Daily Kos

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:16:05 GMT

Tonight's rescue brought to you by a synthetic cubist, mem from somerville, noddem, sunspark says, vcmvo2 and YatPundit, with srkp23 editing.

Might you be interested in Citizen Wealth? Hear intrepidliberal discuss it with The Ultimate Organizer: An Interview With ACORN's Founder Wade Rathke. (mem from somerville)

jtraynor wants you to meet the blue in Blue in A Progressive on the Force. (mem from somerville)

Rusty5329 writes about his first day as an abortion clinic escort in "I Meet the Anti's". (vcmvo2)

In a densely informative diary, FrankCornish compares The Lesson of Munich and the Lesson of Mossadegh. (a synthetic cubist)

dancewater focuses on those who are "missing" in Iraq, and how that came to be, in WWB: the disappeared. (vcmvo2)

Shocko from Seattle discusses the trials and tribulations of Japanese Beetles in Spray, baby, spray: an organic gardening thread. (YatPundit)

Take a stroll off the beaten path with a vintage dem and hear some vintage music in your head that does Not Fade Away...Quiet Reverence In a Bean Field In Northern Iowa. (mem from somerville)

Wayne A Schneider give us his best Don McLean impression with the song, Republicans Lie. (YatPundit)

In It's the Criminality, Stupid, arendt proposes a new political faction: "law-and-order Democrats." (a synthetic cubist)

sharistuff takes a down home and personal look at the effects of the recession in Laying Off Again, Too Small Not to Fail in America. (sunspark says)

In a Road Trip Photo Diary, john de herrera shares insights on sales and human nature. (a synthetic cubist)

DParker reminds us of a crucial and famous case in Great moments in criminal defense: Leopold and Loeb. (mem from somerville)

Two Roads shares another thorough presentation addressing the infinite possibilities that may exist out there in Saturday Night Uforia: Anatomy of an Explanation, Astronomical (Part 1) (noddem)

jotter serves up yesterday's High Impact Diaries: July 11, 2009 and last Week's High Impact Diaries: July 4-10, 2009.

virgomusic brings Top Comments - Gunk of Ages Edition.

If you enjoy Diary Rescue, please consider joining the Rescue Rangers. It's a great way to become more involved with the Daily Kos community. Did we mention it's rewarding and fun? To volunteer or learn more, please contact us (don't forget to tell us your screen name) at: dkos.rescuerangers@gmail.com

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

The cost of no public option

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:00:05 GMT

There's a lot of arguing about the cost of the public option. The plan put forward by the HELP committee, is expected to cost $600 billion. The numbers (plucked from extremely well researched thin air) by the GOP insist the final number will be well above a trillion.

But what does it cost us to not have a public option?

Some of the costs of not having a public option are simple to calculate, but immeasurable in value. Infant mortality rates in the United States are 6.37 deaths/1,000 live births. A sampling of other industrialized nations with public health care finds the United Kingdom at 5.01 deaths / 1,000 live births. Canada at 4.63. France at 3.41. If the United States infant mortality matched that of the United Kingdom, just under 6,000 fewer infants would have died in the United States last year. If we could match France around 13,000 fewer infants would have died.

Let's move to the other end of the spectrum. As of 2009, life expectancy in the United States is 78.11 years. Which sounds pretty good, until you realize it puts us one slot above Albania. For the United Kingdom, this number is 79.01 years. For France it's 80.98. For Canada, 81.23. for the United States, that means about 270,000,000 years lost compared just to the slightly better numbers of the UK. 936,000,000 years lost compared to Canada. Want to stick a monetary value on it? Say that just a fourth of these Americans in their golden years are pulling down 20 hours a week and getting minimum wage to wave you into the local big box or bag your groceries. That's $442 billion worth of time lost compared to the UK. About $1.5 trillion lost if those workers had lived as long as Canadians.

There are good things to be said about the American system. When you're in an American hospital, a very good level of immediate care makes you more likely to survive the immediate aftermath of a health crisis. Just had a heart attack? Hug that cardiac care unit close and you're 20% more likely to hang around than your neighbor to the north. However, a low quality of long term and follow up care erodes that difference over the course of a year. Sorry.

But those are only a few of the direct effects of the cost of health care that's distributed by wealth rather than need. There are indirect effects that are equally dramatic.

Millions of Americans are in what's called "job lock." They can't leave their jobs because they feel they can't get the same health insurance benefits on their own or at the next job. A new poll by NPR News, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government shows that one out of four Americans has experienced job lock, in the last couple of years, or someone in their immediate family has. That's despite legislation enacted six years ago to deal with the problem.

Having health care that, for most Americans, continues to be directly tied to their employment has one very clear cost: it makes people less likely to voluntarily leave their current job. Sure, COBRA is now available, but the cost of continuing health insurance on your own is enough to make it of questionable value. The complex and highly variable nature of coverage makes it almost impossible for the average consumer to tell which, if any, insurance plan available to them represents a reasonable deal. Many Americans decide to stick with "the devil they know" rather than face rising costs, the uncertainty of acceptance, and the fear related to going it on your own.

Describing something as complex as losses to the economy caused by job lock is difficult. A precise answer is likely out of reach for even the most detailed computer model. However, the scale of the problem is easily demonstrated with a very simple equation.

Wait! Don't run away. Yes, I did say equation and there are a few symbols lurking just ahead, but there's nothing here more complex than multiplication. And it'll be worth it. Trust me.

Here's that equation. W * L * E * S * V = N

Look like nonsense? Let's fill in the letters.

W = the total number of workers in the United States. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number is right around 155 million.

L = the number of people who would leave their current jobs if employer-specific health insurance was not an issue. The NPR value cited above is at the low end of numerous studies from the early 1990s through 2008 that have put this number from around 25% to as high as 50%. Let's assume that a lot of folks claiming they'd be out that door if only they could be sure of health care are daydreaming and use the lower value.

E = the percentage of people who, after leaving their current jobs, we would attempt to become entrepreneurs and start new businesses. The rate of US workers engaged in entrepreneurial activity has fallen recently, due mostly to exactly this issue. With an average policy running $12,000 a year, many people who would ordinarily try to launch something new, instead move to another position with some portion of the health care cost provided. As of 2008, the "entrepreneurial index" -- those people who when switching jobs decided to start their own business -- was around 10%.

S = the percentage of entrepreneurs who successfully launch a new business. Depending on the study, the percentage of new small business that hold on for at least five years is somewhere between 30% and 50%.

V = the value generated by the average successful entrepreneur. This is a tough number to figure, as businesses can add value to an economy in a variety of ways. Does that new service or product enable some other business to expand? What about the experience that workers get before moving on to another job? Raising property values near an active office. And, of course, salaries paid out to employees. As a starter number, let's use $100,000 per year. Don't worry, we can change it later.

So what does that give us? Well, 25% of 155 million is 38.8 million people swapping jobs. 10% of that is 3.88 million people trying to start up new businesses. If just 30% of those are successful, that's 1.16 million new businesses in the United States -- which is a pretty amazing number all on its own. Job lock is costing us a million new businesses, maybe even a million new businesses a year. And if each of those business contributes $100K to the overall economy, that's a boost of $116 billion a year. If each of those new businesses employed 5 people, it would replace all the jobs lost in 2009. And 2008.

'N,' the "No Public Plan" cost, the cost of the job lock created by health care insurance provided mostly through employers, is $116 billion per year. Use the same 10 year period that the health care plan costs are predicated on, and that's over a trillion bucks.

The trillion dollar job lock tax. That's what we pay now for not having a public option.

When East meets West

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:59:05 GMT

There is a widespread consensus among most climate researchers and scientific organizations that the planet is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions mostly produced by human activity. But when it comes to what we should do about it, there is nothing like a consensus. The methods that do exist can be divided into two broad categories: reducing emissions by making it them 1) expensive or 2) obsolete. Past experience suggests that in the end, obsolete will be the most effective solution, and the synthesis of government, science, and good old fashioned capitalism is the best bet to make it possible.

It wasn't that long ago when the same political party now convinced government spending is reckless or evil -- unless it involves tax cuts for billionaires or killing people -- presided over one of the greatest counterexamples to their thesis:

At 12:47 Louie Jacobs, who was Central Pacific telegrapher at the end of track ticked out this message. "Almost ready. Hats off: prayer is being offered." ... and all over the country groups of people gathered in telegraph offices to hear the bulletins ... At Washington, D. C. a ball was suspended outside the capitol building which was detached and dropped at the first tap of the hammer at Promontory. Wires were extended to the bell in the capitol dome and each tap of the hammer more than 2000 miles away was repeated on the great bell.

And with those ceremonial hammer blows on May 10, 1869 in the rugged high desert of Promontory Point, Utah, America was connected from sea to shining sea via the first transcontinental railroad. It was the culmination of decades of cooperation between government agencies and railroad companies, the present day equivalent of trillions of dollars invested, and the subject of bitter controversy every hard won step of the way.

Some worried the financial burden alone would wreck the US economy, or threaten the delicate pre Civil War balance between the agrarian South and industrial North. A number of naysayers said the railroad would never work; snow and ice would leave goods and passengers stranded in the wilderness. Indians would raid the freight and scalp the riders. Others opined it would work too well and put thousands of stage coach operators and merchant ships out of business. The railroads were corrupt and that graft was being spread to the government, it invited unwelcome immigrants, conscript labor in most cases. The whole thing was all a giant rip off of the American taxpayer ... and on and on. The skeptics were mostly sincere, some of their arguments sound, a few tragic predictions even came to pass, but in general they could not have been more wrong.

Far from ruining the nation, transcontinental railroads were a major factor in forging the country we know today. The demand for steel and timber alone alone fueled an enormous economic boom in mills and coal mines. Goods and people soon moved back and forth in days instead of weeks, the cost to ship materials subsequently dropped, and the average standard of living skyrocketed. Energy and steel tycoons rose to great wealth and funded schools, hospitals, and observatories. Universities created and then expanded engineering and science departments to meet the demand, newly minted professionals trained in those fields rolled off the academic assembly line like steam engines and rail ties to usher in an era of innovation. The telephone, phonograph, electric lights, anesthetics, and Kodak film; the fruits of labs and research facilities, from Menlo Park to Mount Wilson, soon escorted the growing United States out of the Wild West and onto the world stage as a global, technological super-power.

We the People partnering up with the best the academic and private sectors have to offer to meet great challenges, it’s the tried and true American way from Kitty Hawk to Mare Tranquillitatis and back to Silicon Valley. It's a big part of what made us a great nation. While we have used that home-grown ingenuity for war and peace, looking back over the last 150 years, it’s hard to argue with the results. And as fate would have it, today we have an opportunity to continue that legacy, in peace, whether it's building a future in space or rebuilding another on earth with alternative energy and green technology. Just as so many times in the past there are a lot of good, mutually inclusive reasons to do it. And sadly, just as then, there is no scarcity of no-can-do skeptics who say we cannot, or should not, do great things again.

Toughest Road in Election 2010 Is Through the Governor's Mansion

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:00:04 GMT

For most folks on the left, consuming political opinion polling data has been a much less enjoyable exercise in 2009 than it has been for the past few cycles.

Call it the soft bigotry of high expectations--when you win everything not nailed down for four consecutive years, you begin to experience a deep sense of dread with every race where a double-digit lead is not present. Being down in a race brings nothing short of absolute panic.

The fact of the matter is that voter pessimism is translating to less than enviable numbers for many Democratic incumbents as we head into the 2010 election cycle. There is an inherent logic to that, of course. If voters are angry with "the guy in the office", you are more likely to feel the wrath if you actually ARE the guy in the office.

Nowhere is this voter antipathy being felt more acutely than among the nation's governors. 2009 polling data for our Democratic governors has been less than robust, as you can see from the following examples (source for polling data is here):

General Election Trial Heats: Democratic Governors

Colorado: Ritter (D) 41, McInnis (R) 48 (PPP, 4/19)
Illinois: Quinn (D) 39, Brady (R) 32 (PPP, 4/26)
Massachusetts: Patrick (D) 40, Mihos (R) 41 (Rasmussen, 6/24)
Michigan*: Cherry (D) 36, Cox (R) 35 (EPIC/MRA, 5/21)
New York: Paterson (D) 37, Giuliani (R) 54 (Marist, 6/25)
Ohio: Strickland (D) 44, Kasich (R) 39 (DKos/R2000, 7/8)
Oklahoma*: Edmondson (D) 38, Fallin (R) 48 (PPP, 5/17)
Oregon*: Kitzhaber (D) 44, Walden (R) 38 (DKos/R2000, 6/24)
Pennsylvania*:: Onorato (D) 29, Corbett (R) 34 (Susquehanna-R, 5/30)

An asterisk (*) denotes an open seat for a retiring Democratic incumbent.

The above list, by the way, does not include Wisconsin, because the two recent polls here (ours and PPP's) had widely disparate results. The Democratic incumbent, Jim Doyle, is either up by several or down by several, depending on your pollster.

It is a roll call of close races and deficits that is sobering, to be sure. It is also fairly understandable.

Check out the following headlines from recent newspapers across the country:

"Budget ills invite debate over cuts, taxes"--Dayton (OH) Daily News
"Budget panel told state is headed for cliff"--The Colorado Statesman
"Rendell plans 13% cut in higher-education budget"--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Officials warn: Cuts would be dead-serious for zoos"--The Boston Herald
"Md. Starts Fiscal Year $700 Million in Red"--The Washington Post
"Job-training program a victim of budget battle"--The Connecticut Post

...and the list goes on and on.

If you are the chief executive of just about any American state at this moment, there are simply no good choices. At this point, it is down to deciding what tax to raise amid a deluge of wailing and shouting, or deciding which essential program is going to be cut beyond recognition.

There is virtually nothing to be done that it is not going to result in hard feelings and political peril. Such are the times that we live in and they govern in.

Despite that, there are two things to remember about all of this, at least from the standpoint of cold political analysis:

1. This is not solely a Democratic problem

The traditional media, and even a handful of Democratic commentators (the intellectual descendants of Eeyore, in most cases), seem intent on flogging the "2010 will be a GOP comeback year" scenario for all that it is worth.

While it is reasonable to conclude that it is unlikely for Democrats to have a third dominant cycle in a row, a lot of the doomsday scenarios are probably equally overblown.

For one thing, any growing discontent with the Democratic Party, and there certainly seems to be some, has not been countered by an increase in public esteem for the GOP. Instead, when you look at the Daily Kos/Research 2000 State of the Nation Tracking Poll trends from January to the present, you will see that the public opinion of the GOP has trended even lower than that of the Democratic Party:

Furthermore, it is not as if Republican Governors are beloved while their Democratic counterparts are reviled. Many Republican governors are also seeing their lowest job approval ratings in their statehouse tenures. Again, there is nothing surprising in any of this. They are also the ones making ugly decisions, and their esteem in the eyes of voters will suffer predictably.

As you can see below, the GOP is in mearly as much danger of losing governorships as the Democrats are. The absence of endangered incumbents (all of the polls below are open seat races) is owed to the fact that most of the GOP's governors were either the casualties of term limits or (like Pawlenty and Palin) early retirements:

General Election Trial Heats: Republican Governors

Alabama*: Byrne (R) 39, Davis (D) 35 (PPP, 6/5)
California*: Whitman (R) 30, Brown (D) 41 (Lake Research-D, 2/29)
Florida*: McCollum (R) 41, Sink (D) 35 (Mason Dixon, 6/26)
Georgia*: Oxendine (R) 46, Barnes (D) 44 (D-Kos/R2000, 4/30)
Hawaii*: Aiona (R) 36, Abercrombie (D) 45 (D-Kos/R2000, 6/17)
Minnesota*: Coleman (R) 37, Rybak (D) 43 (PPP, 7/8)

An asterisk (*) denotes an open seat for a retiring Democratic incumbent.

And that doesn't even count Nevada Republican Jim Gibbons, who (inexplicably) is planning on running for re-election with a 10% job approval rating.

2. With Time on The Clock, Circumstances Are Very Fluid

The mountain of polling data above, for both parties, should be accompanied with one monstrous caveat--Nobody wins an election in July of the off-year. There is a lot that can change between now and November of 2010.

On balance, that is probably good news for the Democrats. If the economy improves substantially in that time frame, the Democrats are liable to engage in the lions share of the credit-taking. Of course, the converse is also true--if the economy is worse or stagnant, voter patience may well run out. Most analysis suggests that the former is slightly more likely than the latter, with at least some recovery underway by the end of 2010.

Also, polling data right now in many of these races is predicated on voter sentiment towards the incumbent party. The challenger is still, in most cases, an undefined quantity. As challengers become known (via primaries and candidate entrances and exits), the polls are liable to change.

New Jersey may be an instructive example here. In March, Republican nominee Chris Christie had a fifteen-point lead over incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, according to Rasmussen. Corzine was, without question, being weighted down by grumpiness over the state of his state.

As the campaign has lurched forward, the lead has receded. One theory as to WHY it has receded is this: the challenger is now being defined. It is no longer "the governor whose state is in a budget stalemate over how much to cut" versus "the new guy". It is Jon Corzine versus Chris Christie, who now has more eyes on him as he explains what HE would do if he were in this position. As he does so, his once sizeable lead over the incumbent has shrunk noticeably: down to seven points (46-39) in the latest Rasmussen Poll.

This could be mimicked in places like Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, and Massachusetts.

The bottom line is this: governors, because of their unloved role as hatchet-men in the current political/economic climate, are going to take their lumps. The tenor of the times would seem to demand at least one or two political careers on a stick.

Premature projections of absolute disaster, however, are probably errant.

Unqualified By Design

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:00:04 GMT

Sarah Palin is unqualified. She is at a minimum intellectually incurious. She is unethical. And calling these things for what they are is not an anti-feminist act. Nor is Sarah Palin the individual the real issue.

This can be a delicate question because qualified, honorable women have so often been called unqualified and attacked for their ambition or assertiveness. But...c'mon. Sarah Palin's lack of qualification for high elected office is so patently clear in just about every one of her public statements and actions over the past 10 months that to not call it out as such is offensive to women (and men) who have worked hard to develop knowledge and mastery of any skill or body of knowledge. Of course there are lines of brutal personal attack that should never be crossed. But it's not productive either to nutpick or to try to establish equivalencies. The question here is whether it is legitimate to call out the lack of qualification of a female politician for the role to which she aspires, and the answer is a clear yes.

Yet this idea persists, that we have to be somehow gentle with Palin because it would be sexist to call her for what she is: A national political figure of perhaps-unprecedented lack of qualification, thoughtfulness, or respect for the obligations of office. Back in the fall, we repeatedly saw the notion that if Joe Biden campaigned against her aggressively, he would suffer for the appearance of beating up on a helpless girl. Much more recently, Peter Daou has compared Palin's treatment to that of his former employer, Hillary Clinton. This seems like a terrible insult to Clinton, who was attacked more pervasively, more personally, and by more prominent people over a period of more than a decade despite -- and this is crucial -- being a qualified, honorable person.

Of course, Palin has been criticized and mocked. But although she is criticized and mocked, she is also on many levels taken seriously as a national political figure. The discussion of her recognizes some of her shortcomings without connecting the dots to say what should be clear to even the most actual observer: Sarah Palin is not on the same continuum of qualification as almost any other national-level politician. (George W. Bush may represent the more-qualified end of the continuum on which Palin exists -- and it is to the traditional media's shame and the nation's detriment that he wasn't called out for what he was earlier and more clearly. Michele Bachmann's on there somewhere too.)

But restricting this discussion to Palin herself misses the larger point -- why are we talking about her?

Sarah Palin got to the governorship of Alaska on her own. At that point, political geeks and people in Alaska knew who she was, and that was about it. Palin became a national figure because John McCain selected her as his running mate. Why did he select her as his running mate, despite having barely spoken to her and not having vetted her? Because she was a woman. Because she would shake things up and get attention and seem unexpected. Out of the hope that PUMAs would flock to her. Because, more generally, the McCain campaign hoped that having a woman on the ticket would be an adequate stand-in for taking issue positions that women would vote for.

That's where the real and massive sexism in how Palin has been treated lies, and while she was certainly affected by it, the real victims are women who have worked hard to get somewhere in politics, and women voters who were assumed by a major party presidential nominee to be stupid enough to vote for a woman without consideration of her positions.

There are plenty of Republican women who would have been reasonable choices for vice president. I would still disagree with almost all of their positions, but see them as competent and qualified. But they, for one reason or another, apparently didn't measure up. And we can find hints of why that is in votes like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, on which the four Republican women in the Senate voted yes while the 36 men voted no. Those qualified women didn't pass wingnut muster. Sarah Palin did.

So, yeah. As long as Republicans choose to elevate women based on the hope that voters will be fooled into thinking that woman on ticket = policy stances friendly to women, families, and working people, it is not only not sexist to call that out for what it is, it's sexist not to.

Sadly, this is a question relevant not only to Palin; Republicans are not averse to running this play again and again. So we're told by Republican commentators that, in New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte is a particularly strong candidate because she's a mother of young children, that Ayotte, like Palin, is a strong candidate because she's an outsider, because:

Like Obama, they don't have to talk the talk of change. They are change.

That is what Republicans want us to believe, that policies don't matter, that tokenism produces meaningful change. We see it too with RNC chair Michael Steele -- Republicans responding to the election of an African American president by getting an African American spokesperson of their own...and not changing a thing about the policies that lead on the order of 90% of African American voters to vote for Democrats even when Barack Obama is not on the ticket.

If we pull back from criticizing the tokens Republicans throw up to stand in the way of real change, we legitimize the strategy. In discussing -- mocking, criticizing -- the tokens themselves, we of course must be respectful of their humanity, and should always remember that the individual is not the real issue. But unqualified is unqualified, unethical is unethical, bad on the issues is bad on the issues, and it would be a disservice to the nation not to say so.

Midday Open Thread

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:02:20 GMT

Two bomb blasts in southern Afghanistan killed four U.S. Marines.

McCain was on the talk show circuit this morning, defending Sarah Palin.

GOP leaders backed off calls for Sanford's resignation after pleas from Jenny Sanford.

A legal victory for pro-choice advocates in the state of Washington.

A malfunction on a Obama campaign charter plane last summer was more serious than initially reported.

The Franklin Park Zoo in Boston may be forced to close and euthanize some animals due to lack of funding.

China just became the world's largest auto market.

Book review: Jon Jeter's "Flat Broke"

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:00:04 GMT

Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People
By Jon Jeter
Hardcover, $25.95, 256 pages
W.W. Norton: New York
May 2009

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States is giving birth to the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will be shorter, not longer, than their parents'. Our system of global finance has put us on the precipice, teetering on ruin. As of mid-2008, the United States has bequeathed to the world the biggest speculative bubble, the worst housing crisis, and the gravest economic meltdown in nearly eighty years, and the response from America's political class has been the largest single transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in at least a century.

**

Globalization is an international shakedown, and its targets are ordinary people across the globe, men and women made sojourners in the country of their birth by global finance and its missionaries.

As Washington Post bureau chief first in southern Africa and later in South America, Jon Jeter has had a ringside seat watching the devastation unfold as a result of what he calls the "economic fundamentalism" that has created a "transnational underclass."

"This book," he writes, "takes the measure of that biblical cataclysm."

And this book, with Jeters' powerful writing and obvious empathy for the underdog, will break your heart.

Rather than relay dry statistics and charts alone, Jeters uses personal stories of the exploited and downtrodden worldwide to bring attention to the plight of the hundreds of millions suffering under the yoke of the new colonialism -- economic imperialism spread by the cooperation of the World Bank, multinational corporations and the private/public elite who run the world. This is not to say he ignores stats altogether; there are end notes and attributions throughout.

But it's people and their stories first for this former reporter, and his ability to put his subjects comfortably in their natural settings, in their normal routines, is magical.

The lives he has captured as vividly as Kodachrome include:

Rose Shanzi of Zambia, who spends all afternoon praying to sell 75 cents worth of tomatoes so she and her five kids can eat that day, in a free-for-all market where every broke person is trying to sell pittances to every other broke person in the hot sun of an African afternoon. It's a crap shoot, and more often than not, she loses.

Sylvia Ozuna of Buenos Aires, a prostitute, turns over care of her child to a minder so she can hit the streets for $10 a throw. She originally moved to Argentina six years ago from Paraguay with a plan to go to medical school, and she'd worked cleaning offices until the peso was devalued and her economic world bottomed out.

Miguel Machado of Buenos Aires, who takes five of his children each night with him to rummage through the garbage for recyclables while his wife takes care of babies at home. Originally a sugar cane field worker who bettered himself by moving to the city to work in a mill for $600 a month, his world collapsed like Ozuna's with the Argentine peso.

Isabella Lopes da Silva of Brazil, a former secretary who lost her job (as did her son-in-law and daughter) in the Brazilian GDP contraction of 2003, and now has been reduced to using local superstitious ritual and prayer to try and get relief.

Paulo Roberto, a Brazilian cabdriver, son of a maid, with "four children, ulcers and a lot on his mind," who celebrates his 46th birthday realizing he'll never escape the grind of poverty as a fellow victim of the Brazilian economy.

Agnes Mohapi, 58, living with her 24-year-old daughter in Soweto, suffering electricity outages and water contamination as the post-apartheid government of South Africa struggles to join the globalization game by putting the screws to its services to citizens while it tries to dress itself up to appeal to foreign investors.

There are others in these pages, too, all of whom are fighting in trenches they rarely realize are shared by others half a world away. Even the so-called First World is not immune; Jeters spends a whole chapter examining the role of former Black Panther Bobby Rush, rehabilitated now as a member of Congress who's gotten in bed with telecoms and other corporations in troubled relationships Rush claims are designed to bring grants back to the South Side of Chicago. And Jeters looks at another Chicago native, Sonia, seemingly upwardly mobile with her current enrollment in graduate school, yet unable to find a man who is of her "class" and/or not threatened by her success.

Gentrification of both people and property, the author intimates, are hollowing out not just physical neighborhoods, but traditional emotional relationships as well, both familial and societal. As byproducts of a thoughtless, near-primeval drive toward globalization, anything that can't be quantified--human awareness, the spirit of a public school, the historical meaning of place--is not even consciously discarded. It's simply dumped. The aspects of human life that are important as lived are simply ignored, creating a fellowship of the dispossessed, even when, in cases like Sonia's, her dispossession is created by her rising on the ladder of what is applauded as "success" in the imperial worldview.

And it's undermining the foundations of democracy as well:

This is the new global class war, a conflict that increasingly recognizes neither race, nor geopgraphy nor traditional alliances. Worldwide, widening inequality has increasingly estranged ordinary working people from the proxies they choose to represent them in democratic discussion.

These characters in Flat Broke are painfully real, full of integrity and valor as they struggle to keep roofs over the heads of their children and aging parents--willing to dig through garbage, sell their bodies, kill their own dreams, pray to discredited gods for relief, barter over rotting vegetables.

Through these stories, we get a glimpse of what "hyperinflation" means when it's at street and gut level. Far outside the ivory tower realms of Milton Friedman's University of Chicago, these are how those "acceptable" levels of unemployment or deregulation or "destablization" play out, in the gutters and squalid homes of once-making-it families who have become, in the eyes of Masters of the Universe, disposable garbage.

Jeters tells these tales sadly and nobly, with a mingling of melancholy and anger. Ultimately, he points to efforts to revitalize local economies as the most likely way to gradually pull the miserable millions out of the morass created by the greedy. Chile, post-Friedman experimentation, when the state reverted back to using some common-sense protectionist policies and re-regulation of national assets, seems to be providing one clear example of a way forward.

But in the end, it's going to take political will, and attention to consequences, and demands for information and accountability of multi-nationals and government to find a way ahead for those suffering in poverty worldwide. It may not seem like much, but awareness of the scope and origin of the problem has got to be the first step, and Flat Broke is one of the best foundational platforms imaginable to get informed and viscerally connected with the depth of the crisis. It's a marvelous book, tenderly written and passionately conceived.

Interview With Dr. Judith Palfrey, FAAP, President Elect, American Academy of Pediatrics

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:00:03 GMT

As a pediatric subspecialist in practice for twenty years (pediatric pulmonology), I have been a long time member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I have been proud of their advocacy for children, including their being a reputable source of information and a strong voice for pandemic preparedness from a pediatric perspective (special thanks to the Committee on Infectious Diseases for that work), as well as keeping an eye on teen smoking risks, well before it was fashionable to do so.

Professional organizations like the AAP are very important to practicing docs, and there are as many professional organizations as there are specialties. Many practicing docs belong to one or more professional organizations; some are more politically active than others. Recently, I wrote about why I have not been a member of the American Medical Association. Few, if any, of the professional societies are more patient-focused than the AAP, which helps to establish practice standards for pediatricians all over the country, and advocates for issues as diverse as lead screening, autism recognition, health reform and nutrition in schools.

I had the opportunity to discuss some of these issues with the President Elect of the AAP, Dr. Judith Palfrey, FAAP (Fellow, American Academy of Pediatrics.) Dr. Palfrey has a distinguished record from Radcliffe, Columbia and Children's Hospital, Boston, where she is based, and is all too familiar with the issues and barriers that pediatricians, specialists and primary care docs face in practicing modern medicine today, issues that are at the heart of health reform.

Daily Kos: Thanks for making yourself available. Let’s talk some about health reform, and how it relates to children.

Does the AAP have specific concerns about how the health reform debate is playing out in regard to the needs of children and adolescents? What are we not talking enough about?

The AAP supports the current effort to reform our health care system, particularly as it relates to improved access, benefits, quality, efficiency and appropriate payment for services. We do have concerns that policy-makers and the general public think that the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) earlier this year accomplished all the goals of health reform for children. It was an important step forward, but CHIP was not health reform for children. There are still millions of uninsured children. With the recession and its effects on states, even with Medicaid and CHIP, there are woefully inadequate funds to provide high quality health services to children. Also, privately insured children are not assured the age-appropriate pediatric benefits. Our state immunization programs are not well funded and we lack registry functions to track and monitor vaccines.

We are also very concerned that policymakers and the general public do not understand that pediatric services are undervalued. In many states, children cannot get access to health care because Medicaid rates are at 60-70 percent of Medicare (which, by the way, is often considerably lower than private insurance).

Finally, we do have effective, proven methods of prevention and care delivery that are not fully deployed because of mal-alignment of incentives in our current system. We are eager to see explicit recognition of the importance of maternity benefits, the Medical Home, Bright Futures and support for pediatric subspecialists and pediatric emergency and hospital services.

Daily Kos: The AMA recently made news with opposition to a public option. Other specialty groups like the American Academy of Family Physicians appear more open to a public plan ( http://www.aafp.org/... ) Does the AAP have a position?

Our position is that we want to remove all barriers to full access to age-appropriate benefits with appropriate payment. We will accept any program that delivers on those goals.

Daily Kos: There appears to be a shortage of primary care doctors looming. Are there enough pediatricians and pediatric specialists to meet future needs, including after universal care is achieved? Is it the right mix? If not, what do we need to do to fix the problem?

You are right. Because of all the hassles and difficulties in our current system, many young people have opted not to go into primary care. They see a life that is filled with administrative forms, telephone trees to authorize medications, inadequate payment for services provided and too little time to practice the kind of high quality medicine they have been taught. Reforming the system will do a great deal to bring people back into primary care.

We also have a real problem with the mal-distribution of pediatric subspecialists. Rural areas and some poor urban areas find it hard to attract and retain pediatric subspecialists. In some ways, this is a much harder nut to crack because it has to do with the low volume of cases in the lower population areas as well as the desire of subspecialists to be affiliated with research universities where they can be involved in working on the latest science. The advent of electronic medical records and telemedicine should provide some relief for this problem, but we will probably not solve it entirely without serious attention to regionalization of services and more attention to epidemiology, demographics and placing doctors where they can reach out most effectively to the greatest number of patients through techniques such as circuit riding and co-management.

Finally, young people who are interested in medicine in general are being turned off and are turning away from potential careers in pediatrics (both primary care and subspecialty) because of the enormous debt burden they face...now in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Obama administration’s recognition of this problem and attention to it is most welcome and should help the situation if there is adequate funding for loan repayment.

Daily Kos: We have a new head of the FDA (Margaret Hamburg). What message would you give her regarding the availability and approval of medications for children, particularly new medications that come on board that may or may not have been tested in children, or come in child-friendly forms?

The FDA serves the very important function of assuring the safety and efficacy of drugs and medical devices. Children's bodies are different from those of adults and they handle medications differently. If children are not involved in drug trials, many life saving and health promoting medicines and medical devices remain unavailable to children. For more than a decade AAP has been on the forefront of legislative initiatives to improve children's access to medicines and devices that are labeled for their use. We have made progress legislatively in getting more access to needed testing and FDA has been a good partner in implementing appropriate policies regarding children. We welcome Dr. Hamburg and encourage FDA to continue to involve children and adolescents in the FDA's priorities.

Daily Kos: Does the AAP have a position on the new law regarding tobacco products being regulated by the FDA? How about funding SCHIP through tobacco taxes?

Yes. The AAP has been a strong advocate for regarding tobacco as a product needing regulation. Tobacco manufacturers market tobacco aggressively to teen-agers by adding flavors and using teen-attracting slogans and other techniques. We know that people who start smoking in their adolescent years have a high likelihood of becoming addicted to cigarettes. Having the FDA regulate tobacco will have the benefit of governmental oversight on how the products are promoted.

Tobacco taxes have provided a double benefit. The tax has been a good source of revenue. And raising taxes deters smoking. We are actually supportive of this pro-health approach related to products such as sugar-sweetened beverages, which are associated with the obesity epidemic.

Daily Kos: In a pandemic or other natural disaster, special needs children are among the most vulnerable populations. Are we doing enough to prepare for the needs of this population and their parents?

The American Academy of Pediatrics is very concerned that children are often not considered when disaster plans are being made. Disasters may happen during the day when children are in school and daycare and can become separated from their families. Systems for reunification are critically important. Stockpiles of medications in pediatric formulations should be a routine part of the disaster plan as well as high priority responses to address the needs of children who have special health care needs and may depend on technologies that require generator or other back-ups.

Thank you, Dr. Palfrey.

The American Academy of Pediatrics health reform links and web site can be found at www.aap.org

^{Previous Daily Kos interviews with health care and policy experts, including Erika Seward (American Lung Association), Jeff Levi (Trust For America's Health), Georges Benjamin (American Public Health Association) and Scott Layne (UCLA School of Public Health) can be found by clicking the links.}

Book Review: Unscientific America

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:57:44 GMT

Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future
By Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum
Basic Books, New York, July 2009
Hardcover, 209 Pages, $ 24.00 New
Extended Author Q & A Here

Forty years after Apollo 11 half of all Americans believe that humans were created in their present form less than ten thousand years ago. Senators, Representatives, and influential pundits proudly deride global warming and ridicule the overwhelming scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change. Science sections in traditional media outlets are reduced or eliminated completely, while virtually every newspaper runs a daily astrology column. How did the most advanced scientific nation on earth end up like this, what are the consequences, and what can or should be done about it?

Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum is a must read for anyone who cares about understanding or reversing the long national slide into pseudoscience and willful ignorance that has periodically gripped America. The book neatly follows up Mooney's best seller, The Republican War on Science, into a broader, nonpartisan narrative of an entire nation enamored by the nifty gizmos and life saving applications of science, yet saddled with a long history of anti-intellectualism that periodically spills over into open contempt. It's a dose of stiff but sorely needed medicine for baby boomers and genx'ers who grew up during a short thaw in that icy antiscience trend by way of a cold war, a hot space race, and one great communicator named Carl Sagan.

The book is full of delightfully written examples of assaults on science, each ripe with opportunity for anyone wise enough to seize it. The demotion of Pluto produced sacks of angry mail, and ignited a wave of interest in planetary astronomy from kindergartens to grad schools. Hollywood needlessly butchers science and scientists on the alter of cinematic appeal, but special effects wizardry in movies like Jurassic Park by-passed the usual media filters and stereotypes to kick-start a whole new generation of paleontologists and geneticists. The Bush administration's authoritarian disregard for science was legendary, but it galvanized the scientific community into action like no other Presidency.

Enter the era of cable television and the Internet: alas, as the book honestly explains, in today's fractured information landscape, science friendly mags, TV programs, and blogs are preaching to the choir. It's just as easy, if not more so, for a creationist or moon landing hoaxer to find websites that cater to their predispositions as it is to find Science Blogs or Discover Online.

As to who is too blame, the short answer, presented with convincing research and rationale, is everyone. Politicians poorly trained in science have little to gain and much to lose by taking firm positions, a point well illustrated by the brick wall Mooney and others ran into when they tried to arrange a science debate during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Mainstream media is consumed by presenting both sides of an issue -- even when one of them is ridiculous -- while less objective media venues suffer no corresponding ethical dilemma and blasts out misinformation like a howitzer. Science writers get wrapped up in the culture war over science and atheism. Scientists and academia share responsibility for not engaging the public and the media more forcefully, or blazing a viable career path for charismatic scientists with a flair for public speaking.

Scattered throughout the book and summarized in the last chapter are ideas on how science might raise, or re-raise, its profile and once again become a vibrant, central component in American culture. My one constructive suggestion would be that those ideas were more fleshed out, but that can hardly be the authors' fault. They dwell in the reality based community where, as the book spells out, there is no unified, coordinated effort to cool off our latest national affair with know nothingism and pseudoscience.

Mooney and Kirshenbaum complement one another seamlessly in Unscientific America to deliver a hard hitting message informed by their years of experience in the public eye and behind a lab bench. The writing is superb, the narratives concise and easy to follow, and at 132 pages plus footnotes it is easily digested by readers of all ages and backgrounds. Order it, read it, and hope this book serves as a wake up call to Americans, and a catalyst to politicians, before it's too late.

Sheril Kirshenbaum is a marine biologist and Associate at Duke University whose next book is 'The Science of Kissing'! Chris Mooney is a frequent public speaker on science and science policy and best selling author of The Republican War on Science. Chris and Sheril can be found at Discover Magazine's popular blog The Intersection. More info on the book and tour dates here, additional Q & A here, and both authors are available to respond to a few of your questions or comments below.

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:05:16 GMT

Sunday, with a cloudy aspect and a bit of rain on the horizon. Better get the punditry in before we get wet.

Barack Obama: Rebuilding something better. And excerpts from the Ghana speech, w/live blog.

Andrew Alexander (WaPo Ombudsman):

The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.

Frank Rich:

In the aftermath of her decision to drop out and cash in, Palin’s standing in the G.O.P. actually rose in the USA Today/Gallup poll. No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the "base" of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

Indeed. But it's small. And it can't win elections. And it should not be pandered to by the press any more, as if it's still in power.

Maureen Dowd:

PALIN: @SenJohnMcCain — How the heck are ya, ya big hero?? Long time no hear, pardner. Y did u defriend me on Facebook?

MCCAIN: @AKGovSarahPalin — I needed room for Kissinger

Andrew Sullivan:

Writing about Sarah Palin always presents a quandary. Does one operate under the usual assumption that this is a rational figure, a serious politician, a rising Republican star . . . or do you acknowledge the copious evidence that she cannot tell the truth, has delusions of grandeur, has no policy record to speak of and quit her job as Alaska governor halfway through her first term because she is, in her own explanation, "not a quitter"? I think that you have to proceed under the assumption that this is a joke of a candidate and a symptom of a political party in the middle of a mental breakdown...

But trying to makes sense of Sarah Palin is a fool’s errand. I spent a lot of time last year trying to figure out how her bizarre pregnancy story could make any sense at all — it doesn’t — and came up with nothing but a suspicion that large parts of it were made up. If you present the facts to Palin spokespeople, they seem offended and regard you as some liberal hater. But the facts reveal she lies all the time about almost everything and so is probably improvising about her reasons for resigning.

Peggy Noonan: You go, Andrew!

"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.

"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

David Broder: Achieving health reform will be difficult and it will cost money, so Congress is nervous. Breaking.

George Will:

Before he became an economic adviser in the Obama White House, where wit can be dangerous, Larry Summers said: Liberals oppose a VAT because it is regressive and conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine, but a VAT might come when liberals realize it is a money machine and conservatives realize it is regressive.

Greg Dworkin:

Teens and young adults are disproportionately affected by this H1N1 flu, and adults much less so. That means that the recommendations for flu vaccine will change this fall for pandemic vaccine, separate from the usual drive to vaccinate the over 65’s (if you were born before 1957, you likely have some cross-protection from a previous version of this virus.) $350 million in extra funds for this shovel-ready project have just been made available to cash-starved states ($30 million to California alone.) Expect to hear more, but the possibility of a worsening picture in early fall, with more school closures and, alas, more deaths and illness in a younger cohort, is very real. Interestingly, the on line reaction was: how can we help get the message out?

Sunday Talk - Money Can't Buy You Love

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:09:43 GMT

Severance package for your mistress: $25,000

Hush money for her family (paid by your parents): $96,000

FedEx shipping charges + gas money for your religious buddies: Unknown

...

Your recent trip to Iowa: Priceless

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:16:04 GMT

This evening's Rescue Rangers are YatPundit, vcmvo2, dadanation, mem from somerville, sunspark says, and srkp23, with watercarrier4diogenes at the wheel of the Editmobile, frantically chasing a vintage Perley A. Thomas streetcar on a hot New Orleans night, hoping to get its operator, YatPundit, back aboard before any of the passengers get wise.

Tonight's diaries take us on a roller-coaster ride from prehistoric man to that legal neanderthal, John Yoo, from burquas to baseball. We hope you'll enjoy this bounty of excellent reading.

Avenging Angel addresses the topic of further revelations about the legal mind behind the Bush administration's many civil rights abuses in John Yoo, the Right Man for the Job. (vcmvo2)

Lib Dem FoP reminds us of an important story in Africa's recent history, and asks us not to gloss over that, with Remember the San, Mr Obama. (mem from somerville)

In an interesting diary about French President Nicholas Sarkosy's controversial move, mosaicnews discusses the possible outcome of Sarkosy Hiding Behind the Burqua? (vcmvo2)

In case you missed last night's no-hitter at the San Francisco Giants' baseball game, Alfonso Nevarez's diary Jonathan Sanchez: Nearly Perfect! is the next best thing to being there. (dadanation)

ramara writes about a recent school dress code issue involving Native Americans in Support for a Child's Religious Freedom from Many Communities. (vcmvo2)

In Savage Beasts, zwerlst muses on the development of teeth and ancient music. (watercarrier4diogenes)

cosmic debris brings our attention to the hidden problems of economic hardship and homelessness in Home is a hotel without a lawyer: Slipping into America's Crack. (vcmvo2)

joetex scrutinizes an expensive technology, and examines how it fits into the health care crisis today, with Healthcare Cost: A Scanner Costly. (mem from somerville)

beglin tackles the topic of student loan reform in The Educated Poor: Reforming Financial Aid. (vcmvo2)

Lib Dem FoP discusses the equipment shortcomings of the British Army while reminding us that there are More British Dead in Afghanistan than Iraq. (YatPundit)

In a beautifully written diary Marina Asbury tells us about losing her beloved cat in Saying goodbye to Malijah. (vcmvo2)

jotter delivers High Impact Diaries: July 10, 2009, while carolita has Top Comments 7-11-09 -- Healthcare Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

If you enjoy Diary Rescue, please consider joining the Rescue Rangers. It's a great way to become more involved with the Daily Kos community. Did we mention it's rewarding and fun? To volunteer or learn more, please contact us (don't forget to tell us your screen name) at: dkos.rescuerangers@gmail.com

Sessions Says Outcome Of Sotomayor Hearing Not "A Foregone Conclusion"

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:33:11 GMT

Jeff Sessions (R-AL), on the upcoming Sotomayor hearings:

"I don’t think the outcome of this hearing is a foregone conclusion," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the committee, told reporters Friday. "Judge Sotomayor has made some troubling statements. ... She has ruled in some cases that are troubling and need to be examined."

Sessions then gives the standard GOP laundry list:

She's a racist (a.k.a. "wise Latina woman" remark"),

she'll take away our guns (a.k.a a ruling that top conservative judges agreed with),

she hates white people (a.k.a. following precedent in the Ricci case), and,

she's associated with a terrorist organization (a.k.a. the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund).

In other words, same crap, different day. Now, I can appreciate that Sessions has a job to do and wants to do it right. And if Sotomayor had said things like, oh, I don't know, maybe calling the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people and the American Civil Liberties Union "un-American" and "Communist-inspired," or, during a murder investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, said that she "used to think they [the Klan] were OK’ until (s)he found out some of them were ‘pot smokers," or if she made a habit of calling African American men "boys," and cautioned them about how they talked to "white folks," she would be unfit to hold any position of power and respect. Right, Mr. Sessions?

The interesting legal life of Frank Ricci

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:02:04 GMT

Dahlia Lithwick looks into the rather litigious background of Frank Ricci, the firefighter at the heart of the case the GOP is hoping will sink Sonia Sotomayor's nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court. Ricci is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, and Lithwick is licking her chops at the prospect:

Ultimately, there are two ways to frame Frank Ricci's penchant for filing employment discrimination complaints: Perhaps he was repeatedly victimized by a cruel cadre of employers, first for his dyslexia, then again for his role as a whistle-blower, and then a third time for just being white. If that is so, we should all be deeply grateful for the robust civil rights laws that protect Americans from unfair discrimination in the workplace. I look forward to hearing Republican Sen. John Cornyn's version of that speech next week.

The other way to look at Frank Ricci is as a serial plaintiff—one who reacts to professional slights and setbacks by filing suit, threatening to file suit, and more or less complaining his way up the chain of command. That's not the typical GOP heartthrob, but I look forward to hearing Sen. Cornyn's version of that speech next week as well.

Funny, isn't it, how easily Republican Senators can become fan boys of serial litigants (and, we must assume, their grievance-filled trial lawyers) if they are members of that famous oppressed minority, the American white male.

Sanford may lose top-secret clearance over affair

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:00:05 GMT

Behold, yet another thing Mark Sanford's "Hike in the Appalachian" should (but probably won't) cost him: his top secret-clearance. U.S. News:

As a chief of state and head of the South Carolina National Guard, Sanford has a top-secret security status that lets him in on classified information such as possible terrorist threats and emergency tips. But with that need to know come intelligence community rules of conduct, a key one being that relationships with foreigners must be revealed. The reason: Those in the know can leave themselves open to blackmail from rival intelligence services about a compromising dalliance.

And it's happened before (to a Democrat):

Homeland Security canceled former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's after he was arrested on corruption charges.

Sanford's security status, however, remains unclear. A spokesman didn't return calls, and Homeland Security, while confirming that it issues the clearances, would not comment on Sanford, also a captain in the Air Force Reserves.

Who knows. Maybe Sanford can get his friends at C Street to pull some strings on his behalf. Somehow, it's hard to imagine he won't figure out a way to pull off the old IOKIYAR trick.