Thursday, October 1, 2009

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Obama Heads To Denmark To Lobby For 2016 Olympics Top
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is on his way to Denmark to help his adopted hometown of Chicago try to land the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Obama departed the White House on Thursday evening for an overnight flight to Copenhagen. On Friday, he and first lady Michelle Obama are scheduled to make presentations before members of the International Olympic Committee, which will choose a host for the 2016 Games. The Obamas' hometown of Chicago is competing against Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid. Mrs. Obama arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday and has met with several IOC members. The president is scheduled to return to the White House on Friday afternoon. More on Barack Obama
 
Antonio Villaraigosa: Clean Trucks: One Year Later Top
As Congress and world leaders continue to grapple with solutions to address climate change, cities across the United States are endeavoring to find workable solutions to address their specific air pollution challenges. Los Angeles has long been a leader in this area, and today marks the first anniversary of the launch of one of the most successful emissions reductions programs in our country's history - the Port of Los Angeles' Clean Truck Program. Partnering local government with businesses, we launched the Clean Truck Program to replace all of the 16,800 trucks entering the Los Angeles port each year with "clean trucks"--trucks that either meet the Environmental Protection Agency's most recent clean emissions standards or run on alternative fuel. We instituted a Day-One ban on all pre-1989 trucks and infused $44 million in incentive funding into our local port trucking sector to bring thousands of EPA-compliant trucks to our port. These incentives have helped generate over $500 million in private investment in almost 2,500 clean trucks, which account for nearly half of an emerging fleet of more than 5,500 clean trucks currently serving our two local ports. Our program has been so successful in accelerating the replacement of old, diesel-powered trucks that in May our Harbor Commission approved $23 million in additional incentives for companies purchasing alternative-fuelled trucks, specifically, natural gas (LNG and CNG) and a new category of electric-powered, zero-tailpipe emissions big rigs. This type of cooperation required the support of a broad group of stakeholders ranging from the motor carriers and cargo owners who invested in clean fleets, to the environmental, labor and faith-based communities who shared the common goal of finding a workable solution to air pollution. In other words, all parties involved wanted to find a way to effectively address truck pollution while keeping the cargo moving across our docks. No seaport had ever attempted such an ambitious program with such an audacious goal of replacing an entire drayage fleet with a clean fleet within five years. With the Clean Truck Program, not only have we achieved most of this fleet replacement within one year, but we have created a system to monitor and ensure truck ownership accountability for thousands of big rigs that move the goods through the Port of Los Angeles. Today, approximately 66 percent of the trucks that haul cargo containers in and out of our cargo terminals are model-year 2007 or newer. This dramatic fleet turnover has delivered an estimated 70-percent reduction for a program that set its target as an 80-percent emissions reduction by 2012. This emissions reduction is equivalent to removing 200,000 automobiles from our freeways in just ten months time. Just as importantly, we've shown that taking dramatic action to curb carbon emissions can be good for economic growth. While new truck sales are down 60 percent nationwide, business at truck dealers near the Port of Los Angeles is up by one-third versus last year thanks to the Clean Truck Program. By any standard, this is a truly remarkable accomplishment. The emissions reductions made possible by the CTP are also helping the San Pedro Bay Ports move forward on massive "green growth" cargo terminal modernization projects that were paralyzed the first half of this decade due to air quality concerns and related legal threats. As a result, thousands of construction jobs are being generated at a time when our regional economy badly needs them. These projects will pave the way for tens of thousands of permanent jobs at the Port and throughout our regional economy in the decades ahead. The American Trucking Association has threatened our innovative solutions by getting a court order to temporarily block the City's ability to directly ban a motor carrier from bringing dirty trucks in our Port. We are vigorously fighting to protect the right of cities like Los Angeles to improve environmental and security conditions on our own land and protect the sustainability of our investment in clean trucks over the long term. At the same time, while defending our groundbreaking program, we need to clear the path to allow local governments the means to achieve federal clean air measures and more secure transportation hubs, acknowledging the need for different regional approaches. Here in Los Angeles, we are proud to be making an important contribution to the national goal of cleaner air and "greener" energy. We urge lawmakers in Washington to update federal law and allow a first-of-its-kind emissions reduction initiative like the Clean Truck Program to flourish.
 
"Late Show" Beats "Tonight Show" By Widest Margins In Years Top
With President Obama as his power-hitting leadoff man, David Letterman posted his biggest score in recent years in the late-night ratings, dominating NBC's "Tonight Show" last week by the biggest margin in more than 15 years. More on The Tonight Show
 
Eugene Volokh: Is the Obama Administration Supporting Calls to Outlaw Supposed Hate Speech? Top
That's what it looks like, with this Joint U.S./Egypt draft U.N. Human Rights Council resolution (dated Sept. 2005). The resolution generally seems to be an attempt to urge more protection for free speech throughout the world, and some praise it for that ; moreover, it lacks the exception for "defamation of religion" that some Muslim countries have urged. It may therefore be a step forward for Egypt, and an attempt to urge a step forward for some other countries. But I'm worried that it might be a step backward for our own constitutional rights, because of what seems to be the U.S. endorsement of the suppression of "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" and possibly of "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups." I say "seems to be" because some of the language in the resolution is pretty slippery, and of course it's always possible that I'm misunderstanding it. (It's also possible that past U.S. Administrations have taken similar views before, which I would condemn as well.) Here, though, is my thinking (all emphases added by me): 1. Paragraph 4 of the draft resolution "expresses ... concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence , and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations, to address and combat such incidents." 2. Paragraph 6 likewise "[s]tresses that condemning and addressing, in accordance with international human rights obligations, including those regarding equal protection of the law , any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence is an important safeguard to ensure the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of all, particularly minorities." 3. I suppose it's possible that the "effective measures" might simply include denunciation or other counterspeech, but that seems unlikely. The resolution quotes favorably the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Human Rights Council Resolution 7/36 . And article 20 of the Covenant (which in turn is favorably cited by resolution 7/36) expressly commands that "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law ." This suggests that the urgings in paragraphs 4 and 6 (possibly limited to the "incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" language but possibly even including the "incidents ... of negative stereotyping" language") are urgings that such speech "be prohibited by law." 4. Nor does this call for narrow prohibitions that would fit under the U.S. Supreme Court's narrow exception for "incitement." My understanding is that international definitions of "incitement" are considerably broader than the Court's definition in Brandenburg v. Ohio . First, I don't think "incitement" in such international documents is generally seen as limited to intentional incitement to imminently likely conduct (our First Amendment rule). Second, advocacy of mere hostility -- for instance advocacy that people should hate and be hostile to radical strains of Islam (and its adherents), or to Scientology, or to Catholicism, or to fundamentalist Christianity, or for that matter to religion generally -- is clearly constitutionally protected here in the U.S.; but the resolution seems to call for its prohibition. 5. Paragraph 10 also "expresses regret at the promotion by certain media of false images and negative stereotypes of vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals, and at the use of information and communication technologies such as the Internet for purposes contrary to respect for human rights, in particular the perpetration of violence against and exploitation and abuse of women and children, and disseminating racist and xenophobic discourse or content." That might indeed be just condemnation -- and, depending on what it means, might be perfectly sound condemnation -- and not a call for coercive action. But note that the language of "express[ing] regret" is softer than the earlier paragraphs' calls for "addressing" and "taking effective measures ... to address and combat." And the presence of this softer "express[ing] regret" language here reinforces my view that the more insistent language in the other paragraphs calls for coercive measures. 6. But why the fuss, some might ask, if we're protected by the First Amendment? First, if the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech, presumably we are taking the view that all countries -- including the U.S. -- should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we're implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it. So to be consistent with our position here, the Administration would presumably have to take what steps it can to ensure that supposed "hate speech" that incites hostility will indeed be punished. It would presumably be committed to filing amicus briefs supporting changes in First Amendment law to allow such punishment, and in principle perhaps the appointment of Justices who would endorse such changes (or even the proposal of express constitutional amendments that would work such changes). To be sure, I think it's quite unlikely that the Administration would indeed work to enact a specific Anti-Hate-Speech Amendment, or make support of article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into a litmus test for Supreme Court appointees. But it seems to me that the Administration's and the Nation's international representatives' calling for the suppression of "hate speech" throughout the world would have some significance. At least it would let other countries fault us for inconsistency when American law fails to punish such speech. 7. And beyond that, I'm worried that the Executive Branch's endorsement of speech-restrictive "international human rights" norms will affect how the courts interpret the First Amendment, so that over time, "an international norm against hate speech ... [would] supply a basis for prohibiting [hate speech], the First Amendment notwithstanding." And that worry stems not just from my fevered imagination, but from the views of Prof. Peter Spiro , a noted legal academic who is a supporter of this tendency. That's not fearmongering on his part, but hope (hopemongering?) and prediction. So anything that an Administration does to endorse international speech-restrictive norms might well have an effect on our own constitutional rights as well. 8. Finally, I've considered whether our reservation to the International Covenant , specifically saying that "Article 20 does not authorize or require legislation or other action by the United States that would restrict the right of free speech and association protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States," provides us with a loophole: The theory would be that the proposal only commits states to "take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations," and our reservation means that suppressing supposed hate speech isn't one of our "international human rights obligations." But I don't think that's a fair reading of the joint U.S./Egypt proposal, or at least the reading that fair third parties would take of our position. It seems to me that the proposals calls on everyone to act consistently with what the U.N. Human Rights Council and similar bodies see as everyone's "international human rights obligations" -- which unfortunately includes an obligation to ban supposed hate speech -- and not just what each country has expressly promised by the treaties they signed, subject to the reservations they attached. * * * In any case, that's my tentative thinking; please let me know what you think.
 
Lita Smith-Mines: Rubble, Rubble Top
On the way to an appointment, I passed two piles of trash. Neither heap appeared to me as run-of-the-mill rubbish: one symbolized economic success and optimism, while the other signified defeat and despair. The first mound of refuse was set out by homeowners having work done on their very large house. The signed outside proclaimed "another quality job by" some construction company. The plumber and the electrician and the mason had parked their trucks alongside the construction van, causing visibility problems for passing motorists. Cautiously slowing down, I caught a glimpse of thrown away shutters, lighting fixtures, railings, and heaps of fabric in a not quite olive green shade, alongside yards of almost jade colored carpet. Here was a house improved by scads of money that would soon make its inhabitants feel comfy and possibly even pampered. Driving into a neighborhood with a less affluent reputation, the messy masses outside another house seemed at first to resemble the scene a few blocks back. The presence of a stop sign in front provided an opportunity for me to linger and take a longer look. Immediately, I began to absorb the differences between the debris and sense the air of despair as I spotted the sign that publicized this property was "bank owned." No activity was taking place here except for the swaying of the foot high grass. At curbside lay cast-offs including a tricycle, heaps of hangers, a picnic table, wicker baskets, shoes, chairs, and a couple of mattresses. These discards were not rejections of the passé to make way for innovation and improvement; I saw the abandonment of possessions that wouldn't fit into a car or a trunk or an in-law's basement. In the few seconds I could stop and observe, I grasped that a child might not have outgrown the trike before its disposal: it was dumped along with all the trappings of a life spent in a two-story colonial. Money wasn't enhancing anything here; a lack of money had halted every hope. I drove on, a little shaken by the comparisons I drew between the dissimilar refuse that was probably destined to end up in the same landfill. I knew the inhabitants of neither house; I knew nothing of the circumstances that led to the discarding of the carpet or the picnic table, and I certainly had only moments to take in each tableau. Yet I've been around the block (literally and figuratively) enough times to make some reasonable inferences about the piles I passed. My trash themed take-away at the end of my car trip? Not all that litters is old, nor is all garbage created equal. More on Housing Crisis
 
Annelle Sheline: Disneyland in Sinai: The Illusion of Peace Top
For Eid, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, many Cairo residents travel to the Sinai peninsula. This year they converged with beach-goers from Israel celebrating Rosh Hashanah, or Jewish New Year. Lounging on a beach with your former enemy -- and that's not to imply that Egyptians and Israelis are now friends -- in the very territory over which your soldiers fought and died, may seem an odd holiday pastime. Israel wrested control of Sinai from Egypt during the Six Day War in 1967. Egypt regained Sinai in 1973 during a joint offensive with Syria launched on Yom Kippur, Judaism's holy day of fasting. The memory of vulnerability that led to this defeat still smarts enough for Israel to shut down the West Bank on Yom Kippur each year . Egyptians remember October 6th as a pinnacle of recent history. Addressing his people after the offensive, then-president Anwar Sadat called them Ya sha'ab Oktober (The people of October). It's a charged time of year, in a prickly piece of real estate. But this is Sinai. Ma feesh mushkila . (No problem.) Having joined in the general hiatus from Cairo, I stayed with friends at a beach camp in Ras Sheitan, about 40 km south of the Israeli border. Palm-roofed umbrellas shade beach bums who strum guitars and gaze across the water to the mountains of Saudi Arabia. Fellow loungers attribute the camp's popularity to its laid-back feel. "I was supposed to stay for twenty-four hours and I've been here for a week," laughed Matthieu, a self described member of Tel Aviv's underground rock scene. "There is nowhere like Sinai." An Israeli musician (whose young son played with the son of the camp's Bedouin owner, both of them shouting in Hebrew) invited us to dinner, "to celebrate the new year." "Which new year?" a Swedish friend asked. "Rosh Hashanah." (Duh) That night much of the camp gathered on the sand. While male musicians played, women passed around apples with honey and piles of pomegranate seeds "to sweeten the coming year". The Bedouin servers brought plates of fish, rice and salad, and the musicians continued their inexhaustible repertoire of Hebrew songs. Those gathered were Israeli, French, American ... the Egyptian guests were noticeably absent. Culturally, Sinai belongs to neither Israel nor Egypt, but remains the territory of the Bedouin. The non-affiliated vibe extended from a staff member's t-shirt in Hebrew, Arabic and English, proclaiming peace and love, to the murals of nude yoga practitioners decorating the "front desk". Pirate-like Matthieu, despite his full-body tattoos and French background, is the norm here rather than the exception; everyone is similarly unique. There is Avi, also from Tel Aviv, who sports an incongruous cross on a thick pectoral. There is Amil, another Tel Aviv resident, who joined the nightly jam sessions with a haunting flute, although double amputations prevented him from joining in the swimming. Amil compares the camaraderie of the camp to an idealized (aka lazy) kibbutz, or communal farm. However, like the (later) kibbutzim, the system relies on inexpensive Arab labor: by the 1980s, hired Palestinians carried out much of the hard farm work , while today's medley of holiday makers pay 25 Egyptian pounds a night (about 5 USD) to be waited on by Bedouin staff. Ma feesh mushkila : one wonders whether the Bedouin care who owns Sinai, as long as tourists keep showing up. Samil, a Bedouin guide who lives with his camel up the road from the camp, says that whether Egypt or Israel lays claim to Sinai, it will always be Bedouin. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's plan for " economic peace " in Palestine seems manifested in the camp's mix of nationalities, raising the question of whether global capitalism might eventually erase national boundaries, leaving conflict analysis to the Marxists. Yet politics never disappear completely, even in Sinai. An American friend and I found a flag in the water and hung it up to dry. Our Egyptian friend confirmed it as Jordanian, (Jordan lies east of Israeli's brief Red Sea coastline). Ahmed, one of the staff members, approached us. "I'm going to put this here," he said, folding the flag out of sight. It seems the easy neutrality is a construction, a carefully preserved Disneyland where political realities are unwelcome. Yet they remain just below the surface. I was speaking to Eid at the "front desk" when an Israeli man complimented my Arabic. I explained that I lived in Cairo, and told him that meeting Israelis in Sinai had come as a welcome surprise, because I had never met any elsewhere in Egypt. "Yes, the Sinai is special," he replied. He tried to engage Mozi, a staff member, in his enthusiasm. Clapping him on the back, he said, "It is the Egyptians that will bring peace! We just talk about it, but they are the ones that are making it happen." Mozi did not react, but carried a tray of food out to a group of guests. The Israeli laughed awkwardly. As another October 6th approaches, (ironically, also the day on which President Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by a radical Egyptian unhappy with the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty , the anniversary shared by the two countries will evoke very different responses. Israel will mourn the 2,688 soldiers killed in the war, while Egypt will celebrate the reclamation of Sinai (and its military dignity) with Armed Forces Day. I'm hoping to return to Ras Sheitan to see whether October 6th with cause the mask of Xanadu to fall, or whether peace, at least on a beach, can persist... More on Egypt
 
John Hope Bryant: Why Change and Love Leadership are First Cousins Top
I make the point in my new book, Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World that "fear is the ultimate prosperity killer." I also say that fear is one lazy bastard. Fear simply hates change, and work too. I have found that change requires a sense of personal security, and for lack of a better description, a sense of purpose and mission that is greater than what is right in front of your nose. But fear -- fear depends so much on what I call "clutching and keeping," that fear is sometimes even willing to kill for it. Witness, the era of Adolf Hitler in the Germany of 1940. 100 years ago, Vienna, Austria was a world class city on par with a London, or a New York. What got Vienna there was change and bustling, vibrant diversity. Most of the brilliant artists that we know so well were not of Austrian birth. The magic came when Vienna decided to open wide the gates of its city of hope, opportunity, possibility. But then came the fear, and with it, soon thereafter, the subsequent failure of the once brilliant Vienna experiment. Or let's look at America from approximately World War II to today. America is the only nation in the world with every race of people within its borders. Why? Precisely because is not so much a nation, as an idea. And when we are at our best, we epitomize the ideal idea. William Green, the CEO of Accenture, once described this "thing" we have as our "special sauce." I agree, and it is the glue that holds us all together. You can come here, from any and all parts of the world, work hard, pay your taxes, succeed, fail, succeed again, and pursue liberty, opportunity, freedom and justice at the very highest level of society. This is the ideal idea, but this idea of the "ideal idea" is itself a commitment to the concept of embracing change while holding on to our core values. Given that we represent, literally, the world's interests, it should come as no surprise that we also benefit from it too. It is no wonder that we are the largest economy in the world and a third of the world economy. Who better to do business with the world than the one country that has a direct relationship with most people on the planet. We don't do business with companies or governments or organizations, we do business with people. People make the difference. America's diversity is not only "nice," it is also extremely smart. Our ability to "change" following the Jim Crow era of 20th century America probably saved us from joining the economic also-ran countries of the developed world. Diversity is a business strength, and the rejection of diversity is just plain stupid. Our embrace, and sometimes just our mere tolerance, of diversity is change in action, and love leadership too. Witness my friends in the Middle East. While places such as Jordan are extraordinarily progressive and Jordan and other countries are making incredible strides forward, a good part of the Middle East is locked in a rear-view mirror approach to the world, with so-called focused only "clutching and keeping" what they have. But what happens when half your society is women, but you don't allow them to contribute to this same society? You lose that development, and their extremely unique and important contribution to the cultural and societal vibrancy. What happens when another 25% of society doesn't happen to fit your view of political, ethnic or religious appropriateness? Well, they are locked out of the prosperity game too, and now you have a country wracked by fear, looking out of the rear-view mirror as it seeks to move forward, and worse of all, operating at a mere 25% of its potential and capacity. Shooting yourself in the foot of change and prosperity For all of America's so-called advantages, lately we have been really blowing it. America gained a measure of moral authority both at home and around the world (which then directly aided and eased the way for its economic expansion both here and around the world) following World War II, but it was less about how we waged war, but how we waged peace thereafter. The Marshall Plan literally rebuilt the countries that bombed us, namely Germany and Japan. Rationale, it was not the mostly the loving people of either country that attacked us, but fear-obsessed leaders that controlled their agenda at the time. The result is that we rebuilt Germany and Japan, and today who are our principal trading partners and allies in the world -- that's right, Germany and Japan. And here is the bonus of Love Leadership .... today Germany and Japan, outside of the United States, are two of the largest economies in the world. I forgot to tell you the 3rd Law of Love Leadership: Love makes money too (for everyone). As I write extensively in Love Leadership , this is not so much an economic crisis (that is the symptom of the problem, how it shows itself, not the problem itself), but a crisis of virtues and values. One of America losing our storyline. Detroit was handed its economic head not because they made purely inferior cars in the present moment, but because fear made them hold on to "what I have" for almost 40 years. The result was no reinvention, no re-imagination of the business and industry itself, and no dreaming about the future. In short, no commitment to real change. The commitment was to status now, and holding the line. And my good friends in the union aided and abetted the crime of no change but covering their rear-ends too. Until recently, the most expensive part on a GM car was health insurance at $1400.00 per automobile. How do you compete with the world like that? Answer -- you don't, and ultimately they didn't. Fear fails. We have got to figure out what we have to give, in a world seemingly obsessed with another question -- what do I get? We need a commitment to a new course - one of empowerment, of a return to the power and magic of ideas, of hard work, focusing on what we have to give, building real and sustainable relationships with customers, employees, shareholders, investors and community, and to service and love leadership. We need real change, now.
 
Jonathan Weiler: Health Care Reform and Corruption Top
For decades now, American political leaders, as well as global financial institutions, like the World Bank and the IMF, have lectured to poorer countries about the need to root out corruption. A system of government compromised by insiderism, favoritism and lack of transparency will fail to establish the foundations for sustained prosperity and, in the process, weaken the kind of accountability and fealty to the rule of law necessary for democratic governance in the public interest. Thus the sometimes "tough medicine" that the IMF and World Bank prescribed to developing countries, backed by the United States, included a strong dose of anti-corruption efforts in support of good governance. So it's worth pointing out that corruption -- presumed to have been confined in American history to our Tammany-Hall past -- is an endemic feature of our own political system. It's played an important role, for example, in the current health care reform debate. Let's leave aside the very questionable and secretive deal that the White House made with the pharmaceutical industry and just focus on the public option. Polls that clearly define the public option show that large majorities of Americans support it. The quality of arguments against the public option (setting aside "death panel" garbage) -- for example, that it's "unfair" because a publicly run health insurance option would be cheaper and be run more efficiently than is private insurance -- is, frankly, pathetic. And yet, despite a Democratic super majority in the Senate, the public option appears headed for defeat. Why? In large part because key Democrats are carrying water for the health industry interests that line their pockets. As Nate Silver has shown , you can, in fact, explain quite well whether, for example, so-called moderate Senators will support the public option if you know how much they've received in contributions from health industry PACs. Yes, this is perfectly legal. But, in any other context, we'd call a legislative process so clearly infected by moneyed interests what it is: corrupt. As Krugman recently observed , in a column waxing nostalgic (to a point) for President Nixon: We tend to think of the way things are now, with a huge army of lobbyists permanently camped in the corridors of power, with corporations prepared to unleash misleading ads and organize fake grass-roots protests against any legislation that threatens their bottom line, as the way it always was. But our corporate-cash-dominated system is a relatively recent creation, dating mainly from the late 1970s. And now that this system exists, reform of any kind has become extremely difficult. That's especially true for health care, where growing spending has made the vested interests far more powerful than they were in Nixon's day. The health insurance industry, in particular, saw its premiums go from 1.5 percent of G.D.P. in 1970 to 5.5 percent in 2007, so that a once minor player has become a political behemoth, one that is currently spending $1.4 million a day lobbying Congress. That spending fuels debates that otherwise seem incomprehensible. Why are "centrist" Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota so opposed to letting a public plan, in which Americans can buy their insurance directly from the government, compete with private insurers? Never mind their often incoherent arguments; what it comes down to is the money. And such influence also obstructs serious reform efforts that might not include a public option. Jonathan Cohn has explained that the health insurance system in the Netherlands relies mainly on private health insurance that includes for-profit providers. And that system is highly successful -- universal coverage, comprehensive care, high levels of satisfaction and excellent outcomes. But Cohn also points out one key ingredient in the Dutch system that makes it unlikely to serve as a viable model for the United States: stringent government regulation and oversight. Cohn writes: Still, there's a catch. A big catch. Private insurance in the Netherlands works because it operates more or less like a public utility. The Dutch government regulates industry practices tightly -- more tightly than the reforms now moving through Congress propose to do in the United States. The public insurance option was supposed to make up for that deficiency, at least in part, by setting a standard for service and affordability that the private industry would have to meet -- and by offering a fail-safe option in case the private plans simply couldn't keep up. If Congress ends up gutting the public plan, in part or in whole, then it needs to work even harder on making private insurance work. And it's an open question whether that will happen. It's an open question (to put it optimistically) because of the way our legislative processes are compromised. In short, because of corruption. Of course, it's not just health reform. There have been a spate of stories in recent days -- from malfeasance among defense contractors (brought to light anew by that ridiculous bill to de-fund Acorn), to successful financial industry efforts to undermine consumer-friendly banking regulations, to politically pressured FDA approval of dangerous medical devices -- that highlight how widespread corruption is in our political system. Earlier this year, Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund wrote a widely discussed article , "The Quiet Coup," about the degree to which the American financial system had come to embody the practices we typically associate with corrupt "emerging market" economies, like Russia. Central to such practices included the capacity of powerful private interests -- including those most responsible for economic crisis and instability -- to block changes to a status quo that served their narrow purposes at the expense of the public interest. This kind of skewed outcome is at the heart of what is so pernicious about corruption. And it appears, increasingly, to pervade our political system, calling into question, among other things, our credibility in lecturing to the rest of the world about good governance. Physician, heal thyself. Jonathan Weiler's second book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in Contemporary American Politics , co-authored with Marc Hetherington, is just out from Cambridge University Press. He blogs daily about politics and sports at www.jonathanweiler.com More on Health Care
 
Jaclyn Friedman: We Are All Polanski's Victims, and We All Deserve Justice Top
Let's get one thing clear from the outset: Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old girl. Yes, Whoopi, he even " rape-raped " her, whatever that means. Ignoring her explicit pleas and protests, he fed her champagne and a quaalude, forced her to undress, and then vaginally and anally penetrated her. That's rape, by any definition and with any number of hyphens. And it's all there in the public record . So if this tempest-in-an-extradition isn't about what really happened 32 years ago, what is it all about? What is it that's inspired public intellectuals such as Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum and Nation editor Katrina vandenHeuvel (who has since, commendably, come to her senses ) to write breathless defenses of the man? Why is Debra Winger more concerned with the sanctity of international film festivals than with seeing justice done? Why have France, Poland, and -- for the love of God -- Germany , issued outraged statements on Polanski's behalf? Why has the entirety of Hollywood (save Kirstie Alley, Kevin Smith, Greg Grunberg and Jewel, bless their C-list hearts) lined up not just to defend him, but to take up his cause as though he were the victim in this case, launching a "Free Roman Polanski" campaign so popular among the entertainment elite that if you were to boycott everyone who signed on you could never watch a film again? By now, we all know at least part of the answer: hero worship. Polanski is a genius director with a tragic past , and if there's anything we like better than a genius with a tragic past, it's a rich and famous genius with a tragic past. In the confused minds of many, Polanski is a real-life Batman, a flawed anti-hero living outside the law because that's the only way he can truly overcome his tortured history. But Batman uses his past as a moral compass, not a get-out-of-jail-free card, and he certainly never raped a 13 year-old girl (or anyone else for that matter). Besides, surely our obsession with our celebrity heroes is just part of the story. Even Mackenzie Phillips was treated with more consideration last week when she accused her famous father of raping her, and there's nothing remotely like grand jury testimony backing her up, the way there is for Polanski's victim. Which brings us at last to the heart of the matter: who Roman Polanski hurt, and who has the right to demand he face justice? His literal victim, after suffering a lifetime in an unwelcome media spotlight, has famously requested that the charges against Polanski be dropped. Polanski's defenders have seized on her statements, arguing that if she can "get over it," then those of us who haven't are just humorless harpies who want to see an old man suffer. But rape isn't just a crime against one person, and we don't prosecute it in order to fulfill any one victim's needs or wishes. Rape is a crime against the social fabric that binds all of us together. The act violates what should be one of our core values as a civilization: that every person of every gender and age has the right to bodily autonomy -- to basic safety in our bodies. When that right is violated and the perpetrator goes unpunished, it makes all of us less safe. Not just because there's one more rapist on the loose, but because that lack of accountability sends a message to other would-be rapists: Go ahead and rape someone. The rest of us don't care that much, as long as it's not us or someone we love. In this case, we might add a caveat: Especially if you're rich and talented and have powerful friends. This is the reason why the plaintiff in any criminal rape case isn't the victim -- it's the government. Rape cases are pursued by a representative of all of us because all of us are harmed when someone rapes. It's heartbreaking to have to explain this still, after so many decades of activism and education and prevention work on the part of so many countless people, but it's hardly surprising. According to the Department of Justice, there were over 160,000 rapes in the U.S. last year -- and that's just measuring the small fraction that are reported. When you consider that 98% of all rapists are male, and over 85% of rape victims are female, it's no wonder that we've become frighteningly comfortable in a world where half the population lives in fear of profound violation by the other half. Too few of us ever wonder if it has to be this way. Our social fabric has been utterly shredded by sexual violence, so much so that we've come to believe the giant holes are part of the design. But they don't have to be, and bringing rapists to justice is one of the ways we begin to stitch them closed. That's why this case matters, even though it happened so long ago, even though Polanski's old, even though he's a genius and has a tragic past and his victim's all grown up and and and and and . None of this changes the basic facts: He raped a 13 year-old girl. He violated all of us with that act, and, when he fled, denied all of us the possibility of repairing the rent that he caused. He's had decades more time than was owed him, to do with whatever healing or changing he chose. It's our turn now. More on Roman Polanski
 
Gay Marriage Bill Introduced In Illinois Top
State Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago) announced today that she's hoping to build on that momentum by introducing the Equal Marriage Act (SB 2468), the Senate version of Harris' same-sex marriage bill. More on Gay Marriage
 
Schuyler Brown: Environmental Messaging Is Missing the Point Top
Six years ago I went to hear a Cherokee man speak. At one point he described the sacred use of tobacco by Native Americans. Before first contact the plant was considered a medicine, and the way it was harvested reflected the reverence people had for its powers. A medicine man would approach the plant. On his knees, at "eye level" with the plant, he would ask for permission to take leaves. He would explain how they would be used and promised to take only as much as he needed, no more. "My people need something from your people," the Cherokee man said, imitating the ancient medicine man's request. My people ... your people. The story, especially this phrase, struck me to the heart. In it was revealed a vast distance of time and attitude. At what point did the relationship of equals between man and plant devolve into the "relationship" (or lack thereof) we have today with plants -- and not just tobacco plants. We abuse them, strip them, use them, poison them, and then we wonder why they poison us. What the medicine man understood that we don't is the power of intention. We don't receive the gifts of the plant when we don't ask for them. A couple of months ago, a similar story came to me during a conversation with a woman I was interviewing for a client. Veering off topic, she told me about a transformative experience she'd had recently. On a journey to visit sacred sites in Europe, she found herself in England. Stonehenge was her intended destination, but on a side trip suggested by her guide, she met two ancient oak trees. The trees are over 2,000 years old and are believed to have been planted by the Druids as part of an "avenue of oaks" leading to a sacred site. In recent years, the trees have become an attraction for spiritual seekers who make pilgrimages and leave offerings and gifts in exchange for ... healing, wisdom, insight, reverence, visions, whatever it is the trees "give." The woman described the wonder of being in the presence of two such ancient living organisms. Her guide suggested she wrap her arms around the trees to really feel their energy. "The male tree," she said, "was nice, but the female tree ... as I approached her she stopped me in my tracks and turned me around. I leaned against the trunk and felt her 'arms' wrap around me." She searched for words to explain the realization she gained in that moment, "It was like she was laughing at my naivety and saying to me, 'Oh honey, I don't need a hug from you. You need a hug from me.'" I listened in amazement as she painted a picture in words of this tree literally reaching out and embracing her. It was a gift that she'd had no choice but to accept. Both of these stories stuck with me, but the connection between them was not apparent until a single word spoken in a moment of receptivity brought to light the truth contained within. It was in a yoga class. The teacher had just returned from a retreat in Peru and she talked at the beginning of class about the clean water, air, and food. It was a rainy New York morning, but she promised to bring some Peru into the studio. Halfway through the class, we stood with our feet planted squarely on the ground. We paused and she said, "Now feel your feet on the earth. Feel the transfer of energy. You give her your energy and the earth will return it. Give her the 'bad' and she will recycle it into something useful. Feel the reciprocity ... " Reciprocity. The moment I heard the word, the exchange of energy between me -- all of us -- and the earth became powerfully clear. It was visual and sensory. It was no longer conceptual. It was real. Instantly I was thinking about the Cherokee man and the woman's experience with the ancient tree. I was thinking about innumerable times in my life when nature has healed something in me. Nature's force and omnipresence was made clear and with it came a realization of my own supreme arrogance. I was humbled. I carried that humility with me out of class and into the world. As it enveloped me it shoved aside a great wall of shame that I'd placed between me and the natural world. I wondered where the arrogance had come from, where the wall was getting its support, and I saw that it was coming from a feeling of inadequacy -- my own and ours as the generation given the great responsibility of healing this relationship; a monumental task that is suffering because we don't believe we can do it. But we're wrong. We can do it. It's not that difficult because Nature wants us to succeed. And it's a reciprocal process that will feed itself once its started. Our great mistake -- the misconception that cripples us -- is that we're working on this alone; that it's up to us to save Nature, as if she were a damsel in distress. This is an enormous burden to bear. It makes sense that we've put it on the back burner. My husband summed it up, "Nature doesn't nag," he said. He's right. Nature is and does. Why then, do well-intentioned people nag on behalf of nature? Part of the problem with the environmental movement we're in the midst of now is that most people understand reciprocity in theory only. It's an intellectual exercise. Just this morning I was reading a piece in The New Yorker about climate control and I found myself bored. Bored! It was all words, politics and policy, and fear mongering. The story was written for my brain but there was nothing in it to touch the part of me that knows how critical this issue is. People and politicians have resorted to a message of urgency because the matter is urgent, but also because the true message -- the one where we are reminded of the precious and critical presence of this benevolent force in our lives, there to help us survive and evolve -- is hard to convey. Effectively, it must be experienced in the form of personal events, or the conveyance of a great and powerful story. If sharing stories is one avenue to enlightened thinking -- and for me it was -- then the good news is that we're in closer contact than ever before. We email, blog, twitter, and text. We have created the means for unlimited connectivity -- a worldwide web that connects us equally with our friends down the block and "strangers" around the world. It may be time to tell stories that stick; or better, create the conditions for people to live and form their own stories. It's time to lodge stories in the collective unconscious that will build up strength and through no effort of ours, but left to the laws that govern the timing of such things, break through in a way that can be felt, and remembered by more people than ever before. Let's start talking about what nature has given us. Let's share our own wisdom with others, speaking for nature, becoming the advocate for her in a move towards a more reciprocal relationship. Let's replace fear tactics with appreciation. Motivated by fear, giving is a finite exercise. Motivated by appreciation, it is infinite. Once a healthy reciprocity with nature is established, giving becomes a pleasure because it is met, and raised, every time.
 
Frank A. Weil: A Huff and Puff on Health Care Top
Why, oh why, is health care such an impossible, vexing public policy problem? Actually the answer is basically quite simple. On the one hand, roughly 75 percent of the American people in poll after poll say they are reasonably satisfied with their health care and insurance. On the other hand, and perversely, roughly 70 percent of the same American people in poll after poll say they support health care reform to 1) contain costs 2) cover everyone and 3) fix problems like portability and job loss, etc. Taken together, those two statements sound like a status quo confronted by a threatening, but well intentioned, challenge of change that could easily end up spelling 'stalemate'. Well, surprise, surprise--that seems to be what we have. But, hold on a moment, maybe we have simply been going through a complex political sorting-out process. And, once again, our new, young President, who has taken lumps throughout this affair, may turn out to have been exactly right to give the body politic time and space to work it out. There are, of course, several significant nodes of opposition to the President's plan. One is people who want him to fail simply for the sake of injuring his whole presidency. Another is people who are simply gradualists and want to limit change to modest increments allegedly to avoid making newer, different, bigger problems, but really to protect the status quo. And a last group that doubts that cost containment can be achieved short of fundamental structural changes in the incentives underlying the present health care system, which are not addressed anywhere in the present plan. At this moment the President's unarguable, and overwhelmingly valid, point must take over the rational debate because the status quo is simply untenable. In just a matter of years, the country truly risks bankruptcy if we fail to control health costs. And that is where we are now. And that is why it is time for the silent, but complacent, majority to assert its voice in crafting compromises in several of the sub-debates. For example, the "public option" debate is held out as risking socialism, which on its face really makes no sense at all because we already are there with Medicare. And, a major reason why there has been such broad acceptance of today's status quo is because on balance Medicare really works quite well, partly because its costs are not constrained. An additional, new public option governed by marketplace rules of efficiency with no permitted deficits should not be objectionable, particularly if Medicare's costs are also properly constrained. On cost containment: there really are few arguments left about digitizing medicine; there begins to be common ground in the arena of tort reform and defensive medicine; and there really are few arguments left about conferring benefits on illegal immigrants except in serious emergencies. And virtually all the points about prior conditions, portability, job moves or loss, etc. have already effectively been resolved. While we may not get a perfect bill that makes everyone happy, we can hope and expect to get a significant move forward so that in future years, we can hopefully address today's unaddressed problems of misdirected incentives throughout the whole culture of our health care systems. And if you think today's debate has been tough, wait for that one! More on Health Care
 
Bill Bennett On Olympics In Chicago: "I'm Actually For Rio... In Chicago It's Fat People Eating" (VIDEO) Top
Conservative commentator Bill Bennett certainly didn't endear himself to the residents of Chicago during a recent appearance on CNN's "The Situation Room." Asked for his thoughts about President Obama going to Copenhagen to personally lobby for Chicago as the sight of the 2016 Olympics, Bennett said that he was actually rooting for Rio, Brazil: "I'm actually for Rio. In Rio, it's beautiful women at the beach, and in Chicago, it's fat people eating." Bennett (not the slimmest man on television) saw one silver lining in Obama's trip: "He is going to have to say some really very positive things about the United States while abroad, which is not something he has been doing." WATCH: Send us tips! Write us at tv@huffingtonpost.com if you see any newsworthy or notable TV moments. Read more about our media monitoring project here and click here to join the Media Monitors team. More on Barack Obama
 
Ellen Brown: The IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank Top
"A year ago," said law professor Ross Buckley on Australia's ABC News last week, "nobody wanted to know the International Monetary Fund. Now it's the organiser for the international stimulus package which has been sold as a stimulus package for poor countries." The IMF may have catapulted to a more exalted status than that. According to Jim Rickards , director of market intelligence for scientific consulting firm Omnis, the unannounced purpose of last week's G20 Summit in Pittsburgh was that " the IMF is being anointed as the global central bank ." In a CNBC interview on September 25, Rickards said, "They've issued debt for the first time in history. They're issuing SDRs. The last SDRs came out around 1980 or '81, $30 billion. Now they're issuing $300 billion. When I say issuing, it's printing money; there's nothing behind these SDRs." SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are a synthetic currency originally created by the IMF to replace gold and silver in large international transactions. But they have been little used until now. Why does the world suddenly need a new global fiat currency and global central bank? Rickards says it because of "Triffin's Dilemma," a problem first noted by economist Robert Triffin in the 1960s. When the world went off the gold standard, a reserve currency had to be provided by some large-currency country to service global trade. But leaving its currency out there for international purposes meant that the country would have to continually run large deficits, and that meant it would eventually go broke. The U.S. has fueled the world economy for the last 50 years, but now it is going broke. The U.S. can settle its debts and get its own house in order, but that would cause world trade to contract. A substitute global reserve currency is needed to fuel the global economy while the U.S. solves its debt problems, and that new currency is to be the IMF's SDRs. That's the solution to Triffin's dilemma, says Rickards, but it leaves the U.S. in a vulnerable position. If we face a war or other global catastrophe, we no longer have the privilege of printing money. The dollar becomes just another currency. To avoid that, the Federal Reserve is hinting that it is prepared to raise interest rates, even though that would mean further squeezing the real estate market and the real economy. Rickards was referring to an oped piece by Fed governor Kevin Warsh , published in The Wall Street Journal the same day the G20 met. Warsh said that the Fed would need to raise interest rates if asset prices rose - which Rickards interprets to mean gold, the traditional go-to investment of investors fleeing the dollar. "Central banks hate gold because it limits their ability to print money," said Rickards. If gold were to suddenly go to $1,500 an ounce, it would mean the dollar was collapsing. Warsh was giving the market a heads up that the Fed wasn't going to let that happen. The Fed would raise interest rates to attract dollars back into the country. "Warsh is saying, 'We sort of have to trash the dollar, but we're going to do it gradually,'" Rickards observed. "Warsh is trying to preempt an unstable decline in the dollar. What they want, of course, is a stable, steady decline." What about the Fed's traditional role of maintaining price stability? It's nonsense, said Rickards. " What they do is inflate the dollar to prop up the banks ." The dollar has to be inflated because there is more debt outstanding than money to pay it with. The government currently has contingent liabilities of $60 trillion. "There's no feasible combination of growth and taxes that can fund that liability," Rickards said. The government could fund about half that in the next 14 years, which means the dollar needs to be devalued by half in that time. The IMF's $500 Billion Stimulus Package: Designed to Help Developing Countries or the Banks? This all underscores another dilemma in the current monetary scheme, one that is even more intractable than Triffin's. There is never enough money to cover the outstanding debt, because all money today except coins is created by banks in the form of loans, and more money is always owed back to the banks than they advance when they create their loans. Banks create the principal but not the interest necessary to pay their loans back. The Fed, which is owned by a consortium of banks and was set up to serve their interests, is tasked with seeing that the banks are paid back; and the only way to do that is to inflate the money supply to create the dollars to cover the missing interest. But that means diluting the value of the dollar, which imposes a stealth tax on the citizenry; and the money supply is inflated by making more loans , which adds to the debt and interest burden that the inflated money supply was supposed to relieve. The banking system is basically a pyramid scheme, which can be kept going only by continually creating more debt. And that brings us back to the IMF's stimulus package discussed last week by Professor Buckley . The $500 billion package was billed as helping emerging nations hard hit by the global credit crisis, but Buckley said that he doubts that is what is really going on. Rather, the $500 billion pledged by the G20 nations is " a stimulus package for the rich countries' banks ." Why does he think that? Because stimulus packages are usually grants. The money coming from the IMF will be extended in the form of loans. These are loans that are made by the G20 countries through the IMF to poor countries. They have to be repaid and what they're going to be used for is to repay the international banks now. . . . [T]he money won't really touch down in the poor countries. It will go straight through them to repay their creditors. . . . But the poor countries will spend the next 30 years repaying the IMF. Basically, said Professor Buckley, the loans extended by the IMF represent an increase in seniority of the debt. At the moment the debt is owed by poor countries to banks, and if the poor countries had to, they could default on that. The bank debt is going to be replaced by debt that's owed to the IMF, which for very good strategic reasons the poor countries will always service. . . . The rich countries have made this $500 billion available to stimulate their own banks, and the IMF is a wonderful party to put in between the countries and the debtors and the banks. The IMF is back in business, but it's the old unseemly business of serving as the collection agency for the international banking industry. As long as third world debtors can service their loans by paying the interest on them, the banks can count the loans as "assets" on their books, allowing them to keep their pyramid scheme going by inflating the global money supply with yet more loans. It's all for the greater good of the banks and their affiliated multinational corporations, funded with $500 billion from the taxpayers of the G20 nations. More on Interest Rates
 
Jamie Metzl: My Hamid Karzai Daydream Top
Just back from serving as an election monitor in Afghanistan, I became distressed at how much the Karzai government's mishandling of the electoral process and rampant corruption are undermining its own legitimacy and that of the overall international effort. I began to daydream about Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaking directly to the American people to take responsibility for his government's failings and seek support for strong U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. This is what he said: My Dear American Friends, From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for all you have sacrificed to help my country. You liberated Afghanistan from the brutal rule of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We are delighted to have them gone. Afghanistan is far from America, and few Americans knew much about my native land before the terrible events of September 11, 2001 brought our fates together. I know that no American can forget the tragedy of that day, just as no Afghan can forget the string of tragedies over the past thirty years that have turned our proud country to rubble. It's strange for me to watch the Afghanistan debate in the United States knowing that what America decides will have almost as great an impact on the future of Afghanistan as elections in our own country. Americans are rightly asking what has been gained from eight years of war - your soldiers are dying, the Taliban is growing stronger, Al Qaeda has safe havens in Pakistan, and my own government is riddled with corruption and cannot yet stand on its own feet. Many Americans saw the August Afghan elections as a last straw and are asking how a counter-insurgency strategy can work if the Afghan government is not able to hold a clean election, provide basic services, or bring any semblance of justice and security. But while I ask the American taxpayers and their representatives to hold me accountable for how international funds are being used by the Afghan government, I also hope that the American people can understand how much the U.S. policy of funding and arming Afghanistan's warlords after the 2001 intervention helped create the situation we are in. What could we have done to stand up to the warlords other than make deals with them? Once we did, how could we create the culture of accountability we all know is badly needed? This is not to mention all the problems that have been created by the poor coordination among international military forces or the negative impact on our credibility of civilian casualties from US bombing. We have all made terrible mistakes, but what's done is done. The key question you must now answer is whether you will support a strong and broad engagement in Afghanistan to lay a foundation for long-term security, or will begin scaling back your engagement and focus more narrowly on fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. For your sake as well as for our own, I hope you do the former. If you scale back now, before we are able to develop our own institutions, there is a decent chance our system will collapse. If you stay in your bases and whack the Taliban and Al Qaeda from the sky, you will only stir the hornet's nest and destabilize our already weak government. Trust me, a failed or terrorist state in Afghanistan will become everyone's problem. If the Taliban and Al Qaeda take over and use Afghanistan as a base to export extremism and terror, what will you do then? Will you come back? As tough as it seems, won't it be easier to make the current flawed system work? The new Afghanistan is just eight years old. We are very far from perfect, but we are doing a lot to educate our young girls and build a multi-ethnic society. With your help, we've made great progress in strengthening our army, but we've had very little progress in improving the quality of our policing, building a justice system, or giving farmers meaningful alternatives to growing opium poppies. I believe that together we can make significant progress in all of these areas, but we need our leadership, your robust support, and a bit more time. We need you to stay and help us, and you need us to succeed. But it would not be fair for us to ask you to sacrifice so much without our making commitments as well. For this reason, I today want to make a series of pledges to the American people. From this day forward I will commit myself to fighting fraud and corruption within my government. Corruption is not a part of Afghan culture, and we Afghans need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I will kick-start this process today by asking my brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, to step down as Chairman of the Provincial Council of Kandahar. Within two months, my government will publicly present our list of top goals for the next three years in key areas such as good governance, development, education, policing, judicial reform, and agriculture, and measurable benchmarks that we can all use to determine whether these goals are being met. For each goal, we will determine what support we need from the international community to make progress. If we do not reach these benchmarks, I will fully understand if the international community begins reducing its support to our government. It will literally be life and death for me and every member of our government to bring about this progress, and corruption or other interference with this process simply will not be tolerated. You may be asking how I can do this when my own position is so shaky after a deeply flawed election whose outcome remains uncertain. I take full responsibility for the electoral fraud carried out in my name, but will it matter who ultimately wins if international support is withdrawn prematurely and our state collapses? We need to get our act together now. For this reason, I would like to invite my challenger, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, to become my full and equal partner as Co-President of Afghanistan. I beg you, for our sake as well as yours, help give us one last chance to build a better future for all of our children. From where I stand, the alternative seems unimaginable for both of our countries. Jamie F. Metzl is Executive Vice President of the Asia Society who served as Project Director for the Asia Society Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force. The views expressed are his own. More on Afghanistan
 
Peter Brantley: Google Books: Right Goal, Wrong Solution Top
The first anniversary of the collapse of major U.S. financial institutions has just passed, and in its wake much has been written about the delicate balance between prudent government oversight and free market ideals. Recent attention by the Department of Justice to the Google Book Search case underscores that strong safeguards to protect intellectual property and to prevent unfair competitive practices are equally important to the healthy functioning for the market of access to online information. Earlier this month, the DOJ filed a Statement of Interest in the Google case, recommending that the court reject the proposed settlement because of "significant legal concerns." In response, Google and its partners requested and received a delay in the case, recognizing that the settlement, as it was originally proposed, is dead. The parties will go back to the drawing board, but these developments highlight the impropriety of allowing Google and its partners to craft a private settlement that purportedly serves the public interest. Intellectual property protections and checks on anticompetitive business practices have played central roles in our system of law and government since the earliest days of the Republic. Passed in 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was spurred by the public harm that resulted from the Standard Oil monopoly's collusion with the nation's railroad operators. The original U.S. Copyright Act predates Sherman by a century, drafted by the Second Congress and signed by George Washington. These statutes have evolved over time, but their intent has remained constant: our copyright laws encourage learning and the pursuit of knowledge by rewarding the fruits of creative labors, and our antitrust provisions guard against unfair business practices, ensuring that the playing field is level so competition can flourish. These legal constructs operate in service of the public good - and should remain in the province of public authorities. Google may intend well, but determining the right way to distribute and protect a nascent public utility rightfully belongs in the realm of Congress, not commerce. Many parties, including those who vehemently oppose the original settlement in the Google Book Search case, laud the idea of making books searchable, readable and downloadable. The Internet, coupled with search engine technology, has the potential to unlock huge volumes of our shared cultural knowledge, making information accessible regardless of one's geographic location or financial status. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to accomplish this goal. As the DOJ clearly recognized, the proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case was a wrong way, and a dangerous one. Rather than resolving the copyright issues originally at stake, it aggravated them. Adding insult to injury, the proposed settlement would have created a monolithic concentration of market power that raised antitrust alarm bells to even the most casual defender of competitive markets. The proposed settlement would have impacted thousands of copyright holders who are not part of the lawsuit, and it threatened competition, consumer choice, and privacy in virtually every field that the Internet touches. Google has said it wants to try again - and has vowed to work with the plaintiff publishers to craft a better settlement. If left solely to its own device, this exercise is doomed to fail. Google understandably sees great commercial and intellectual appeal in the mass digitization of books; at the same time, trade publishing has fallen on harder times. Book sales have steadily declined in recent years and publishers are anxious to find new revenue. Any settlement these parties reach will necessarily consider their own commercial gain first, trampling public rights in the process. The potential damages to consumers extend far beyond the digital book marketplace. Sanctioning monopoly power in online literature would stifle competition in scores of other markets, particularly those dependent on web commerce. The DOJ has raised the alarm, and now it is time for Congress to assume its rightful place in this debate - convening interested voices and arbitrating on behalf of public good. Standard Oil's price fixing conspiracy with the railroads inspired Congress to pass the Sherman Act because they recognized that control over critical transportation and fueling infrastructure could be wielded to impact virtually every aspect of American life. In the modern day, the Internet is the railroad and search technology the coal that powers our cultural, commercial, academic and social existence. Allowing a powerful cartel of commercial actors to possess control over these fundamental elements of networked information promises to create a modern day Standard Oil. Our laws evolve to accommodate modernity, and the digital migration of books may warrant a revision to our approach to both copyright and competition policy. Commentators on both sides of the Google case have noted that the mass digitization of books may prove to be the most revolutionary advance in the distribution of knowledge since Gutenberg invented the printing press. Google suggests that the worthiness of its pursuit justifies a prompt settlement. But in fact, it is the very enormity of the issue that demands it be deliberated publicly, not haggled over privately. The world of information has changed dramatically since the days of Standard Oil, but not so dramatically that we should discard our civic foundations for the sake of one company's good idea. More on Google
 
Dan Dorfman: Yikes, Not Another Market Crash Top
Here's one of those pre-Halloween horror stories that deals with your net worth. I don't know whether veteran online stock tracker Michael Markowsi will go to any Halloween parties this year. But if he does and you happen to run into him, a word of caution: don't ask him about the stock market because it's a certainty he'll scare the living daylights out of you. He'll be easy enough to spot because his costume, befitting his investment mood, will likely depict a combination of frightening Halloween characters all wrapped up into one -- Frankenstein, Dracula and one of those flesh-eating zombies from the horror film Night of the Living Dead . What makes his thinking especially noteworthy at this juncture is that this month is notorious for crashing stock markets, the most devastating one being the vicious one-day drop on October 19, 1987, known as Black Monday. Triggered by the simultaneous issuance of sell signals by insurance and computer programs, that 1987 crash produced a one-day loss in the Dow of 22.6% or more than $500 billion in stock values, the market's single biggest one-day dollar decline ever. Likewise, there have been five instances in October where the S&P 500 fell 10% or more. Further, since the end of World War 11, five of the 11 bear markets (as measured by declines of 20% or more) ended in October. It's no wonder, then, that crash jitters abound among the nation's more than 80 million stock investors. Judging what I hear from Markowski, the skipper of Stock Diagnostis, com., an online research service headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., those jitters are well justified. Why so? Because he sees a high probability that another crash -- a scare-you-to-death plunge of 50% or more in the S&P 500 (now at 1049) to the 400 to 500 level -- could kick off this month and run through mid-2010. His dour outlook -- clearly a contrarian view -- is largely based on a study he undertook of the vigor of second-quarter revenue growth (or the lack of it) of 228 industries. Consistent revenue growth is especially important because without it a company can not increase its dividends or grow its base. In this year's second quarter, such growth was conspicuously absent, and many companies only managed to avoid red ink by slashing costs, especially through personnel reduction. In his study -- which focused on second-quarter revenue growth, versus year-earlier numbers -- Markowski found that just 70 of the 228 industries, less than a third, managed to grow their revenue base in the quarter. Moreover, in the past two quarters, he points out, the number of industries able to grow revenues has fallen to new lows. Noting that revenue declines show no sign of bottoming, Markowski sees this dilemma growing progressively worse. In fact, the trend is so grim, he says, that by the end of next year, you could see the number of revenue-growing industries slide to 40 or maybe even below 20. Regarded as noteworthy on the revenue side of the ledger is that three leading technology names -- Microsoft, Intel and Dell -- all reported second-quarter revenue declines of more than 10% from the same 2008 perioed. Markowski, who in September of 2007 accurately predicted impending problems for the brokerage arena -- which was about six months before such bigwigwigs as Bear Stears, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs began to run afoul of severe financial strains -- figures by year-end 2010 only about 10% of the industries will be growing revenues. It means, he says, "companies will continue to cut overhead to protect their profit, which will put even more people out of work." The inference, as far as the stock market goes, he observes, is that "price-earnings multiples will continue to contract, and we're going to see a significant correction." His recommended strategy for investors: Preservation of assets! In this context, he would devote 80% of a portfolio to government securities with a maturity of two years or less. His suggestion for the remaining 20%: a combination of dividend-paying stocks (notably Abbott Laboratories, Philip Morris and Automatic Data Processing) and shares of companies that participate in the online financial sector of the economy (Ameritrade, Morningstar and E*Trade). Write to Dan Dorfman at Dandordan@aol.com .
 
2016 Olympics Announcement: Hours Before The IOC Vote, It's Too Close To Call Top
COPENHAGEN — In 30 minutes, it will be over. Years of preparations, arm-twisting, sweet-talking and hopes will be rejected or rewarded Friday when the International Olympic Committee votes to select the host for the 2016 Games. Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo – one by one – will be eliminated in a tense half-hour of successive rounds of secret balloting until one stands alone. Shortly afterward, IOC president Jacques Rogge will break open a sealed envelope containing the winner's name and utter the magic words: "The games of the 31st Olympiad are awarded to the city of ..." But on the eve of the vote, the IOC's 106 members were, as ever, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Only Tokyo seemed to have fallen out of the running. Otherwise, it was still too close to call between the beaches and bossa nova of Rio, the bustle and Lake Michigan waterfront of Chicago or the European elegance of Madrid. Everyone had reason to be hopeful, none reason to be sure. "This is the big question, how will it go?" said Willi Kaltschmitt, an IOC member since 1988. "There have been so many surprises in the past," he said. "It's very even at the moment. It all depends what happens in the first round." As cities go out, loyalties will shift. That is where the contest will be won or lost. If Tokyo goes out first, will its supporters swing behind Rio, Madrid or Chicago and by how much for each? Could Madrid stun front-runners Chicago and Rio in the second round, knocking one of them out, with its seemingly solid core of backers? The variables are such that any city could conceivably win or lose. A few votes either way could decide it. That is especially true this time, with all four cities seen as generally capable of holding the games. Some IOC veterans say there has been no closer contest in recent memory. To prevent bribery, IOC members aren't allowed to visit the bidding cities – so they'll be deciding instead based on what they've read in committee reports. Some will go with their gut instincts, their emotions and personal interests. Which is where President Barack Obama comes in, literally. He jets in Friday morning, for just five hours, to try to tip the outcome to Chicago. An Obama star turn could swing it – or possibly rebound against him if his adoptive hometown is knocked out. Coming for the day of the vote is a political risk, but so, too, was the risk that Rio might win if Obama didn't lend his charisma and inspirational example to Chicago's final push. His election as the first black president in U.S. history resonated loudly in Europe, which has the most IOC voting members – 46. His wife, Michelle Obama, has worked the room before him, wowing IOC members with her charm and smarts. The first lady flew in Wednesday. While hesitant to declare that Barack Obama's appearance could be decisive, IOC members acknowledged it was hotly anticipated. "It is a very special moment," said Gerhard Heiberg, an IOC executive board member from Norway. "Let me listen to him and see what kind of vision he has for the games." Talk show star Oprah Winfrey is part of Chicago's hard sell, too. She swept Hollywood-style into the marbled lobby of the IOC hotel on Thursday, turning heads and stopping every other step to shake a hand or pose for a photo with IOC members and their wives. But Chicago is up against equally charismatic opposition in the shape of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The bearded former union leader makes a compelling case for Rio. Foremost of those is that South America has never before held an Olympics and that the games shouldn't be the exclusive preserve of rich, developed countries. That is an argument the other cities can't use because their countries have all held the Olympics before. Like Mrs. Obama, Silva has been lobbying IOC members personally in Copenhagen, as has Spanish King Juan Carlos. Rio appeals to IOC members who believe it's their duty to share the Olympic ideals and pursuit of sporting excellence with all corners of the globe. South America is also an untapped market for Olympic sponsors. The romantic appeal of Rio's beaches and mountains is strong. The soothing samba song "Mas que nada" – "Don't worry about it" – playing in the auditorium lent an exotic, dreamy air to a news conference that Silva held Thursday. "For some countries, it is just one more sports event that they are going to organize," he said. "But for us, it is a unique and extraordinary thing." He even borrowed Obama's catchphrase: "We want to overcome and show the world that yes we can." The final throw of the dice for all four cities will be their 45-minute presentations of speeches and videos, followed by questions, that they will make in turn Friday before the vote. Kaltschmitt said he believes that 40 percent of his colleagues on the IOC were undecided going into Friday and were waiting for the presentations to make up their minds. Added Heiberg: "We've already heard about the technical plans. I want something more. I want to know about the vision. The leaders have to lift it up. I want to know why they want the games." It takes a simple majority for victory, although it is unlikely that any city will win outright in the first or second rounds. Rogge doesn't vote and, as long as their cities haven't been eliminated, neither can members from Brazil, the United States, Spain and Japan. That leaves 97 voters in the first round, with more in subsequent rounds. In the event of a two-city tie in the early rounds, a runoff is held between the cities. If there is a tie in the final round, Rogge can vote or ask the IOC executive board to break the deadlock. British bookmakers had Chicago pulling away in the last hours as the clear but not overwhelming favorite. "But don't forget that Paris was the favorite to beat London the last time," said Graham Sharpe, spokesman for betting agency William Hill. "The favorite doesn't always win." ___ AP National Writer Nancy Armour and AP Sports Writers Graham Dunbar in Copenhagen and Stephen Wilson in London contributed to this report. More on Olympics
 
The Body Shop: Stop Sex Trafficking of Children Campaign (VIDEO) Top
The Body Shop is a cosmetics company with a conscience, known for naturally-derived products and an emphasis on ethical business practices. Its founder, Anita Roddick, was devoted to philanthropy and social activism, and her views still inform the philosophy of the global business two years after her death. The company's new campaign, " Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People " was given the spotlight at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York last week. Partnering EPCAT International (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes), which is an advocacy network spanning 75 countries, the Body Shop is publishing sex trafficking progress cards on assorted countries. It's estimated that 1.8 million children are trafficked for sex in nearly every country, including the U.S. The Body Shop is donating 100% of the profits from the sale of its Soft Hands Kind Heart hand cream to EPCAT. The company has also has created Bag for Life , a stylish, resuable tote bag made from natural cotton emblazoned with the phrase "Green it not a colour; it's a state of mind." Two dollars from every sale of the bag go to Somaly Mam Foundation , which also works to fight human trafficking. The bag's so popular that it's currently sold out. WATCH:
 
Rockies Clinch WIldcard With Rout Over Brewers Top
DENVER — It's a Rocktober redux for the Colorado Rockies, who are back in the playoffs after a one-year hiatus. Aaron Cook pitched four-hit ball over eight spectacular innings in his second start since missing a month with a sore shoulder, and Garrett Atkins drove in three runs for the Rockies in a 9-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday. The Rockies' fourth straight victory eliminated Atlanta, their final pursuer, from contention for the NL wild card. Colorado can still catch the Dodgers for the NL West title if the Rockies sweep a weekend series in Los Angeles. "We're in," Troy Tulowitzki said. "Anything can happen once you're in." The Dodgers, who have lost four straight, were off Thursday and watched their division lead over the Rockies get sliced to two games with three left. As the Rockies rejoiced behind the mound after the final out, fans broke into a chant of "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A!" while fireworks crackled through a cloudless sky. "We're celebrating right now. We'll worry about that tomorrow," Todd Helton said as his teammates sprayed him with beer and champagne. On the other side of the clubhouse, manager Jim Tracy was getting soaked by players serenading him with "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas. A bundled-up crowd of more than 38,000 sat through blustery winds on a 50-degree day to watch the record-setting win. At 91-58, the Rockies set a franchise mark for wins in a season and moved 23 games over .500 for the first time in their 17-year history. Unlike two years ago, when they got hot at the right time, winning 21 of 22 on their way to their only World Series appearance, these Rockies simply got good. Very good. After trading slugger Matt Holliday last fall for closer Huston Street and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, the Rockies got off to a stumbling start. They were 18-28 on May 29 when Tracy took over after general manager Dan O'Dowd fired longtime manager Clint Hurdle. When O'Dowd offered Tracy the job, he told him, "I just want to see them play better." Tracy asked for 60 minutes to mull the offer. O'Dowd said he'd gladly give him an hour's time to think about it but not a minute more because he needed a manager in the dugout that night after firing Hurdle following a stint of seven-plus seasons. Tracy talked it over with his wife and told O'Dowd he thought the Rockies could indeed play better under his tutelage. Have they ever. Under Tracy, the Rockies are 73-40, and they took over sole possession of the lead in the wild-card race, which they trailed by 9 1/2 games at midsummer, on Sept. 1. The Rockies, who were 12 games under .500 on June 3, turned their season around and rejoined the pennant race with sensational starting pitching (they're the only team with five starters with double-digit wins), a brilliant bullpen, a mixture of clutch situational and power hitting and deft managerial and front office moves. The Rockies reached the playoffs as the NL wild card in 1995 and 2007, when they went an unfathomable 21-1 during a stunning run-up to the World Series, where they were swept by Boston after a weeklong layoff. "It's not been as crazy a ride coming down the stretch but it's been just as fun," Cook said. "So, we're going to enjoy it just as much." After whittling their magic number to one on Wednesday night, the Rockies took a quick 1-0 lead Thursday when Atkins' first-inning blooper fell in front of left fielder Ryan Braun for a single, allowing Helton to score from second. They chased left-hander Manny Parra (11-11) with a four-run third. Atkins, who lost his starting third base job at midseason, followed Tulowitzki's run-scoring single with an RBI double into the right-field corner, and Parra walked Cook and Dexter Fowler with two outs and the bases loaded to make it 5-0. Seth McClung replaced Parra and struck out Ryan Spilborghs to end the inning. Parra allowed five runs and six hits in 2 2-3 innings. Atkins added a run-scoring single off John Axford in the sixth after Braun hit his 31st homer in the top half. Cook then drew his second bases-loaded walk, making it 7-1. "We had a lot of heroes this year. It was me today," Atkins said. After striking out his first four times up, Brad Hawpe hit his 22nd homer off Chris Smith in the eighth, his two-run shot making it 9-1. Smith was struck in the face by pinch-hitter Eric Young's one-hop comebacker later in the inning and had to leave the game. Cook (11-6), who walked three times, allowed one run and four hits in his longest outing since June 28 at Oakland. Franklin Morales gave up Mike Cameron's RBI double in the ninth before getting Alcides Escobar looking at strike three for the final out. "They do the things they need to do to win," Cameron said. "They play good defense, they pitch well and they get timely hitting." NOTES: Colorado's previous best mark was 90-73 in '07, when it won a wild-card tiebreaker over San Diego in 13 innings exactly two years ago. ... Brewers RF Corey Hart's season is over after tests revealed possible compression fractures in the fourth and fifth fingers on his right hand, which he jammed going back to first base Tuesday night. ... Brewers OF Frank Catalanotto returned home to attend a funeral and will miss Milwaukee's final series at St. Louis. ... The Rockies left 15 runners on base.
 
Tom Matlack: House vs. Mad Men Top
Us guys, we love to be bad. And the ladies seem to love us that way too. At least that is the moral of the top shows on television right now. Don Draper and Dr. Gregory House are hardly poster boys for good behavior, yet they capture our imagination nevertheless. The two men, however, have unexpectedly taken quite different paths this season. In one of the most anticipated season premiers ever, Don Draper quickly finds his way into bed with a stewardess despite his wife's pregnancy. In the episodes that have followed we see Don become a somewhat more involved father, comforting his daughter as she has nightmares, but the larger questions about his character and even his true identity lurk under the surface with repeated flashbacks to his own troubled childhood. As a viewer I yearn for some forward momentum in Don's attempt at redemption as a man, but can't help but feel that I am not going to get it anytime soon. Don't get me wrong. I love the highly stylized pain , and can certainly relate at some level to the existential angst, that Matt Weiner is tapping into. But I am also groping for some answers. With that in mind I tuned into the premier of House , "Broken," and was pleasantly surprised. The old bad-guy-great-doctor-saves-patient formula had grown boring last season (not that I didn't watch that too just for the deadpan humor). In one of the best two hours of television I have seen in a long time, Dr. House is put in a locked ward at the start of the premier. He is forced to get to the bottom of his addiction to pain killers and his inability to connect with other human beings in anything but the most antagonistic fashion. We get hispanic Broadway rapper Lin-Manuel Miranda from IN THE HEIGHTS as House's obsessive compulsive roommate and an African American psychiatrist, Dr. Nolan, who won't let House off the hook. It's not that we are under any illusion that Gregory House is going to turn out to be a normal, nice guy anytime soon. But we witness his sincere struggle to detox his body and look deeply into his soul. That is refreshing. More importantly it points us towards a more constructive message about not only the prisoner's dilemma we men find ourselves in--something Mad Men does in spades by having us look back to 1960s to reflect forward to 2009--but also gives an example of how we might move forward. House doesn't want to tell the truth, he doesn't want to talk about his emotions, he doesn't want to love, he doesn't want to feel pain. He wants to numb it all out. What man living through the Iraq war, the economic meltdown, and the increased demands at home can't relate to that? But numbing ourselves gets us nowhere. The box scores and business pages aren't going to cut it when it come to the male experience as we know it today. At some point we have to break the silence and get down to what is really going on. Don Draper has yet to do that, and it looks like he will never be able to fully. Gregory House has at least made a start. More on Mad Men
 
Kerry Trueman: Tricks and Treats of the Vegan Lunch Box Top
You can tell fall's in full swing, all the signs are there: the chill in the air, the fiery foliage, the stores stocked with cheap plastic landfill-ready Halloween tchotchkes that are probably chock full of phthalates , bisphenol A , and who knows what other toxins . Not to mention the lead coated wires on all those light-up spider webs and skulls. And the swine flu's back with a vengeance; will medical masks outsell the usual disguises this Halloween? Scary stuff, indeed. But the start of the school year creates another frightening dilemma for many parents; how to fill your child's lunch box with something less horrifying than, say, a Kraft Lunchable? There are plenty of parents who'd rather send their kids off to school with a more wholesome, less processed lunch. And though we all think of October as the season for harvests and Halloween, it's also Vegetarian Awareness Month, which kicks off today with World Vegetarian Day . So now's the perfect time to get acquainted with Jennifer McCann, the veggie-loving blogger who began documenting the delicious and delightfully inventive plant-based lunches she created for her son on his "first day of school in 2005," as the New York Times recently reported . Thousands of parents desperate for a healthy alternative to the lamentable Lunchables began flocking to Vegan Lunch Box, McCann's website, and trying her recipes, launching her on a new career as a cookbook author. McCann's cookbooks, Vegan Lunch Box and her latest, Vegan Lunch Box Around the World , may be geared towards children, but they're perfect for anyone--kids or no kids--who enjoys simple, eclectic dishes featuring fresh takes on familiar foods. Her stated goal is "to inspire others to eat more healthy, plant-based meals and move more." I interviewed her recently via email to find out more about how this " bento blogger" became a publishing phenomenon. KT: How did you first become interested in making bento boxes for your family? JM : When my son started first grade. I had never packed lunches before, and at first I couldn't come up with any vegan ideas beyond peanut butter and jelly. Then I asked my son what he wanted for his first day of school and he said "Sushi!" It opened up my eyes and I started thinking of all kinds of dishes I could pack. They looked so cute in his colorful lunch box, I started taking pictures and blogging and doing more things to make his lunches little works of art. KT: Did you ever imagine when you first began blogging about your son's lunches that your website would find such a wide audience? JM : Not at all! I thought there would be some other vegan moms looking for ideas for their kid's lunch boxes, but I never imagined that it would grow so big so fast, with thousands of people checking in each day to see what my son had for lunch! KT: Your cookbooks offer a culinary whirlwind world tour , with recipes inspired by just about every cuisine under the sun. I know you're partial to Japan, the birthplace of bento, but what other countries' cuisines are among your personal favorites (if you can answer that question without precipitating an international diplomatic crisis?) JM : Oh, so many! I'm very partial the cooking of Mexico and Africa, especially West African and Ethiopian cuisine. KT: You've made a name for yourself with your creative, plant-based variations on classic comfort foods like chicken pot pies and corn dogs, as well as more wholesome versions of Twinkies and goldfish crackers . What was your toughest challenge in this category, and which adaptation's been your greatest success? JM : The toughest was definitely tuna. My son sat next to a boy who ate tuna fish sandwiches every week and he really wanted to have one. We tried store bought fake tuna but he didn't like it. I finally came up with a good recipe for Chickpea Salad with vegan mayonnaise that makes a great sandwich filling and made him happy, but it's not tuna. The greatest success would have to be Twinkies. They're so much fun and everyone loves them! KT: You are a fearless promoter of such under-appreciated veggies as kohlrabi and kale. Is there any vegetable that you couldn't persuade your son to eat regardless of how entertainingly you presented it? JM : Absolutely, all kids have their own tastes. Some veggies, like onions and peppers, my son won't try in any form. Others, like salad or kale, he'll only eat occasionally or if I make it a certain way. KT: Your profile on your website suggests that you're an avid gardener. How much food gardening do you do? Was there anything you planted that wasn't worth the trouble, in retrospect? What's grown especially well for you? JM : I do like to garden! I have a large vegetable garden in my backyard. Tomatoes grow wonderfully here; I usually can enough tomatoes to last us the rest of the year. I also have great success with zucchini, melons, winter squash, okra, raspberries and strawberries. Brussels sprouts and broccoli have been a disaster -- they get buggy. KT: Have you ever contemplated working that McCann magic with breakfast or dinner? JM : Well, we often eat something for dinner and then feature it in a lunch the next day -- leftovers make great lunches! But breakfast almost never changes -- it's always a smoothie made exactly the same way. I guess none of us are ready for an adventure first thing in the morning! Cross-posted from The Green Fork.
 
Karen Symms Gallagher: Seniority? Test Scores? Student Outcomes? The Argument for Rethinking Teacher Compensation Top
The federal government often uses carrots and sticks to incentivize reluctant state and local agencies to change their policies and practices. The most current example of this is the Race to the Top legislation. To be eligible for the $4.35 billion in federal "Race to the Top" funds, states must allow student test scores to be used in decisions about teacher effectiveness. States with laws restricting a link between student data and teacher pay, such as California and New York, are scrambling to change them in order to get a shot at these funds. This flurry of activity is moving our K-12 public education system in the right direction. Not only are there important implications for how teachers are evaluated and paid, but also for how they are prepared and stay current in their jobs. So the time for meaningful exchanges on alternative teacher compensation is now. Teachers are key to increasing student achievement among all school-related factors. Studies show that having an effective teacher three years in a row can overcome the average achievement deficit between low-income kids and their peers. But teachers unions have long opposed using student data to evaluate teachers. They cringe at terms like "merit pay" and "pay for performance," and argue that student scores cannot accurately measure the success of a teacher. Few would claim student test scores should be the ONLY way to judge teacher effectiveness. Clearly multiple measures are critical. But some measure of improvement in student outcomes must surely be part one of the criteria. However, the current single salary structure used at a majority of districts nationwide rewards teachers according to years of service and education credits alone. National media stories from the New Yorker to the Los Angeles Times paint a frustrating picture of teachers with career longevity but well-documented poor - and even injurious - performance, who are sitting out their paid tenure as lawyers and committees battle over their termination. Tenure alone is a poor indicator for teacher quality and disconnected from improving student achievement. The current pay structure found in most public school systems makes it hard to attract (and retain) teachers to low-income schools and neighborhoods and to subjects that are difficult to staff, like math and science. It doesn't recognize or incentivize stellar teaching. And there are too many reasons for young teachers to just give-up and quit the profession. Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) has noted several local district initiatives already underway in Denver, Minneapolis, Austin, New York City, Toledo, and San Francisco that are successfully testing a variety of different measures to compensate teachers. A pay plan adopted in Denver, for example, gives teachers raises of up to 45% above base salary for acquiring knowledge and skills linked to improving student achievement; teaching in hard-to-staff schools and subjects; completing performance evaluations; and improving student scores on standardized tests. In New York City, high-needs schools that reach their growth target receive the equivalent of $3,000 per teacher, which is distributed by an elected committee. In Toledo, teachers can earn 5% above base salary for professional development, 10% for improving student achievement, and 15% for serving as peer reviewers and curriculum developers and volunteering to work in high-needs schools. Voters in San Francisco approved a parcel tax, with 71% of the revenue going toward teacher compensation. While the district wouldn't negotiate incentive pay, it did introduce differentiated pay with bonuses for teachers who go beyond their fourth and eighth years, those who work in hard-to-staff schools or subjects, and those in high-needs schools who are working on credentials. According to analysis by PACE, several principles underlie all of these experiments in alternative compensation: teachers should be well paid; compensation should provide incentives for effective professional practice; the neediest children should have access to highly effective teachers; and the most effective teachers should receive more money. As states across the nation begin linking student achievement to teacher pay, professional development programs need to begin teaching teachers to use student data effectively to understand what kids are and are not learning. New teachers will have to know what strategies the more effective teachers are using in their classrooms. Teacher preparation programs must ensure future teachers take seriously their direct impact on student achievement. In addition, they must prepare these new teachers to analyze and use existing information about student performance and to understand the future extrinsic and intrinsic reward systems, given these new measures of accountability. The current race to become eligible for federal funds is forcing a long-overdue examination of how we compensate our teachers, in a way that makes sense. The rest of us are judged by how well - not how long - we've done our job. It is time to reform teacher compensation to do the same. The success of our students - and thus our country - demands it. Karen Symms Gallagher is the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education.
 
Ken Burns' National Parks: What's Your Favorite Rocky Mountain Park? (PHOTOS, VOTE) Top
Ken Burns has created yet another cinematic masterpiece with " National Parks: America's Best Idea " which chronicles the history of the United States national park system. For those of us tuning in from Colorado, we all know how lucky we are to have many of the park featured in the 12-hour long series no more than a day's drive away. The series inspired us to put together a slideshow of national parks or monuments in and near Colorado that remind us why we call this state home. Vote for your favorite sites below. Follow HuffPost Denver on Twitter and become a fan of HuffPost Denver on Facebook !
 
David Bromwich: William Safire: Wars Made Out of Words Top
"There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, and he was not a nuisance." What Mencken said of Coolidge can be reversed in the case of Safire. There were plenty of thrills, and after the thrills, the field was littered with casualties. And he had tons of ideas. He was keen to share them as soon as he thought them up. The career that took him from public relations to propaganda to column-writing was a single seamless progression. He treated these different lines of work as the same work; and under his hand, they were. He was interested in words, yet he has left behind no sentence or sentiment that people will quote in the future merely because it is true. He never met a war he did not like. He did all that he could to drum up several wars beyond the psychological means of his country and the world; and his disappointment could turn to spite when a war that he wanted failed to materialize. Jimmy Carter's refusal to bomb Iran in the years 1979-1980 was the greatest defeat of Safire's life. His record on Vietnam (both during and after), on El Salvador and Nicaragua, and on Iraq would be worth combing the archives of the New York Times to recover, simply as an exhibition of savage consistency. Safire was not the originator of the psychology of the self-righteous onslaught, "ten eyes for an eye" -- human nature found it long ago -- but he was the American of his generation who almost made it respectable. Did a terrorist set off a bomb in a café and five Americans die? Send in the Air Force and demolish a foreign capital somehow connected with that terrorist. The flash of the violent gesture, for Safire, was more important than the justice of the action. He became the leading practitioner of the gestural politics of journalism. And in doing so, he revamped the accepted manner of the New York Times columnist. No more the formality and reserve and the magisterial airs of a James Reston; everything now had to be fast and sharp: keep the pot boiling and the gags popping. He was the first man of the right to leaven his moralism with jokes. With fun and "pace," with plenty of euphemisms, and with calculated self-deprecation he did more than anyone else to legitimate a reactionary president, Ronald Reagan, as a new kind of centrist. A considerable sleight-of-hand. His columns fashioned from dialogues with Richard Nixon when living, and his channeled mock-dialogues with Nixon when dead, were a prodigy of bad taste. A related genre he pioneered, the imaginary monologue of the man of power that aimed to reveal the motives of the powerful, betrayed Safire's curious want of invention. He made no effort to convey the manner and savor of the person he ventriloquized. The monologues all came out sounding like Safire (just as the quoted persons in a Woodward political chronicle all sound like Woodward). But this insider genre fitted the new Times like a glove. Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd picked up the format and both now perform it with as little concern for tone and shading as Safire. Perhaps the ruling passion of his life was a need for violent stimulants. He sought, and craved, excitement -- the thrill of the battle of everyday politics, the thrill of the slander and smear, the thrill of wars. He was equally drawn to wars of the past, wars simmering at present, and wars in prospect for the future. This love of gross sensations Safire aimed to impose as much as possible on his readers. More important, he aimed to impose it on the men of power whom he wished to influence. And often enough he succeeded. Kenneth Starr, on the brink of quitting the Whitewater investigation, was rebuked by Safire in such humiliating terms that, rather than defy the columnist, he launched the country on the long march toward impeachment. Safire attended to Nixon's post-retirement fame by shining as decent a light as could be thrown on it, and he kept Nixon's posthumous fame in as good repair as the facts allowed. These exertions suggest a large investment of his own amour-propre. He would not let anyone forget that he was part of the Nixon White House, but he encouraged readers to suppose that time spent there had been happy and not shameful. Among living politicians, he cultivated a particular admiration for Ariel Sharon. Has the oddness of this relationship ever been adequately noticed? A general who became the head-of-state of a foreign power, implicated in a brutal massacre, was puffed as a wise man by a popular American journalist. Safire sought to persuade Americans that the adventurer of the Lebanon War was our old friend "Arik." His reports of phone conversations with Sharon, like the columns he devoted to the elevation of Sharon's achievements, have no precedent in American journalism, not even in the high days of Anglophilia when Winston Churchill evoked sentimental feelings beyond any warrant from his conduct. In person, it seems that Safire was not a brawler; no fighting stories about him have surfaced. But he had the fondness of the born propagandist for "bloody noses and cracked crowns." He served in the army as a correspondent, during a time of peace, yet he loved the idea of combat. The higher the stakes, the more zest it added to life. He smashed hard without a second thought, and could be wrong with impunity, as Wen Ho Lee, Mohamed ElBaradei , and a multitude of others can attest; and yet we are told that he was a pleasant fellow, and was known in after-years to dine with his victims. As a writer, Safire is most often associated with the short bursts he wrote in speeches given by Vice President Spiro Agnew, before Agnew was forced to retire under a cloud of charges by the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore: extortion, bribery, tax fraud, and conspiracy. "Nattering nabobs of negativism" was a phrase in a speech of November 13, 1969. It suggested that critics of the Vietnam War were as rich as nabobs and as mindless as chattering apes. A trick from the lower drawer of Kipling, it served its reckless purpose in heating the resentments of the time. Safire's other best-known phrase, "an effete corps of impudent snobs," had been given to Agnew to speak just a month earlier at the time of the October 15 peace moratorium. Here the effect bordered on punning -- a favorite device of his for disarming criticism -- since effete brings elite into the ear without having to pay for the echo. He turned out other squibs in the same mood that helped to corrupt the public mind, and to break the public peace in America at a time of internal strife. His picture of the defense of civil liberties as "pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order" has the true Safire touch -- clever, punchy, alliterative, demagogic. This pattern, by which zealous accusations are dealt out sharply, but mixed with a vein of buffoonery, is a staple of the far right in America that has never been properly described or accounted for. It has been with us at least since the time of Senator Joe McCarthy; and it would be surprising if William Safire in his early days did not nurse an admiration for McCarthy. More polished than McCarthy or Nixon, and by the time of his death a lion of the establishment, Safire is the link that across four decades connects the political style of Joe McCarthy with that of Rush Limbaugh. Under the heading " William Safire's Finest Speech ," it is now possible to locate, on line, a speech Safire wrote for Nixon which offers the most perverse imaginable illustration of political opportunism. It was written to order for an occasion that never arose. It said what Nixon ought to say in case the astronauts of Apollo 11 were stranded on the moon. In this counter-factual elegy, drafted on June 18, 1969 and sent to Nixon's aide H.R. Haldeman, the author of Safire's Political Dictionary , contrived to bury the dead while they were living. "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace." Thus, in the time he could spare from enlarging a war half a world away, Safire contrived to speak for the people of the planet in the voice of a truce from outer space: the astronauts would "be mourned by a Mother Earth who dared to send two of her sons into the unknown." A final blessing was uttered on behalf of a species now at last united in our prayers to the sky: "Every human being who looks up to the moon in nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind." A superstition, a kind of piety maybe, would have restrained many speechwriters from undertaking a preposterous assignment like this, no matter how warmly it was urged, no matter by how powerful a boss. Yet the dying fall of the final clause epitomizes Safire's facility. Rupert Brooke, a poet of the First World War, wrote in the opening lines of a poem that Safire must have learned in school, "If I should die, think only this of me;/ That there's some corner of some foreign field/ That is forever England." Compare "some corner of another world that is forever mankind." He fished up the sob of the shining line from his stock quotations to send the astronauts to their eternal rest. But consider the deeper poetry of the moment. The man most gifted in his time at summoning a literate audience to twitch, heave, and submit to the voice in the megaphone without regard to the man behind the curtain, had been asked to bury the first explorers of space. And what came into his mind? A paean of self-sacrifice lifted from the high age of Europe's empires. The astronauts, as Safire saw them, were soldiers of the next empire. It is good that they lived to make this speech unnecessary. But it is good, too, in a way, that we have this speech -- a lasting testimony of the limitless ambition of mere words. Originally posted at Anti-War.com . More on Maureen Dowd
 
Colorado Counties Reject Department Of Human Services' Recommendation To Increase State Control Top
DENVER (AP)- Colorado counties say they will fight any attempt by the state to take over social services following the deaths of several children. The Colorado Department of Human Services included the recommendation in a report Thursday to Gov. Bill Ritter from a task force investigating deaths in the child welfare system.
 
Joe Territo: Newark Mayor Cory Booker Bans Conan O'Brien From New Jersey Top
Newark Mayor Cory Booker knows how to take a joke. When Conan O'Brien poked fun at Newark last week, Booker responded with a YouTube video in which he banned O'Brien from Newark Liberty International Airport. That video apparently got a lot of attention, and politicians like attention. So Booker made another video, in which he has banned Conan from all of New Jersey. See the video and read more from The Star-Ledger on NJ.com . More on Conan O'Brien
 

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