Sunday, June 21, 2009

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Ian Welsh: Senate Democrats Against The Public Option Aren't Caving They Just Don't Belive In Real Universal Healthcare Top
Chris at Americablog wonders why some Senate Democrats are caving on healthcare when 72% want a public option and 85% think the system needs to be fundamentally changed. He thinks it's because such Dems are spineless. That fundamentally misunderstands the situation. To vote against something that 72% of the population wants indicates a Congress member isn't a panderer to public opinion. What it indicates instead is that they either: actually don't believe in a public option, let alone real universal healthcare a la single payor; or, are being paid enough by insurers and other folks who want the current healthcare gravy train to continue that they are willing to vote against what the majority of their constituents want. Personally, I'd go with both. They don't believe in universal healthcare, and they know that their real constituents aren't the people who vote for them but the people who fund their campaigns and make sure they, their friends and their families are taken care of. And no, they don't think that's you, the voter and taxpayer. They don't believe they won't be reelected if they vote against a public option. And given re-election rates of Senators, who are the people causing the most problem, they're probably right, aren't they? Their calculation is that voters are sheep and won't make them pay any real price for killing a good healthcare plan. I'd say they're right. So given that they probably don't believe in universal healthcare, that they don't personally need it since they have good healthcare, that they get paid to vote against it and that they'll pay no price for voting against it, why shouldn't they kill it? Seems like a brain dead calculation to me. I'm sure it does to Diane Feinstein too. As another entitled aristocrat once said "let them eat cake".
 
Study: Americans Struggle To Pay For Health Care, With 40 Percent Delaying Treatments Or Services Top
WASHINGTON - Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.
 
Firas Al-Atraqchi: Mubarak Stresses Egypt's Peace Role in the Arab World Top
In a commentary piece published in The Wall Street Journal on June 19, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak positioned himself - and Egypt's diplomatic initiatives - at the head of the Arab camp's efforts to bring peace to the region. By reiterating Egyptian diplomatic proposals - which form the cornerstones of the 2002/2009 Saudi-sponsored Arab Peace Initiative - Mubarak is critically challenging Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's pitiful peace overtures and also responding to US President Barack Obama's recent speech in Cairo. Obama reached out not only to the Muslim World but also to Israelis and Arabs urging them to take bold steps to bring the 61-year conflict to a peaceful end. In a move that has worried many hard-line Israelis and members of Christian Zionist organizations, Obama called on Israel to halt settlement expansion as a precursor to negotiations and a just peace. Israel's rightwing supporters in Congress accused Obama of "selling out" to Arab terrorists; their counterparts in the Israeli settler movement photoshopped a Palestinian keffiyeh atop Obama's head and highlighted his middle name Hussein as an indication of his terrorist roots - and leanings. However, their Islamophobic propaganda cannot undo the fact that the Obama administration is prepared to adopt a more committed agenda in the Middle East - by pushing the Israelis on one track and using a more balanced tone in dealing with Iran. Realizing that the momentum was not in his government's favor, Netanyahu outlined concessions he was prepared to make. However, his recent speech was more about Iran and less about creating a Palestinian state; in fact, the concessions were nothing more than severely restrictive measures to limit Palestinian sovereignty. Nevertheless, many Washington insiders and media pundits applauded Netanyahu's "historic" and unprecedented pledges. Seasoned Egyptian negotiators, however, found Netanyahu's speech to be a dismal non-sequitur. In this regard, then, Mubarak's speech could not have been more timely. The Arab House is itself in a state of disarray, and according to some, in disrepair. The brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza (which incidentally helped pave the far rightwing victory in the Knesset) exacerbated intra-Arab disagreements recently exposed during the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 and divided the Arab League into two camps. Pertinent issues such as the plight of the Palestinians (particularly in besieged Gaza), the dire lack of progress in the peace process, the nearly insurmountable obstacles to demarcating a viable Palestinian state because of Israeli expansionism, and Jewish settler violence seem to have been lost amid Arab bickering and the public harangues traded between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Mubarak's commentary counters repeated disinformation campaigns fanatically maintained by Israeli and American rightwing pundits which claim that "the Arabs want to push Israel into the sea". Netanyahu and other leaders continue to use Hamas' charter as evidence that the 22-member Arab League reject normalization of relations with Israel. "For the first time in the history of the conflict, the Arab states unanimously committed to full normalization and security for Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines and a negotiated resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue," Mubarak writes. Mubarak's commentary is a reminder for the US and Europe that there remains a functioning Arab proposal on the table for the Israelis to accept. It stresses the importance of withdrawing to the 1967 borders and enforcing UN resolutions 242 and 338, which Israel has violated for 42 years. It also promises the Israelis full Arab recognition (as stipulated in the Arab Peace Initiative, which he directly references) and diplomatic ties in exchange for withdrawal - in effect, the land-for-peace approach. However, the commentary also serves to remind the Arabs that Egypt has for years led negotiations to secure an Israeli-Palestinian settlement and played a key role in Madrid, Oslo, the Wye River Accords, and Annapolis and in recent years a series of summits in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh. In a not so subtle nudge, the Egyptian president is reminding other Arab states not to isolate or outmaneuver his country's diplomatic initiatives, which he believes are central to any future peace deal. He may be right. As a frontline state, Egypt has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in numerous military engagements (and wars of attrition) with Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. And it was Egyptian diplomats who engaged in intense negotiations with their Israeli counterparts ahead of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which on March 26 marked its 30th anniversary. Egypt's bold initiatives with Israel in 1978-1979 earned it rebuke and isolation from Arabs furious that then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat could even shake hands with the "Zionists". Within a decade, and as Israel began to return the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt's position - at least as far as its own strategic aims were concerned - was vindicated. Arabs states now openly engage Israel at international conferences and no longer refer to it as the Zionist entity. It remains to be seen how the Israeli government, and other Arab states, respond to Mubarak's Wall Street Journal commentary. More on Barack Obama
 
Sen. Charles E. Schumer: Exploring New York By Bike Top
Exploring New York City and particularly Brooklyn is my passion and my pastime. As the great Brooklyn author Thomas Wolfe once famously quipped, "It'd take a guy a lifetime to know Brooklyn t'roo an' t'roo. An' even den yuh wouldn't know it all." I have lived in Brooklyn my entire life, and I couldn't agree more. I find that there is no better way to learn about what is going on in New York than by riding my bike through the neighborhoods and stopping and talking to people. I've loved riding a bike as long as I can remember. I can still recall every inch of the green Elswick racer I was given for my 10th birthday. Hopping on my bike as a kid was the definition of freedom, whether I was pedaling six blocks to the local basketball court, or roaming around the neighborhood looking for spontaneous fun. Many things have changed since I was a kid. The streets are busier and my hair is grayer, but to me, spending a few hours riding my bike through New York still feels like freedom No matter how busy my schedule, I try to spend a few hours on my bike each week. Without a doubt, the best bike routes have great food at the end. I like to go from my house in Park Slope to Breezy Point, on the Rockaway Peninsula, to find Kennedy's, a restaurant right on the beach with a fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline. Sometimes I head out through Sunset Park, with its world class Latin food, en route to Bay Ridge and the sublime Shore Road Bike Path, when my reward awaits at Gino's on Fifth Avenue. Perhaps my favorite route, I love heading toward Williamsburg, up the Eastern Parkway bike path, through Bedford-Stuyvesant, eventually ending up at Carmine's on Graham Avenue. There is nothing better than a Genoa salami hero after an afternoon on a bike! When I can, I'll bike to events in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn, combining a bit of work with a bit of pleasure. (The only place I don't ride frequently is Staten Island, because the Verrazano Bridge still doesn't have a bike path). One of the best rides recently took me across the Brooklyn Bridge and straight up Manhattan through the East Village, Midtown, Harlem, and into the Bronx to a Little League Baseball parade in Pelham Bay. I love biking to Ridgewood on a Sunday morning, stopping by St Mathias' Church. They hold services in five different languages every weekend, German, Polish, English, Italian and Spanish. It is a beautiful church. I am certain that if it were in a European city, it would be visited by thousands of tourists every year. But often, the best rides are those with no destination. I like to pick a neighborhood or two and set off in that general direction with no time limit and no set route, that way, it is easy to get lost and explore places I've never been. What I like about these rides is that I never know where I am going to end up. It is on these rides that I often discover the city's newly developing and rapidly changing neighborhoods. And on each trip to my parents house in Floral Park, as I get purposely lost, I get to watch our inner city neighborhoods come back - each trip reveals fewer empty store fronts on Sutter Avenue than the last trip through East New York. Starting in Brighton Beach and riding north through Brooklyn, always reminds me what makes this borough so special. As I watch the neighborhood go from predominantly Russian, through a veritable rainbow of ethnicities, to Polish in Greenpoint and the northern tip of Brooklyn, I feel like I've been around the world. But this journey is not one that can be undertaken in a car - you'd miss the details, the human scale, and the pace of life as you fly by. Even walking won't do - you won't be able to cover nearly enough ground. To really get to know New York, you've got to ride a bicycle.
 
Nora Ephron: The Play's The Thing, But It's Not The Only Thing Top
If it ever stops raining, which I'm sure it will someday, I am going to celebrate by going to the greatest thing about New York - Shakespeare in the Park. This year the show is Twelfth Night (which I'm pretty sure I've never seen), with Anne Hathaway, Raul Esparza, Audra MacDonald and Julie White, but it almost doesn't matter who's in it because the experience of sitting out on a summer night in the world's most beautiful park in the middle of New York City watching a play that is absolutely free is the moment I always feel, I can't believe I get to live here. There are many other things that give me that feeling - the 14th Street Greenmarket, the frozen custard at the Shake Shack, the air-conditioning on the subways, the red-tailed hawks, the Chrysler Building, to name a few - but it all seems to crystallize on those nights in the Delacorte Theater. Anything can happen at Shakespeare in the Park. Herons land on stage. Planes fly over. This year, I read in the papers, a raccoon wandered onstage. Sometimes the actors forget their lines, and sometimes they break up laughing; it doesn't make any difference. The sheer exuberance of the cast - and, as I said, the fact that the show is absolutely free - makes the audience absolutely giddy. And it's such a completely obvious and satisfying metaphor for New York, or at least our idealized version of it -- as the cultural capital of the world that anyone can come to and be welcome in. Every play at Shakespeare in the Park benefits from an entirely unconnected and thrillingly-suspenseful subplot - the question of whether it will rain before the evening ends. Two years ago, we saw a Romeo and Juliet that stopped short before the lovers died, and no one cared. Last year, at Hair, the heavens exploded at the exact moment the audience rose to cheer at the end of the play. Only the least hardy were daunted: most of the audience joined the cast onstage and danced with the players, soaking wet. Shakespeare in the Park: go to Publictheater.org for showtimes. And bring your umbrella.
 
Alfred Gingold: Holy Crap! Top
It's hard to find encouraging business news these days, so it was with some enthusiasm that the New York Times reported recently on a little-known segment of our brave new economy that is going strong: poop scoopers or, as they prefer to be called, animal waste specialists. For many, poop removal service has joined indoor plumbing and cable on the list of former luxuries that can no longer be done without. Naturally, the scoopers have their own professional organization. The Association of Animal Waste Specialists (APAWS) , the driving force behind International Pooper Scooper Week, devoted to "educating pet owners on the importance of cleaning up after their dogs" (In case you missed it, this year's was April 1-7), numbers about 150 members. On the Association's website, you can consult a state-by-state directory of member companies whose names demonstrate beyond any doubt that animal waste specialists like puns, wordplay and, in general, the sort of humor that makes this vein on the left side of my forehead throb visibly. Here is contact info for Yucko's Pooper Scooper Service (#1 in St. Louis for Turd-Herding!), Doggie Doo Not, When Doody Calls, In the Line of Dooty (note spelling variants), Entre-Manure, Dirty Work, Poop Masters, We Do Doo Doo and more. The APAWS members closest to my Brooklyn home are in suburban communities in New Jersey and Long Island. It's not surprising that scooping services cater largely to a suburban clientele, slothful dog owners who let their dogs go in their yards, from whence the good luck is picked up once or twice a week. What the yard is like in between visits is something I prefer not to dwell upon, but the arrangement would certainly put a damper on one's use and enjoyment of the yard. In a word, ick. This custom of letting your dog crap on your property and then leave it there to cure is another excellent reason, along with the better known anomie and alienation and crazy teenage drivers, why you will never catch me living in a suburb. By contrast, my dog George cohabits with an entire family of waste removal specialists and we take our work seriously. I, for one, remember the dark days before the poop scoop law of 1978 transformed New York from a land where ripple-soled shoes dare not tread to a wonderland of (more or less) poo-free streets. The pooper scooper law is one of the few laws in New York history that enjoys active support from the citizenry. Call it a matter of values: In these parts, picking up after your dog is the inalienable obligation of the owner and that is why even the most bleeding heart, soft-on-crime New York liberal is likely to support the death penalty for poop-leaving scoff-laws, preferably by some slow and agonizing method. I've had nothing against the removal specialists themselves. Until now. Now I know that "The good people of Poop Butler believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior." I know that the mission of Pet Butler includes the intention to "honor God in all we doo." ("Doo." Get it?) An outfit call the Charlotte Poop Van Scoop wants me to know that Jesus loves me. In a related development, an outfit called Discount Pet Medicines offers this prayer right below the copyright information on their Website: "Thank you Jesus for blessing us with the presence of our pets." I am not saying that the animal waste removal industry is an evangelical plot, but I am saying that knowing the religious convictions of the person you hire to pick up the dog shit in your yard - or from who you buy your dog meds - falls squarely into the category of Too Much Information. I understand that cleanliness may be next to godliness, but there is a time and place for everything, and poo retrieval time is not proselytizing time, imho. Besides, dog-owning evangelicals have problems beyond the good luck in their yards. Apparently, pets aren't allowed in heaven, so come the Rapture, Fido won't be making the trip. Speaking personally, this would be a deal breaker - even if I were a believer. But at least one individual has seen an opportunity in Judgement Day. For fifty dollars, offers an avowed atheist posting on Kansas City's Craigslist , your critter will be fed, sheltered, exercised and generally well cared for from the moment you disappear into the empyrean until the end of its natural life. The person doesn't say anything about picking up poo, though, and I believe that even in End Times, neatness counts. Which is why I wash my hands of this matter. More on Animals
 
Frank Serpico: NYPD In Black and White Top
"What did you think of the shooting in the city the other day?" my friend on the other end of the line asked. He's a retired NYPD lieutenant with 20 years of service. "What shooting?" I asked - me a retired NYPD detective shot in the line of duty in a bungled buy-and-bust narcotics operation. "Where the cop shot the other cop," he said matter-of-factly. "What??!!" It was another case of white-cop-shoots-black-man - and not the first time in New York City history when the black man turned out to be another cop. "What do you think?" I asked. "Well," he said after a pause, "another inexperienced young Turk, lacking discretion and judgment, assigned to an anti-crime unit." It brought to mind the Diallo debacle, where four white cops assigned to a street crimes unit panicked and fired 41 shots at an unarmed black man, standing in the doorway of his home in the Bronx. Street crimes unit, anti-crime unit. The name may change but the game is the same. Most white plainclothes police patrolling the streets of Harlem or the Bronx seem to take for granted that every black or Hispanic male "knows" they are cops, while at the same time assuming that just about every black or Hispanic male is a likely suspect of some misdeed. When I was on the force, cops responding to a call for police assistance in a dispute involving a white and black man would invariably approach the white guy asking, "What's the problem, sir?" I remember one black man saying shyly, "I am the one who called." Officer Omar J. Edwards has been forever silenced. He is unable to defend himself against the unfair slights of posthumous revisionism, the blaming of the victim. He was running with his gun drawn, the academic desk jockeys will say. Officer Edwards had his gun drawn because he was dealing with a crackhead who had broken into his car. Sure, I know what the patrol guide says and what it doesn't say. But no self-respecting police officer is going to see his personal effects rifled and not take immediate action. The report seems to indicate that his shield was properly displayed. He shouldn't have turned around when he heard someone tell him to stop and drop the gun, the cop self-defense mantra goes on. Let's get real. Sure, the patrol guide mandates you "remain motionless when so ordered." But the average person is going to look to see who is giving the order. (One night when I was on the force, I was on duty, wrestling a burglar to the ground, when an unmarked car swerved around the corner. I thought they were coming to assist me, but the two clowns who called themselves "cops" opened fire without saying a word. It was only their bad shooting and my quick response in hitting the ground, thanks to my military training, that saved my life. In the aftermath, after some clever writing and rewriting, they were promoted to detectives.) And the question remains, was Officer Edwards given a chance to drop his gun before he was cut down in a hale of bullets? Officer Omar J. Edward, father of two, young, proud, dedicated, still wearing his police academy tee shirt after two years on the job, lay dying on a New York City street, hands shackled behind his back. Mentally teetering between life and death, he was not consoled by his fellow officers to "Hold on, you're gonna make it." He was just another black "perp" victim of police indiscretion, and the higher command's inability or smug unwillingness to properly train and assign its officers. I was not consoled by my fellow cops either, when I lay bleeding on a filthy tenement landing. No, the assurance came from an old man of color, soothing me and encouraging me to hold on. It felt good.
 
Sheryl McCarthy: High Lines, Upward Trends Top
Some days you just feel happy. Not in a cosmic sense of well-being, but in the moment. As in, I'm alive and healthy and living in New York City, it's a beautiful spring day, and it doesn't get much cooler than this. These moments usually come when I'm riding my bike along the Hudson River bike path that extends from Battery Park all the way to Dyckman Street in Inwood, although I've never personally ventured beyond the George Washington Bridge. In the dozen or so years since the city began opening the Manhattan riverfront to city residents, I've learned that tooling along the river, with its piers, parks and playgrounds along with other bikers, skaters and walkers, is one of the true blessings of New York City life. And with this month's opening of the Highline, a park built on the remnants of a 1-1/2 mile stretch of elevated railroad track in lower Manhattan, there's yet another vista to explore. A park on an elevated train platform may not sound very enticing, but I decided to see for myself. While riding towards Chelsea I turned off the bike path at 20th Street and crossed the West Side Highway and climbed the stairs at the park's midpoint. Entrances also run along the avenue to Gansevoort Street. What greets you is not a profusion of green, but a quirky, gritty little park that captures the feel of the city, while also providing a haven from it. The Great Lawn of Central Park it's not and some visitors have found it underwhelming. Threading through the gray asphalt walkway are small sections of railroad track, with patches of roadbed sprouting weeds and wildflowers of the same variety that have always grown along the tracks. The effect is one of ordered chaos--weedy, wild and low-scale, rather than lush and shady. But its sparseness has an appeal. On the day I was there, hundreds of people strolled the park, which snakes over and along 10th Avenue, and disappears into a tunnel that runs through the red-brick building that houses the Chelsea Market. Young and elderly, mothers and fathers pushing baby strollers, people eating lunch, lots of men with cameras, and at least one guy working on his laptop strolled, or sat on the benches and chaise-lounges that line the walkway. Yet it didn't seem crowded and you felt a sense of camaraderie with the people who'd come to check out this new city venue. One woman, a fashion journalist from the East Side, said she had chosen the Highline over the beach, and was delighted to find herself sitting next to a woman who had brought her three year-old daughter to have lunch with her husband. Standing thirty feet above 10th Avenue, the Highline offers views of its small shops, parking lots and city traffic, and of the West Side Highway with its rushing traffic, Frank Gehry's Jell-O-cube-like office building, and the gargantuan expanse of Chelsea Piers, with snippets of the Hudson River peeking through. While the Highline is a park, like the city, it's not quiet. Traffic rushes past below, and from the partly-finished buildings draped in safety netting nearby comes the clang and hammering of construction work. The city plans to expand Highline north to 34th Street. Mel Schuster, 77, a retired book author, travel writer, tour escort, and former host of a classical music radio show, who lives on 10th Street, sat reading on a bench across from the Highline's tiny amphitheater with huge windows overlooking Tenth Avenue. "It's not spectacular, but it's quite nice," he said. "I'm happy that it's here, and I'm sure as they develop it, it will get much nicer." But most people were much more enthusiastic, like Ingrid Risop, 73, and Rolf Wittich, 83, who live on the East Side, and had walked all the way across town. "It's fantastic," Wittich said. "I love it." Wittich, who is retired from a company that sold products for the tool and die industry and also runs a farm upstate, moved out of the city in 1969, discouraged by the crime and decay he saw. He returned seven years ago and is pleased by what he sees now. "I'm really full of pride about New York. It's been a big turnaround." "The Highline is part of it," Risop said. I had to agree.
 
Agnes Gund: Hidden Treasure: Art By Public School Kids At Met Top
Among the many treasures on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this month are fifty-eight works of art by New York City public school kids. Handsomely set along the corridors of the Uris Education Center, these works were judged from a thousand submissions to the annual competition offered by New York City's Department of Education, with support from Bank of America and Studio in a School. The artists range in age from four to nineteen; they work in photography, sculpture, collage, painting, and drawing. The work is breath-taking. These are very, very talented children. Each of the thousand children whose work their teachers submitted were honored and specially recognized. And behind that thousand are thousands more children whose school days are brightened and whose lives are enriched by dedicated teachers and artists in the public schools, including those from Studio in a School. When I attended the opening of the exhibition PS ART 2009, I was struck by the artistic display of both the children's insights into reality as well as their aspirations. As one six year old expresses in an exhibition label, "...I did it on my own and got the idea by myself." Much of the work confronts and challenges the viewer directly; portraits predominate. And in almost all of them, the artists--from pre-kindergarden to fifth grade to high school--look piercingly at the world. These are personal, direct, searching projections of themselves, their families, and friends and ones which viewers share with these young citizens. The work also frequently examines the urban environment. Over and over again, the children show the piled up, spilled over, busily overbuilt places in which they live. Sometimes the city stares: In one bright red painting, a city block has a shuttered storefront, a space "for rent," closed doors, drawn curtains. Sometimes the city sparkles: In a tall, thin vertical rendering, a team of young artists celebrates the dizzying diversity and altitude of the city, drawing buildings that rise up and up, on top of each other. "I want viewers to think about the buildings and how beautiful they are," a nine year old writes. Studio in a School (SIAS), a non-profit organization, was founded in 1977 in response to city budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts education in the New York City schools. In 2004, its director, Tom Cahill, and his co-chair, Barbara Gurr, worked to create the "Blueprint for Learning and Teaching the Arts," the first comprehensive, multi-dimensional grade-wide framework for arts education in the school system. For more than 31 years, SIAS has engaged more than 400,000 students, 300 artists and teachers in 750 schools in arts education. As noted by The Fund for Public Schools' Vice Chair Caroline Kennedy, "In a city where more than 150 languages are spoken in the homes of our students, art is a universal language." And SIAS and The Fund for Public Schools ensure that good teachers and good teaching are encouraged in their dedicated work in classrooms across the City. When SIAS was founded, I hoped that it would help to save the arts in the schools. I also hoped that it would help children and their families and teachers develop visual literacy so they could make informed judgments about the world they inhabit. Knowing how to look can help people improve the quality of their lives, appreciate the buildings and the landscape architecture around them, assess architecture and roadways, and insist on good parks and pathways. I also hoped that capturing their experiences through art would help people understand each other. I greatly honor efforts that use the arts to help resolve conflict and misunderstanding, to reach toward community, to celebrate colors in paint and on paper, and also in different populations. If we listen to what the children say, these ambitions do not seem too high. As one young sculptor says, "As a recent immigrant ...I feel terrible when I don't know how to express my feelings and thoughts... Art provides me with a way...When I create, my confidence builds and I am better prepared to face the future." Art can break through barriers and build connection. There is an exciting future for arts education. There is nothing to regret or restrain, and there are always rewards--creativity, expressiveness, and sensitivity to others and to the environment, concern for community. The wonder is that once again--as in the nineteen seventies, when we created Studio in a School--the arts throughout our educational systems are being threatened and pulled out of our childrens lives. Today, once again, intelligent citizens and leaders should muster support for arts education. In our school systems--large and small, urban or suburban or rural, new or well embedded--arts provide a sure place in which all children benefit, all children learn, and all children clarify themselves and communicate to each other.
 
Ed Koch: How to Throw the Rascals Out! Top
The New York State Legislature is less than dysfunctional, a description given it by the Brennan Institute for Justice. It has become a joke. What once was the pride of the Empire State under Governor Al Smith, when the Legislature engaged in the cutting edge of social reform, is now a collection of losers, particularly the State Senate, worthy of a banana republic. Two Democrats, both with reputations that have been amply soiled over the years, Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate, crossed over and provided the Republican Senate caucus with a two-vote majority. (Monserrate then crossed back, creating a 31-31 deadlock.) In exchange for his defection -- among the goodies I am sure are yet to be revealed -- Senator Espada was selected by the Republican leader to be President Pro Tempore of the Senate, making him, under the New York State Constitution, the person who becomes Acting Governor when the present Governor, David Paterson, is physically out of New York State. Espada would also become Governor for the balance of Paterson's term should the Governor die, become incapacitated, be convicted of a felony, resign or be impeached. I don't know what else Espada received or may receive for his desertion of the Democratic Party which elected him to his present seat. I have no doubt that Espada's motives do not relate to a philosophical goal, but do relate to personal advancement. The Assembly under Sheldon Silver is much better run than was the Senate under Malcolm Smith. However, its ethical standards are sorely lacking, as its leader holds a lucrative position in the private sector and determines the outcome of legislation affecting his private interests. I have in the past and continue to advocate the formation of a new party. Its goal would be to throw out of office all of the incumbents elected on both the Democratic and Republican Party lines and elect new members to the Assembly and Senate. Those individuals would pledge to run only for two terms and then leave it to the two major parties in the next election to contest for the open seats in the entire Assembly and Senate. One proviso would be that any incumbent could run in the Democratic and Republican primary, if eligible under the law, to succeed themselves. The new party would then go out of business, hoping the two major parties had been sufficiently punished by the citizen voters of New York and would take the opportunity to redeem themselves. The battle cry for the new party, yet to be named, should be "Throw the Rascals Out!" I suggest all of the incumbents, the bad and the good, be thrown out unless they are accepted by the new party and only run on the new party line. The so-called good current members have obviously not been effective and have allowed the Legislature - both houses - to degenerate and their colleagues' antics to disgrace all of us.
 
Moby: Making Music With Moby Top
A few years ago I put out an album called "Hotel." I've made a lot of records, but to be honest, '"Hotel" is not one of my favorites. I think it went wrong when I tried to produce it in a big outside studio, and in so doing I tried to make it as big and professional and slick and polished as possible. Unfortunately I ended up with a record that while professionally produced, didn't have any of the atmosphere or idiosyncracies or mistakes that I love in other people's records. So, after "Hotel", I vowed to make records at home that were less polished. To that end: in a few weeks I'm putting out a new album, "Wait for me.'" Rather than go into a big, fancy studio and try to craft a big, fancy, polished record I wrote and recorded "Wait for me", in my bedroom in my apartment on the Lower East Side. It's a record filled with imperfections, because over time I've realized that I don't really like perfect art or music. My favorite records, whether they be Nick Drake, Joy Division, the Clash, Bon Iver, the New York Dolls or Lou Reed, tend to be filled with the beautiful imperfections that make people and art interesting. A lot of contemporary musicians worry about making technically perfect records that will sound great on radio. Unfortunately technically perfect records that sound great on radio tend to sound fake and bombastic when you listen to them in your apartment at 10 a.m on a Sunday morning. Technically perfect records are sort of like the musical equivalent of a man who wears too much cologne and always speaks just a bit too loudly. The process of making "Wait for Me" and giving myself the license to make a record in my bedroom that I loved, was about 100 times more enjoyable than working on some of the records I've made in the past. A part of the inspiration for the album was a conversation I had with David Lynch, wherein he talked about art being judged for it's integrity and it's content, and not for it's earnings potential. The marriage of art and commerce can, of course, yield interesting results, but only when the art comes before the commerce. When art or music is created solely for it's viability in the marketplace, things invariably go very, very wrong.
 
Joel Klein: In Defense of iSchools Top
On a recent visit to the NYCiSchool, one group of students gathered around a computer to edit a video for a humanitarian campaign and another created a "Call to Action" website for Zimbabwean refugees. Down the hall, one teacher drilled a student on amino acids for the upcoming Regents exam and another stood before a classroom of students, delivering a trigonometry lesson. The iSchool, a new high school in SoHo that incorporates technology into everyday learning, encourages students to take an active role in their own education and go beyond what they find in a textbook. For example, students take a self-paced online course to prepare for the Global History Regents Exam and also study the subject in depth with their peers and teachers. Often, students connect digitally with students, authors, or newsmakers in other parts of the world to add context to what they are studying. Some people think of technology as a way of turning teaching and learning into a mechanical process. But the team at the iSchool and others who are using technology in innovative ways show us that technology isn't about turning schooling into widget making. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. It's about rethinking the way teachers teach and children learn. Schools like the iSchool are creating a new model that allows students to pace and challenge themselves and allows teachers to spend more time focused on providing individual students with what they need to succeed. Clayton Christensen, a leader in thinking around how technology can change American schools, explains that investing in computer equipment and other technology isn't gong to change outcomes for students. He writes: "The United States has spent more than $60 billion equipping schools with computers during the last two decades, but as countless studies and any routine observation reveal, the computers have not transformed the classroom, nor has their use boosted learning as measured by test scores. Instead, technology and computers have tended merely to sustain and add cost to the existing system." He says the solution is to "introduce the innovation disruptively." In other words, he thinks we need to use technology to create solutions for the people who currently aren't being well served by our schools. That means giving students tools they need to learn more effectively, and it also means giving educators and parents the tools they need to improve learning. That idea--completely reimagining schools in order to better serve our highest need students--is what has been behind many of our biggest innovations in recent years and what is driving NYC21C, an initiative I think is the most exciting work we are now embarking on here in New York City's public schools. In the past three years, the New York City Department of Education has created a number of technologies that allow teachers, principals, and parents to better understand students' strengths and weaknesses and create academic programs that are tailored to the students' needs. Our Achievement Reporting and Innovation System helps parents and teachers gauge whether students are on track to meet New York State requirements and learning standards. It then allows teachers to reach out to colleagues across the City to find people facing the same challenges and share strategies. Within schools, teachers, principals, and coaches are using this information to spot trends and tailor instructional strategies for individual students and groups of students. On a smaller scale, new technology-based ideas are popping up at schools across the City. For New York City, the next big change is to change our technology "culture," so we begin using modern tools to rethink the way our schools and classrooms are organized to most effectively engage students and bolster their achievement. I think this transformation will help us to create schools that will truly prepare our students to succeed in our high-tech, global economy.
 

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