being two cents per ounce. To give you an idea of what that means, a two litre bottle costs about a dollar (on sale), and has about 67 ounces in it, making the total cost $2.67, or almost three times the cost. I don't have a problem with that per se: the slippery slope theory has said all along that once you start taxing cigarettes and liquor outrageously, they'd start taxing everything else in bits and pieces. So, now we're on to soda. Next up will be potato chips and cookies and then meat....it won't stop.
The bigger problem is that for some reason people think that "soda" is appreciably worse than those 10% fruit drinks which have the same amount of added sugar, and are only missing the carbon dioxide, phosphoric acid and caffeine. Or worse than the diet soda, the fake sugars of which cause all sorts of direct organ problems. Or the other empty calories in the chips, cookies, and other junk food. Not to mention the fat content of hamburgers and hot dogs....it seems unfair to single out soda, but hey, you could see this one coming years ago.
Now, let's switch to Texas. I've been writing about the discussion there over history vs. religion for months and months. Finally, the Board voted, and it looks like Jefferson didn't make the cut. That's right, THOMAS Jefferson. Voting along party lines, 10 - 5, he doesn't make the history books, although Joe McCarthy does, as a hero. They also won't be allowing the separation of Church and State in their textbooks, plus all the other things we've been concerned about all this time. Think it doesn't matter? The State of Texas buys more textbooks than anyone else, and it's unlikely that the publishers will want several versions of the same books. The slippery slope here is that if other school boards agree to purchase these books, eventually history is revised to the point that it's only the Bible. Think that's hyperbole? Just wait and watch.
The goal of the Texas Board of Ed is to remove anything NOT related to the New Testament from school books. It's not just that they'll get history factually incorrect, this is an end run against teaching pure creationism in the schools.
Often, there's not much to do, but this time there is. If you have a child in a local school, or even pay taxes which go to support schools, say, um, property tax, contact your neighbors and other parents, and the teachers and the school board. Public comments will be taken over the next several months. Send in your comments saying that you won't pay taxes that go to Texas-compliant text books. Get the school boards to say they won't buy them. Send copies to all the publishers.
I'll add the addresses later today.....a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and a child's mind subject to propaganda and lies and then scrambled into pablum is even worse.
In his weekly address, President Barack Obama announced that on Monday, his administration will send to Congress the blueprint for an updated Elementary and Secondary Education Act that will overhaul No Child Left Behind. The plan will set the ambitious goal of ensuring that all students graduate from high school prepared for college and a career, and it will provide states, districts and schools with the flexibility and resources to reach that goal.
There are places that do not observe DST, like Arizona. The question is, why do we still observe it in the rest of the USA?
In researching this topic I found that I had a misconception, and one that is propagated even further like in movies like National Treasure. I grew up being told/taught that Ben Franklin gave us DST and the purpose was to allow farm kids daylight hours to do chores after school. But from my reading, the men pushing for DST were doing it more for Golf (and other outdoor activities). Congress actually repealed DST in 1919. They had to send the measure to Woodrow Wilson but he vetoed it twice. The second time his veto was overridden. So why do we have DST today? Lobbyist. That's right, according to what I have found, different Lobbyist groups pressed Congress to reinstate DST. Everything from Potato Farmers to Athletic Equipment providers saw that their products were used and bought more during DST hours. So, DST is probably good for some industries, but what does it cost?
I have seen wild figures thrown out that switching back and forth saves the average person $12 per year in electric bills, to that it cost the USA anywhere from $480 million up to $1.7 billion. You may be asking where does the $1.7 billion come from? It's basically from saying it takes every person in a DST area in the USA about 10 minutes to change the clocks, and the average hourly salary in the USA was 17.57in 2007, so when the math is done, it costs $1.7 billion in wage hours to change all the clocks twice a year. I think that is stretching it a bit. Just think how much it costs to shower each day. ;o)
For me the biggest cost to people is what it does to your internal time clock. Some people like me adjust relatively easy to the time change. But others, like my wife, struggle with the time change. If you are more sluggish because you woke up an hour earlier, that could be affecting everything from work production to increased traffic accidents.
So, do you like DST or would you like to see politicians repeal it again.
And don't forget - CHANGE YOUR CLOCKS AHEAD 1 HOUR TONIGHT!
If you don't live in Pennsylvania, the only race you may care about is the Senatorial primary between Arlen and Joe. But you may notice that there are 50 state senate positions and 203 state assembly positions. There may be more or fewer in your state, but there are a bunch in every state. And these folks will be responsible for redistricting in most states in 2011, therefore who wins this year has an absolute influence on our lives. Not to mention all the other state legislation that affects each and every one of us on a daily basis.
But that's not why I bring it up. I looked over the list to see how many of the people I know made their numbers for signed petitions. And that means "know", as in if you mentioned my name to them, they would know who I was. People often ask me how I know politicians, as if there is some magic to it. There isn't. You go to a place where they are, introduce yourself, have a conversation, maybe have coffee or lunch with them, write them notes, engage them in conversation. In this day and age, you can even be a politician's facebook friend: some only have fan pages, but many have regular pages where you can interact with them.
Elected officials at the state level are glad to know their constituents. Sure, there are some who are lazy, smarmy and untrustworthy and they don't want to know you, but most are decent people trying to do the best they can for their constituency within a system that is often byzantine.
I would like to bring your attention to the Democratic candidate for the 41st Assembly district: Jerry Policoff. I've known him a long time, and I've written about him in the past here on DCW because of his great work on Single Payer. Jerry was asked to run just because otherwise the Republican would run unopposed. He has never run for office before: he took on the petition process with gusto. While a lesser man would have let the people who asked him to run spread the petitions, he was out every day meeting people, telling them about himself, asking them for their signatures, and potentially for their support. He's put together a team who will help him with logistics/field planning, finance, and advertising. Jerry won't need help with messaging as his beliefs are sure, and he's a longtime writer, one who is very skilled. And yes, I'll be giving as much tactical support as I can.
Every four years people come out and most treat the presidential election like a sporting event: they care only about polls and percentages. They don't know any of the candidates at any level, they don't work the campaigns, they don't give money: it's all an abstraction. But governing goes on daily, year in year out. You should know who your people are, and maybe you want to try to be one of them!
Education matters: the more basic, the more important it is to more people. We can't all be astrophysicists or nuclear engineers, but we all NEED to know how to read, how to balance a checkbook, and in my wildest dreams rattle off all 50 state capitals.
If one cannot read, he can't navigate streets as all the signs look the same. He can't discern danger, such as poison warnings on packages. For those of us who can read, we take for granted all the things we do with it.
Economically, as lower skilled jobs are outsourced more and more, the job opportunities for those with academic limitations grow dimmer. You may think I'm being one of Agnew's effete intellectual snobs, but think about it. Take the trades, which can be well-paying, but which are often thought to be "low education" - one cannot be a great carpenter, or electrician or plumber without the math and reading skills necessary to measure twice, cut once. To undertake the calculations relative to water pressure and voltage.
Many low-skill jobs, like running a register at McDonald's, require computer skills. There's not an office job that doesn't require at least moderate computer skills.
And that's all before we get to the professions that require serious math and science skills: medicine, chemistry, physics, etc.
Yet our education system is failing. Kansas City is closing half its schools. A town in Rhode Island is trying to fire all the teachers at one school. Education budgets across the country are falling as the states lack the funds to send back to the municipalities and counties which run the schools. The other night, Brian Williams pointed out that 40 years ago, we had the highest high school graduation rate in the country, and now we have fallen to 18th out of 24 industrialized nations. And yet the number of hours kids spend in school learning are being cut both in terms of daily hours and number of days in the school year.
We are becoming a nation of idiots.
You'll be reading in the MSM a debate on "No Child Left Behind" vs dropping the tests. Another diatribe set on whether educational standards should be nationalized (Tennessee has adopted already, Texas and Alaska have said no matter what they won't participate). But it's more simple than that.
The problem is not all the new age mumbo-jumbo about how young boys learn differently, or whether teaching to the test is good or bad: as Pogo said "We have met the enemy and he is us". We, as a society, no longer care about basic education as a value.
When you have a stack of numbers to add, like checks on a bank deposit slip, do you use a pencil or a calculator? How many books have you read in the past year? (If parents read, their kids read.) If you're 40 or older, think back 20 years: how much time do you spend now, compared to then reading vs watching TV? Getting your current events from long articles vs just scanning the headlines on an RSS feed?
On a more basic level, do you know the parts of speech? Do you know how much as 10 net 30 bill costs you depending on when you pay? Can you understand the impacts of El Nino if you don't know which country is where?
Most importantly, in a perfect world of your making, how much salary should each of these people make in relative rank order: movie star, football player, singer, teacher?
My brother rightly says we have become the United States of Entertainment: we value flash in the pan, sports stars and entertainment stars far more than intellectuals. In fact, smart people are disdained by most of the population.
The politics of education are that for America to stay a world power, we need to be competitive: everything from our industrial policy affecting the types of business that function in the country compared to what is outsourced; the ability of our military to have a well-trained fighting force, the ability to collect intelligence, and the capability of developing tactics; the ability of our scientists to develop drugs and procedures which save lives; and on and on. Our government will never see education as a priority when we do not in our daily lives.
When you're 80 years old and dependent on an aide to give you medication, trust me, you really want that aide to know the difference between 10 ccs and 100 ccs.
President Obama has announced the list of charities he will donate his Nobel Peace Prize money to:
$250,000 to Fisher House
Fisher House is a national non-profit organization that provides housing for families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers.
$200,000 to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund
In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, President Obama asked former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to create the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund to raise funds for long-term relief efforts in Haiti.
$125,000 to College Summit
College Summit is a national non-profit organization that partners with elementary and middle schools and school districts to strengthen college-going culture and increase college enrollment rates, so that all students graduate from high school career and college-ready.
$125,000 to the Posse Foundation
The Posse Foundation is a national non-profit organization that identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. Posse’s college and university partners award Posse Scholars four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships. The scholars graduate at a rate of 90 percent.
$125,000 to the United Negro College Fund
The United Negro College Fund plays a critical role in enabling more than 60,000 students each year to attend college through scholarship and internship programs.
$125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund
The Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) is the nation's leading Hispanic scholarship organization, providing the Hispanic community more college scholarships and educational outreach support than any other organization in the country. In its 34 year history, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund has awarded close to $280M in scholarships to more than 90,000 students in need.
On Tuesday we told you about Carly Fiorina's bad day in California politics. Well, Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman outdid her with this embarrassing event:
I have not watched the news in about a week. I have not read a newspaper nor news on the web. Until about an hour ago. The why is after the jump, but the politics are that it appears that in a week, there has been lots and lots of health care. Plus another sex scandal, and something about Charlie Crist now being a Democrat....
Here in Pennsylvania we are a major hurdle closer to getting an Economic Impact Statement on Single Payer health care. Kudos to all at HealthCare4AllPA, especially Chuck Pennachio, Jerry Policoff and Cindy Purvis, who have worked tirelessly for years to get us to this point. As of last night, there are now 31 state senators, including 11 Republicans, who support it. Out of 50 total. While scanning my 600+ unread emails, I found the following video, which explains everything you need to know about how all the changes about health care at the Federal level mean things might well stay the same, but hope still rules at the state level:
I will be getting caught up over the next several days on what is going on with health care in DC. In addition, I'm sure I'll have some snarky comments on Eric Massa, as well as John Edwards who I've heard will be given his own headliner week on the new Mea Culpa cable channel. Finally, before "the phone call" I had promised Matt an update on the DCW Senate rankings so he can update the chart, and I'll be working on that, too.
Support for Charlie Crist from conservative voters has pretty much evaporated, and that's allowed Marco Rubio to build a 32 point lead in the Republican primary for Senate.
Rubio now leads Crist 60-28, including a staggering 71-17 lead with conservatives. Crist has a 49-36 advantage with party moderates, but they account for just 31% of likely primary voters compared to 65% who describe themselves as conservative. -PPP
And then PPP teases, as they love to do:
Our general election Senate numbers, which we'll release tomorrow, find that Crist is a good deal more popular with Democrats now than he is with Republicans. His path to any future electoral victory may come as an independent or perhaps even as a Democrat.
What's that, you say? Fiorina officially filed for the Senate today. That's a good day, right?
Not when the grandaughter of the founder of the company you use to run writes this to some GOP Senators:
I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded. So allow me to disillusion you of a few of your stated reasons for supporting here. ... You write that she is a ‘proven business leader. This may be how she spins her career, but most business commentators consider Fiorina’s tenure at HP to be a disaster. The stock price dropped by 50 percent, only to rally 10 percent on the announcement of her firing. She fired 28,000 people before she herself was fired, departing with the 21 million dollar golden parachute that is financing her campaign. ... "You say that Democrats fear Fiorina and use her name in fundraising. There is another explanation: her name is widely reviled in California." -Arianna Packard
While we wait for polls out of Arkansas (only 1, from January, giving Lincoln a 52-34 lead over Halter), here's where polling on the other three big May Senate Demoratic primary races stand:
Pennsylvania (May 18): This race hasn't moved in 5 months. Does Sestak have enough time to catch up?
Ohio (May 4): Still a huge undecided vote:
Kentucky (May 18): In the only poll out this year, and just out yesterday, Daniel Mongiardo leads Jack Conway 45-27.
And remember, too, that Massa voted against health care reform the first time around. So his resignation will not only draw down the number of votes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to collect. It does so without decreasing the number of members in the Democratic caucus who have already voted for reform.
Does Mitt Romney want the 2012 Republican Convention in Salt Lake?
Former -- and potentially future -- presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn't weighing in on where the Republicans should hold their next national convention.
Romney told The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday that he believes all three cities vying for the 2012 gathering -- Salt Lake City, Tampa and Phoenix -- are "terrific" cities but that he's not going to give a preference.
"I remember what an extraordinary host Salt Lake was for the 2002 Winter Games," Romney said, "but one thing I will stay a mile away from is any discussion of which city should be the host for the convention." ... Some observers have raised concerns that, if Romney is chosen as the Republican nominee in 2012, a convention in Salt Lake City, headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would put too much emphasis on his Mormon religion. ... Officials from the GOP's site-selection committee are expected to be in Salt Lake City in early April to tour facilities. -Salt Lake Tribune
Not that he'll have much if any say in the matter, but I assure you Mitt Romney does NOT want the 2012 GOP convention in Salt Lake. In the last 50 years, there have only been 2 other home-town conventions: Kerry in Boston in '04, and Bush in Houston in '88. It's safe to say neither site added much value to the ticket.
It's always amazing how quickly political careers can sometimes end:
New York Rep. Eric Massa will resign his House seat on Monday at 5 pm, his office confirmed to the Fix, a move that comes just days after he announced his plans to retire at the end of the year.
Massa acknowledged in a statement that "I'm guilty" of using inappropriate language in front of staff both in his home and in his office.
"There is no doubt in my mind I have used improper language," he said in the statement, first reported by the Corning (N.Y.) Leader. "It's my fault and I can't blame anyone but myself."
He said he does not know who reported him to House leaders or what was said.
"I can't subject my family and staff to a full investigation," Massa said. "It would tear us apart ... It's not that I can fight or beat these allegations, I'm guilty."
Not clear yet if there will be a Special Election before November, or if the Special (for the rest of the term) and the regular election will be held on Election Day.
Education matters: the more basic, the more important it is to more people. We can't all be astrophysicists or nuclear engineers, but we all NEED to know how to read, how to balance a checkbook, and in my wildest dreams rattle off all 50 state capitals.
