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Written by Grayfred Gray
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Sunday, 16 October 2005 |
Op-ed columnist By E. J. Dionne Jr., wrote on Oct. 14, 2005, in the Washington Post,
"The Clinton economy -- bolstered by balanced budgets, tax increases on the rich and the expansion of innovative programs such as the earned-income tax credit and health coverage for the poor -- cut the number of poor people by 7.7 million between 1993 and 2000. Between 2001 and 2004, on the other hand, the number of those in poverty rose by 4.1 million."
He sees the post-hurricane Katrina war on poverty declared by President Bush as over at the hands of " the Republican Study Committee and other conservatives" and a liberal response that has failed to keep poverty well up on the agenda He reports that "some of [the conservatives] biggest cuts were in health care programs, including Medicaid, and other spending for the poor."
An odd way to overcome poverty, I'd say.
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Contributed by Alexander Phillips
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Wednesday, 24 August 2005 |
The border between humans and other species, formerly so firm and undeniable in common thought, continues to thin, in scientific understanding, technologically and in the public imagination. William Saletan in Slate notes some recent discoveries:
Crows fashion leaves and metal into tools. Ravens understand spying. Pigeons deceive each other. Rats run mazes in their dreams. Prairie dogs make different sounds to denote different animals. Dolphins teach their young to use sponges as protection. Elephants can mimic trucks. Chimps can pick locks. Parrots can work with numbers. Dogs can learn words from context. Caterpillars can build webs to catch snails. Octopuses can use some arms to disguise themselves while using other arms to sneak away.
Chimps conform to the cultural norms of their group, like humans, we also now know scientifically.
But does that make human exploitation of animals comparable to slavery or child labor, as PETA states in a fascinating and controversial online exhibition?
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Written by Grayfred Gray
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Wednesday, 10 August 2005 |
Susan B. Glasser and Steve Coll, Washington Post Staff Writers, reported August 9, 2005, that Abu Musab Zarqawi has turned the Internet into a weapon against the US and its allies in Iraq. They say, "Never before has a guerrilla organization so successfully intertwined its real-time war on the ground with its electronic jihad, making Zarqawi's group practitioners of what experts say will be the future of insurgent warfare, where no act goes unrecorded and atrocities seem to be committed in order to be filmed and distributed nearly instantaneously online."
They report that the use of the Internet has also changed the way acts of violence are being perpetrated. "Televised beheadings were not uncommon in Saudi Arabia. But Zarqawi did not use the long executioner's sword of Saudi government-sanctioned beheadings [in a videotape prepared for the Internet]. Instead, he invoked the imagery of his American captive as an animal."
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Contributed by Dirigible
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Wednesday, 20 July 2005 |
Following up on the recent theme of evil on the Daily Browse, KIng/Drew Hospital in Los Angeles has been the subject of a series of prize-winning articles by the Los Angeles Times.
It is a relic of the Civil Rights era and a beloved part of the community for decades. The training hospital serves a lower-class district in Los Angeles that is badly in need of health care and some say it is an indispensible fixture. Yet, King/Drew Hospital has also been called perhaps the worst hospital in US history.
One might assume that it is a lack of funding that created "Hell Hospital". And, although it is true that many of its staff are overworked and underpaid, as a whole the hospital receives much more money in aid than other comparable hospitals in lower-income areas of Los Angeles. Rather, an almost unimaginable level of mismanagement and lack of responsibility from the board of directors has created the monster.
Read more here.
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Written by Revelation Now
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Tuesday, 19 July 2005 |
The U.S. has spent $18.1 billion to make safer the air industry since 9/11 and $250 million on all other transit. Yet 16 times as many people ride transit as airlines. It's way past time to fix this imbalance.
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Shrode Report
