tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112133132024-03-13T03:05:23.161-07:00Kephalos κεφαλοςThe test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - <i>FDR</i>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-73233341538574681052013-01-26T15:32:00.000-08:002013-01-26T15:43:47.790-08:00The First Woman to Run for President<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/the-first-woman-to-run-fo_b_2022473.html">The First Woman to Run for President</a>: <br />
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Very interesting account. I had not known of her and will have to learn more.</div><blockquote><div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">With the election looming and "the women's vote" more courted then ever, there's no better time to share the story of <a href="http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/woodhull.html" style="border: none; color: #ba72ba; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">Victoria Woodhull</a>, one of history's most daring and audacious women.<br />
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The story of Victoria Woodhull is the story of the first woman to run for president. And the story of the first female stockbroker, the first female publisher, and the most controversial and popular advocate of free love. Hers is the story of a woman who injected much-needed spark into the suffrage movement when it was losing its fire. It's the story of a woman in late-1800s America the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95579577" style="border: none; color: #ba72ba; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;" target="_blank">scandalizing the nation</a> with a life that was in her own words "ahead of its time."</div></blockquote><br />
Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-54366175899738066322013-01-26T15:24:00.001-08:002013-01-26T15:42:25.082-08:00"Ballot design: America’s elections depend on confusing, badly designed ballots. How to fix them." <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/design/2013/01/ballot_design_america_s_elections_depend_on_confusing_badly_designed_ballots.single.html">Ballot design: America’s elections depend on confusing, badly designed ballots. How to fix them. - Slate Magazine</a>: <br />
<blockquote><div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">a very nice article on Slate.com by Mark Vanhoenacker, that addresses this question: why can’t American ballots be simpler? His answer is a model of clarity. I encourage you to read it.</div><br />
</blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-46327269018109232362013-01-26T15:05:00.001-08:002013-01-26T15:31:57.259-08:00"Deficit Hawks Down"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/krugman-deficit-hawks-down.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB">Deficit Hawks Down - NYTimes.com</a>: <br />
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"[T]<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 22px;">he self-styled deficit hawks — better described as deficit scolds — are losing their hold over political discourse. And that’s a very good thing. ... </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 22px;">What was it that finally pulled back the curtain here? Was it the way the election campaign revealed Representative Paul Ryan, who received a “fiscal responsibility” award from three leading deficit-scold organizations, as the con man he always was?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 22px;"> ... </span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 22px;">Sad to say, G.O.P. control of the House means that we won’t do what we should be doing: spend more, not less, until the recovery is complete. But the fading of deficit hysteria means that the president can turn his focus to real problems. And that’s a move in the right direction."</span></blockquote>
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Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-71421141488266111092013-01-26T14:57:00.001-08:002013-01-26T15:41:18.648-08:00Before Abortion Was Legal - NYTimes.com<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/opinion/before-abortion-was-legal.html?src=recg">Before Abortion Was Legal - NYTimes.com</a>: <br />
<blockquote><div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">"Anti-abortionists, wanting to reverse Roe v. Wade, often use the argument that taxpayers should not pay for abortion. But taxpayers have always paid for abortion; in fact they paid much more for it when it was illegal.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">If one worked in city hospitals in New York or Boston in the 1960s, as I did, not a week went by without the emergency admission of a young woman bleeding to death from an attempted abortion. Either she had gone to some self-appointed unskilled practitioner, or she had tried to produce the desired effect with a coat hanger, some other foreign body or one of the poisons Ms. Manning describes. Most often, the actual results were severe infection and death.</div><div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.2px; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">No one is “pro abortion”; it is the desperate act of a desperate person. When it was illegal and unfinanced, we paid for it through expensive hospitalization and frequent loss of life. Now that it is legal, we pay for it another way. But at least young women seeking to terminate pregnancy are not paying for it with their lives."</div><br />
</blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-16980401418747214232013-01-26T14:55:00.001-08:002013-01-26T15:32:18.084-08:00"Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/opinion/leeches-lye-and-spanish-fly.html">Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly - NYTimes.com</a>: <br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 22px;">"There is no law that will end the practice of abortion, only laws that can protect a woman’s right to choose it, or not, and to keep it the safe and private procedure still available to us in 2013, 40 years after the Supreme Court made it legal."</span></blockquote>
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Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-19875343021520403992012-11-15T08:19:00.001-08:002012-11-15T08:35:01.787-08:00Chicago's New Lady Labor Slugger Reactivates Social Movement Unionism<a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12619-chicagos-new-lady-labor-slugger-reactivates-social-movement-unionism">Chicago's New Lady Labor Slugger Reactivates Social Movement Unionism</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Two ideals are struggling for supremacy in American life today: one the industrial ideal, dominating through the supremacy of commercialism, which subordinates the worker to the product and the machine; the other, the ideal of democracy, the ideal of the educators, which places humanity above all machines, and demands that all activity shall be the expression of life. If this ideal of the educators cannot be carried over into the industrial field, then the ideal of industrialism will be carried over into the school. Those two ideals can no more continue to exist in American life than our nation could have continued half slave and half free. If the school cannot bring joy to the work of the world, the joy must go out of its own life, and work in the school as in the factory will become drudgery.</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">~ Margaret "Lady Labor Slugger" Haley, Chicago teacher, at the 1904 National Education Association convention</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Reflecting on her struggles for women's rights and public education, Haley remarked:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When I look back over my 75 years of life, 40 of them spent on hectic battle fronts of the unending war, I realize that, like all crusaders, I have stormed in where kings and courtiers feared to tread. I have beaten my fists, and sometimes my head, against stone walls of power and privilege. I have railed at mayors, at governors, at legislators, at presidents of great universities. I have banged machine guns in defense of certain basic principles in which I believe and continue to believe. For them I have fought without fear and without favor; but within my own soul I know that I have never sought a battle for its own sake, although I have never evaded one when it was forced upon me.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.46666717529297px;">Karen Lewis, 2010 acceptance speech, after winning the Chicago Teachers Union presidency:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Today marks the beginning of the end of scapegoating educators for all the social ills that our children, families and schools struggle against every day. Today marks the beginning of a fight for true transparency in our educational policy - how to accurately measure learning and teaching, how to truly improve our schools, and how to evaluate the wisdom behind our spending priorities. This election shows the unity of 30,000 educators standing strong to put business in its place - out of our schools. Corporate America sees K-12 public education as $380 billion that, up until the last 10 or 15 years, they didn't have a sizable piece of.... Our teachers and para-professionals are poised to reclaim the power of our 30,000 members and protect what we love: teaching and learning in publicly-funded public schools.</span></blockquote>
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Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-44145844363996315322012-09-23T20:53:00.000-07:002012-09-23T20:53:46.054-07:00Cannabidiol as a novel inhibitor of Id-1 gene expression in aggressive breast cancer cells<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025276">Cannabidiol as a novel inhibitor of Id-1 gen... [Mol Cancer Ther. 2007] - PubMed - NCBI</a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blog-this.g?t&u=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025276&n=Cannabidiol+as+a+novel+inhibitor+of+Id-1+gen...+%5BMol+Cancer+Ther.+2007%5D+-+PubMed+-+NCBI" style="color: #990000;"> </a><br />
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<h1 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 1.125em; margin: 0.375em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="auths" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=McAllister%20SD%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=18025276" style="border: 0px; color: #660066; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">McAllister SD</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Christian%20RT%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=18025276" style="border: 0px; color: #660066; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Christian RT</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Horowitz%20MP%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=18025276" style="border: 0px; color: #660066; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Horowitz MP</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Garcia%20A%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=18025276" style="border: 0px; color: #660066; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Garcia A</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Desprez%20PY%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=18025276" style="border: 0px; color: #660066; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Desprez PY</a>.</div><div class="aff" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.0915em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="label" style="border: 0px; color: #724128; font: inherit; height: 1px; left: -10000px; line-height: 1.2857; margin: 1.2856em 0px 0.6428em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: auto; vertical-align: baseline; width: 1px;">Source</h3><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">California Pacific Medical Center, Research Institute, 475 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. mcallis@cpmcri.org</div></div><div class="abstr" style="border: 0px; font: inherit; line-height: 15.454545021057129px; margin: 1.2em auto auto; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 style="border: 0px; color: #985735; font: inherit; line-height: 1.2857; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Abstract</h3><div style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.5em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Invasion and metastasis of aggressive breast cancer cells is the final and fatal step during cancer progression, and is the least understood genetically. Clinically, there are still limited therapeutic interventions for aggressive and metastatic breast cancers available. Clearly, effective and nontoxic therapies are urgently required. Id-1, an inhibitor of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors, has recently been shown to be a key regulator of the metastatic potential of breast and additional cancers. Using a mouse model, we previously determined that metastatic breast cancer cells became significantly less invasive in vitro and less metastatic in vivo when Id-1 was down-regulated by stable transduction with antisense Id-1. It is not possible at this point, however, to use antisense technology to reduce Id-1 expression in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Here, we report that cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabinoid with a low-toxicity profile, could down-regulate Id-1 expression in aggressive human breast cancer cells. The CBD concentrations effective at inhibiting Id-1 expression correlated with those used to inhibit the proliferative and invasive phenotype of breast cancer cells. CBD was able to inhibit Id-1 expression at the mRNA and protein level in a concentration-dependent fashion. These effects seemed to occur as the result of an inhibition of the Id-1 gene at the promoter level. Importantly, CBD did not inhibit invasiveness in cells that ectopically expressed Id-1. In conclusion, CBD represents the first nontoxic exogenous agent that can significantly decrease Id-1 expression in metastatic breast cancer cells leading to the down-regulation of tumor aggressiveness.</div></div></h1><br />
<blockquote></blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-82509168981965756982012-09-15T15:05:00.000-07:002012-09-15T15:07:06.481-07:00Support the Half the Sky MovementSinger-songwriter Gemma Hayes - <br />
<blockquote>"For a long time when I would see or experience for myself the<a href="http://www.halftheskymovement.org/30-songs-30-days/entry/gemma-hayes" style="color: #990000"> absolute unfair treatment of women in society </a> I would become overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. Part of me would want to stand up and shout 'stop' but I felt small and unheard. Once I heard of the Half The Sky Movement I gave a sigh of relief. Its members are proactive about waking society up in a positive way and it is making a difference. It's a real honor to contribute my song "Sorrow be Gone" to the <a href="http://www.halftheskymovement.org/30-songs-30-days"style="color: #990000"> 30 songs 30 days campaign</a>. I chose to contribute this song because it deals with a woman moving forward in her life even when the very wind is pushing her backwards. She still moves forward. She carries the sorrow of all she is denied but she knows the sadness will leave one day."<br />
</blockquote>Support the <a href="http://www.halftheskymovement.org/pages/about-half-the-sky-movement" style="color: #990000">Half the Sky Movement</a>:<br />
<blockquote>Hidden in the overlapping problems of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality is the single most vital opportunity of our time — and women are seizing it. From Somaliland to Cambodia to Afghanistan, women's oppression is being confronted head on and real, meaningful solutions are being fashioned. Change is happening, and it’s happening now.</blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-72972523198733711152012-05-23T12:39:00.000-07:002012-05-23T12:51:09.430-07:00People died for a forty-hour workweek<a href="http://www.ibew1245.com/news-Local1245/People_Died_5-1-12.html" style="color: #990000;">This should be required reading in middle school history classes. </a>Everyone needs to be aware of the history behind the rights they take for granted.<br /><br />
<blockquote><b>People died for a forty-hour workweek. </b></blockquote><blockquote><i>by James Robert Porter</i> </blockquote><blockquote>This is a true thing. It happened. The one thing you’re virtually guaranteed to have when you get a job in this country. You might not get insurance, you might not get regular breaks…but you know when you walk in the door, you’re only going to be asked to work forty hours a week, or else you’re due overtime. This is basic. It’s not even a talking point anymore. </blockquote><blockquote>A couple of centuries ago, people felt so strongly about this right that they gave their lives for it. They died so you could enjoy it. They were shot, hanged, starved, let’s face it, they were MURDERED, and this happened so that you could enjoy a right that we now take for granted. </blockquote><blockquote>In the early part of the 20th century, the majority of Americans were working a 12-14 hour workday, regularly. When the average American walked into a new workplace, he could reasonably assume he would be working that kind of a schedule. It was expected. What most of us now consider a punishing overtime schedule, the majority of the workforce in 1905 regarded as a normal workweek. </blockquote><blockquote>And they thought it was bullshit. </blockquote><blockquote>As far back as 1791, Americans were lobbying for a shorter workday. This wasn’t a bunch of lazy New Deal liberals wanting to sit on their laurels. This was shortly after the founding of our country. This was the majority of carpenters in the nascent United States, sick of putting in long, grueling hours and knowing that there were better alternatives. In the next century, this demand had become commonplace. It turned out that the average employer worked their business from sunup to sundown, every single day, a schedule most of us can’t even comprehend. By the 1830s, people were pissed off about it. </blockquote><blockquote>People died for a forty-hour workweek. </blockquote><blockquote>At the close of the 1800s, most Americans still didn’t have what they wanted. Apparently, an eight hour workday was simply too much to ask from employers. So much so, that a great many employers found the need to hire their own police force to enforce the longer work days. When people talk of unionizing nowadays, many of them think it was just a bunch of socialists and liberals trying to push around their bosses, but that’s not the case. The reason unions took off was because, if you complained about something like a fourteen hour workday to your employer, and you didn’t have people backing you up, there was a real chance you were going to have your ass beat. Employers paid people to do this for them. If you were lucky, you just got fired for shooting your mouth off, but most people were not lucky. At least if you had a union, you had a sort of safety in numbers, even if it usually meant a more distributed beat down courtesy of the in house police force. </blockquote><blockquote>People died for a forty-hour workweek. </blockquote><blockquote>Pretty soon, people figured out they really only had one weapon they could use against their employers, and that was a general strike. Complaining just got you fired or beaten, going to the newspapers was about as effective as it is nowadays, since the people who printed the news, nine times out of ten, were the same people that made you work fourteen hours in the first place. But if you and all your union friends stopped working, you stopped production. If you stopped production, then the company loses money, and if that happens, you finally have their attention. In a sane world, this would lead to a civil airing of grievances and an honest attempt to address them. </blockquote><blockquote>This is not a sane world, because people died for a forty-hour workweek.</blockquote><blockquote>In 1886, a group of workers on strike at the McCormick plant in Chicago went on a march to Haymarket Square to protest the people trying to break the strike. This was a completely nonviolent demonstration. In return, police opened fire on them, wounding many and ending the lives of four people. </blockquote><blockquote>Oh, I’m sorry, did you think those were the company police? No, this was the city police. Paid for by the tax money of those dead men. They shot them because they wanted an eight-hour workday. </blockquote><blockquote>Soon afterward, during another rally, someone threw a dynamite bomb as the police tried to disperse the crowd. It went off, killing some officers, and in the ensuing chaos a gunfight broke out. Labor leaders were rounded up and, even though everyone agreed none of the people arrested actually had anything to do with the bomb, they were given death sentences anyway. Four of them were hung. Afterward, after pressure from the public, a judge repealed the death sentence for the remaining leader, saying that he and the four dead men were actually innocent and their execution was the result of "hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge". </blockquote><blockquote>People died for a forty-hour workweek. </blockquote><blockquote>In 1916, in the town of Everett, Washington, a contingent of striking shingle workers, supported by members of the IWW (Wobblies), were confronted by the town police led by the sheriff, one Donald McRae. McRae drew a gun on the nonviolent protestors and told them to turn around and leave. A shot rang out, starting a gunfight that, again, left a lot of dead people. Nobody knows who fired the first shot, but most historians agree that it’s unlikely it was from the worker side, considering they suffered the bulk of the losses and the few officers that were wounded during the battle were injured by their own side. </blockquote><blockquote>People died so you could work a forty-hour workweek. </blockquote><blockquote>There’s more. Much, much more. People were willing to die for this basic right we all enjoy now. </blockquote><blockquote>Employers were so against it that they were willing to murder so we couldn’t have it. Back in the early 1900s, an eight-hour workday was so threatening that it was worth killing someone over. The American people finally won it, paid for with blood and corpses, and now we don’t even think about it. </blockquote><blockquote>People died for a forty-hour workweek. </blockquote><br></br><br />
<i>James Robert Porter is the son of 31-year IBEW member Donald Porter. His message is especially timely on May 1, which is the anniversary of the famous Haymarket Square rally in Chicago in 1886, which was the springboard for the long fight for an eight-hour day. </i>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-58252179765546123722012-05-15T01:03:00.000-07:002012-05-15T01:05:50.822-07:00In All the Debate About Breastfeeding, Where Is the Support For Mothers? | RH Reality Check<a href="http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/05/13/in-all-debate-about-breastfeeding-where-is-support-mothers" style="color: #990000;">In All the Debate About Breastfeeding, Where Is the Support For Mothers? | RH Reality Check</a>: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[T]he decision to breastfeed (or not), it should be supported. In all the debate about breastfeeding, I feel that it is a personal choice that may or may not work for all mothers; however, <span style="color: blue;">it is critical that as a society, we have the policies and infrastructure in place to support those decisions. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;">We should not be relegated to a bathroom or closet because society has not deemed it critical to create private nursing or pumping spaces in public locations. </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;">We should not have to feel the burning judgmental stares because we decide to breastfeed on a plane, or anywhere in public. </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;">We should not have to hear the banter of folks who are uncomfortable with the idea of mothers continuing to nurse when children are ‘too old.’ </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;">We should not have to hear the denigration of mothers who are unable or uninterested in nursing at all.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On this mama’s day, <span style="color: blue;">we -- as a society -- need to respect and support the decisions that women and families make when raising their children.</span> We also need to serve as advocates for change at the political and societal level so that the U.S. is no longer one of the lowest-scoring industrialized countries to be a mom, with a dismal breastfeeding policy score of ‘poor’ and the only developed country to not guarantee paid parental leave.</blockquote>
(Breaks and bolding added.)<br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="color: #990000;"> </a></h4>
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</blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-36200634688591717712012-05-15T00:45:00.000-07:002012-05-15T01:08:15.013-07:00Forget Flowers This Mother's Day: 11 Ways to REALLY Help Mothers | AlterNet<a href="http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/155397/forget_flowers_this_mother%27s_day%3A_11_ways_to_really_help_mothers/?page=entire" style="color: #990000;">Forget Flowers This Mother's Day: 11 Ways to REALLY Help Mothers | AlterNet</a>: <br />
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The reality is that mothers are not as supported as they should be in this country, and the recent, ongoing war against reproductive rights, unions, and legislation like the Violence Against Women Act have only made things worse.</blockquote>
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Below are several ways (among many) that we, as a nation, could do a much better job of supporting mothers.</blockquote>
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1. Require paid parental leave.</blockquote>
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2. Support workplace flexibility and other leave policies.</blockquote>
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3. Address the gender wage gap.</blockquote>
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4. Stop trying to roll back access to birth control.</blockquote>
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5. Support safe, legal access to abortion.</blockquote>
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6. Support unionization.</blockquote>
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7. Fight for affordable health care.</blockquote>
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8. Reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.</blockquote>
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9. Address cuts to safety net services.</blockquote>
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10. Ensure that mothers behind bars are treated with dignity.</blockquote>
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11. Celebrate mothers of all stripes, from all backgrounds.</blockquote>
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All mothers deserve love and respect, on Mother's Day and every day.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="color: #990000;"> </a><br />
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</blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-70578149855563067522011-11-25T16:42:00.000-08:002011-11-25T16:42:36.538-08:00We Are the 99.9% - Paul Krugman<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/opinion/we-are-the-99-9.html?_r=1" style="color: #990000"> The Ultra-Rich are not Job Creators</a>: <br /><br /><blockquote>Why do Republicans advocate further tax cuts for the very rich even as they warn about deficits and demand drastic cuts in social insurance programs?<br /><br />Well, aside from shouts of “class warfare!” whenever such questions are raised, the usual answer is that the super-elite are “job creators” — that is, that they make a special contribution to the economy. So what you need to know is that this is bad economics. In fact, it would be bad economics even if America had the idealized, perfect market economy of conservative fantasies. ...<br /><br />But, you say, the rich pay taxes! Indeed, they do. And they could — and should, from the point of view of the 99.9 percent — be paying substantially more in taxes, not offered even more tax breaks, despite the alleged budget crisis, because of the wonderful things they supposedly do.<br /><br />Still, don’t some of the very rich get that way by producing innovations that are worth far more to the world than the income they receive? Sure, but if you look at who really makes up the 0.1 percent, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, by and large, the members of the super-elite are overpaid, not underpaid, for what they do. ...<br /><br />So should the 99.9 percent hate the 0.1 percent? No, not at all. But they should ignore all the propaganda about “job creators” and demand that the super-elite pay substantially more in taxes. </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-75744189126201160462011-11-25T12:49:00.000-08:002011-11-25T12:49:25.457-08:00This Video Makes It Perfectly Clear Why Karl Rove Is Terrified Of Elizabeth Warren<a href="http://front.moveon.org/this-video-makes-it-perfectly-clear-why-karl-rove-is-terrified-of-elizabeth-warren/" style="color: #990000">This Video Makes It Perfectly Clear Why Karl Rove Is Terrified Of Elizabeth Warren</a>: <br />
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kE_wj6NHdEQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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She’s solid as a rock, and there’s nothing the GOP can attack her on. It’s about time a candidate like Elizabeth Warren came along!Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-38989866617370261452011-04-16T10:29:00.000-07:002012-05-23T12:57:20.270-07:00If the Church Were ChristianIn this world of religious fanaticism and widespread intolerance, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/If-Church-Were-Christian-Rediscovering/dp/0061698776/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302975134&sr=1-1" style="color: #990000">this</a> by author Philip Gulley is an extremely important message to reinforce:<br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kPGfujoR3ww/TanST_x167I/AAAAAAAAAEE/_AHs-8GCa-4/s1600/If%2Bthe%2BChurch%2Bwere%2BChristian.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 534px; height: 710px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kPGfujoR3ww/TanST_x167I/AAAAAAAAAEE/_AHs-8GCa-4/s400/If%2Bthe%2BChurch%2Bwere%2BChristian.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596235252964387762" /></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">If the Church were Christian... </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">1) Jesus would be a model for living rather than an object of worship </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">2) Affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">3) Reconciliation would be valued over judgment </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">4) Gracious behavior would be more important than right belief </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">5) Inviting questions would be valued more than supplying answers </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">6) Encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">7) Meeting needs would be more important than maintaining institutions </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">8) Peace would be more important than power </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">9) It would care more about love and less about sex </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">10) This life would be more important than the afterlife </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-7297556054564203352011-02-23T01:26:00.000-08:002011-02-23T01:33:56.057-08:00Could Florida happen again?Charles Stewart III of MIT and the <a href="http://vote.caltech.edu/drupal/node/346" style="color: #990000"> Voting Technology Project</a> in their milestone 100th Working Paper (emphasis added):<br /><blockquote>Nowadays, when I am asked “could Florida happen again?” I answer, “We won’t have any more problems of hanging chad, but I actually think the chance of a large-scale meltdown in many parts of the county are greater now than they were. I at least expect ‘another Florida’ in my lifetime.” The reason I answer this way is that innovation in the core technology of voting has failed to keep up with the challenges of the voting environment. At the same time, the “new” machines purchased with HAVA (Help America Vote Act) money have proven to have shorter life spans than initially estimated. Just as the pregnant chad problem was caused by the failure to keep up the maintenance of old technology that inevitably degrades, <span style="font-weight:bold;">the “next Florida” is likely to come when a cash-strapped county somewhere in America lets its maintenance contract lapse, or fails to update its software in time</span>. </blockquote>In other words, low-tech human failures.Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-12569967207741180572011-02-23T00:50:00.000-08:002011-02-23T01:25:26.867-08:00Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998Here is a fascinating map animation that shows every detonation of a nuclear bomb through 1998, by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto. <a href="http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/2010/08/map-animation-of-atomic-age.html" style="color: #990000">The Map Scroll</a> posted this last fall when <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/05/animated-map-of-nucl.html" style="color: #990000">Boing Boing</a> called attention to it and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2010/08/close-look-a-flash-in-the-desert.html" style="color: #990000">The New Yorker</a> commented:<br /><br /><object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jfpQNfcRE1o&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jfpQNfcRE1o&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object><br /><br />The New Yorker:<blockquote>It is the sort of set of pictures that makes you want to read—to learn more, for example, about how it came to be that France exploded more than a tenth of those bombs (two hundred and ten); China blew up forty-five. Not that anyone was taking cover in Provence: if you don’t watch the icons above and below the map, you might think that Algeria, and not France, was the world’s fourth nuclear-armed power (and that Australia, not Britain, was the third). The Gerboise Bleue explosion, of a seventy-kiloton device, took place in 1960, in the Sahara desert, in the midst of the Algerian war; several others followed. (Later, after Algeria gained its independence, France’s tests moved to French Polynesia; its last one was in 1996.) </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-45193691495052763522011-02-06T09:08:00.000-08:002011-02-09T23:35:57.945-08:00Supreme Court Justices can be Corrupt Politicians TooFew justices allow political ideology to influence their judicial opinions as <a href="http://www.register-pajaronian.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=77&story_id=10218" style="color: #990000">Scalia and Thomas do</a>. <blockquote>Not only do we have Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices using their offices to promote ideological political agendas, but also hiding their politically funded income from public view. <br /><br />Antonin Scalia is the latest to cross the line with an announcement that he plans to address the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives. The New York Times editorial board accused Scalia of becoming a “Justice from the Tea Party,” for his planned participation in their caucus seminar. This isn’t Scalia’s first breach of court practices.<br /><br />Scalia also spoke at a Koch Industries retreat, sponsored by two billionaire brothers with a history of supporting extreme right-wing positions.</blockquote><blockquote>Normally, when judges are personally involved in cases before the court, they recuse themselves because they cannot give an unbiased opinion when they have a conflict of interest. Supreme Court justices are legally exempt from this requirement, but few justices push their involvement with extremists as Scalia and Thomas have.</blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-66430379068967546712011-01-10T06:59:00.000-08:002011-01-10T07:00:26.705-08:00Who is Jared Lee Loughner?This is the best analysis to date on the web of <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/01/09/who-is-jared-lee-loughner/#more-5442" style="color: #990000">Jared Loughner's motivations</a>:<br /><blockquote>"At this early stage, I think Loughner is probably best described as a mentally ill or unstable person who was influenced by the rhetoric and demonizing propaganda around him. <b>Ideology may not explain why he allegedly killed, but it could help explain how he selected his target.</b><br /><br />One thing that seems clear is that Giffords, who was terribly wounded but survived, was the nearest and most obvious representative of “the government” that Loughner could find." </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-9834700741249583052011-01-09T19:03:00.000-08:002011-01-09T20:50:44.951-08:00Even if Jared Loughner acted alone, he heard the rhetoric!In the wake of the shooting of <a href="http://sadydoyle.tumblr.com/post/2674965950/let-us-say-this-again-and-with-clarity" style="color: #990000">Rep. Gabrielle Giffords</a>, we must end the violent rhetoric that has exploded in American politics. Violent rhetoric has consequences. As stated by Sady Doyle:<br /><blockquote>It does not matter whether the man who shot Giffords was schizophrenic. There are a lot of schizophrenics who don’t shoot people!<br /><br />What matters is this: That if you create a culture of violence, if you inflame anger (that’s fine to do, and often necessary!) and direct it toward specific targets (that’s fine to do, and often necessary!) and then point people in the direction of physical violence including gun violence as a solution, someone is going to take your word on that.<br /><br />Someone is going to be vulnerable enough to your message to take you at your word and shoot someone, because they are:<br /><ul><li>Young</li><li>Stupid</li><li>Drunk</li><li>High</li><li>Just got dumped and full of rage that needs somewhere to go</li><li>Just got fired and full of rage that needs somewhere to go</li><li>Socially disempowered or disenfranchised, and (especially — in my experience — if they are white men, who are not taught to expect or deal with being socially disempowered) full of rage that needs somewhere to go</li><li>Poisoned by a toxic variety of masculinity that equates manhood with power and power with violence</li><li>Very unhappy and self-destructive</li><li>Isolated and unloved and willing to get attention by any means possible, even negative attention</li><li>Or just not thinking right, in some very rare cases due to mental illness, but with the above factors probably contributing, or else THEY ARE JUST NOT THINKING RIGHT</li></ul>SOMEONE IS GOING TO HEAR THAT, AND IT IS GOING TO RESONATE IN THEIR MINDS THE WRONG WAY. I am all for anger; I am all for, even, pointing at someone and saying “here is a person to be angry at!” What I am not a fan of is going, “do you know what would help with your anger? Second amendment remedies. Guns, they will help with your anger.” </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-13184405517758313122011-01-04T00:44:00.000-08:002011-01-04T00:47:55.757-08:00Now we're talking --- James Galbraith goes against the tideIn my mind I have been questioning the wisdom of raising the retirement age for receiving full Social Security benefits, which seems to be the Beltway CW. Why force people who often won't live a long time to continue working, or in many cases, fruitlessly looking for work, until age 67, 68 or more? Here's an excerpt from <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/cyzmZ" style="color: #990000">Now we're talking --- James Galbraith goes against the tide</a>.<br /><br /><blockquote>The most dangerous conventional wisdom in the world today is the idea that with an older population, people must work longer and retire with less.... <br><br />Older people who would like to retire and would do so if they could afford it should get some help. The right step is to reduce, not increase, the full-benefits retirement age. As a rough cut, why not enact a three-year window during which the age for receiving full Social Security benefits would drop to 62 -- providing a voluntary, one-time, grab-it-now bonus for leaving work? Let them go home! With a secure pension and medical care, they will be happier. Young people who need work will be happier. And there will also be more jobs. With pension security, older people will consume services until the end of their lives. They will become, each and every one, an employer. </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-51345328063259896772010-11-07T15:52:00.000-08:002010-11-07T15:53:21.803-08:00Obama could take a history lesson from FDR's 1936 re-electionH.W. Brands, the author of "Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt" has a great <a href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_16537374" style="color: #990000">opinion piece </a>published today that says what I feel about our president:<blockquote> Many of Obama's supporters wish he would emulate Roosevelt's combativeness. They have lamented his efforts at bipartisanship, which yielded him little, they say, and cost him the political momentum of 2008. But Obama has generally ignored such counsel. Some of this difference owes to diverging temperaments and personal styles; where Roosevelt relished getting angry in public, Obama apparently does not. </blockquote><br />Read the whole thing.Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-72496762302934571952010-10-17T20:22:00.000-07:002010-10-17T20:26:50.844-07:00Faux News asks 7 Times, but Fiorina Fails To Give One Solution To Cut SpendingVia <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/17/fiorina-spending-flummoxed/" style="color: #990000">ThinkProgress</a>: <blockquote>Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace gave Fiorina a chance to lay out her actual plan. Touting her “tough, bottom-line business executive” motto, Wallace pointed out that Fiorina also wants “to extend all, all the Bush tax cuts which would add $4 trillion dollars to the deficit…where are you going to find $4 trillion dollars to cut?” But when Fiorina retreated to recycled response of government waste and an earmarks ban, a frustrated Wallace begged Fiorina seven times to “name one single entitlement expenditure you’re willing to cut” because “that’s where the money is.” Fiorina’s only response? “You’re asking a typical political question”.</blockquote><br />Video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BesYn5--wxk&feature=player_embedded" style="color: #990000">here</a>.Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-47299633994099015502010-10-17T19:58:00.000-07:002010-10-17T20:00:30.050-07:00Amnesty International USA in SF for 50th Anniversary ConferenceYou can register online for the 50th Anniversary Annual Conference of <a href="https://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/apps/ka/rg/ecreg.asp?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=6213695&en=bkKLK0MHIaLUIaMKL9IQKcP1KuK3J7MRLlIYKdPUIkKTIgN6H" style="color: #990000">Amnesty International USA</a>. It will be held in San Francisco on March 18-20, 2011. If you register by January 15, 2011, the regular rate is $90 member, $100 non-member. <blockquote>March 18 - 20, 2011<br />The Fairmont Hotel<br />950 Mason Street<br />San Francisco, CA 94108</blockquote>The conference promises amazing speakers, prominent human rights leaders, and special celebrity guests, as well as panel discussions of AIUSA's core human rights campaigns and new strategies for mobilizing the human rights movement on both local and national levels. It's an opportunity to gain skills in human rights advocacy, volunteering and community organizing.Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-76073880573764437062010-10-16T11:10:00.000-07:002010-10-16T15:46:28.037-07:00Quote of the Week<a href="" style="color: #990000"> </a><blockquote>It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.<br /><br />--Robert F. Kennedy<br /> </blockquote>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11213313.post-54602707514900693562010-01-23T22:55:00.000-08:002010-01-23T22:58:12.946-08:00Can You Decipher This License Plate?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RBWBbltWqO4/S1vvZBznYVI/AAAAAAAAADk/02TZrzZwmVA/s1600-h/BHO_DLG8.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RBWBbltWqO4/S1vvZBznYVI/AAAAAAAAADk/02TZrzZwmVA/s400/BHO_DLG8.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430196988985958738" /></a>Jeff in CAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13248388316448837133noreply@blogger.com2