Congrats U.S., your major cities now have economic inequality that rivals that of countries in Africa--according to a new UN study.
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/world08.pdf
The highest wage dispersion occurred in Brazil, China, India, and the U.S.
And--another great landmark--
for the first time in...well I don't know how long, our children are less likely to graduate from High School--that's high school--not college than we were.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jbFCO7woHZSbc0BWZbfr7Cv7nkIgD940FIO83
yep, we certainly are the greatest democracy in the world
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
..Because it hasn't received enough press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081024/pl_afp/usvotepalinabortionattacks_081024220009
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Where's the Outrage?
Our folks told us, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. I am reminded of this during this year's election. It strikes me that if you don't have anything nice to say about your "chosen" candidate, you will choose, instead, to say something nasty about the alternative. It reminds me a lot of middle school. Typically, we are at our most insecure and vulnerable when we are "blossoming' into maturity. Middle school girls suck. I know--I was one of them. Because they are so obsessed with hating themselves, they strike out at everyone else. If you can't feel good about yourself--at least you can feel better about NOT being THAT girl. I think its time that we get rid of the broken two party system. The atrocities and dishonesty that we will tolerate these days are amazing. Introducing alternate parties would not only reduce the amount of "I'm supporting X because Y is even worse"; it would also eliminate the need for electing the opposite party for president to reduce the threat of "too much power" of the other party. Imagine, if we had libertarians and green party candidates in congress. We wouldn't worry about one party having enough votes for a filibuster. Our debates are a joke. They used to be sponsored by the League of Women Voters--a bi-partisun group. Everyone was invited to participate. Unfortunately, in 1988, the Bush and Dukakis campaigns drafted a joint "memorandum" outlining what topics could be discussed and how the questions would be presented. The League was outraged and refused to succomb to demands from the candidates. Unfortunately for the American people, this resulted in the creation of the "Commission for Presidential Debates". The "Commission" is actually a corporate-sponsored consortium of former heads of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The result? Only major party candidates are invited. Both candidates agreed with the "bailout" not because it was a good plan or a good idea--but because they didn't want the other party to get the upper hand--well what if there were more than two choices? Could candidates actually do things that they thought important rather than because they were afraid of losing votes?
Citizens were outraged because our politicians were not holding the bankers and investors "accountable" for the recent debacle. My question is why should we expect them to hold Wall Street accountable when we don't hold politicians accountable? Sure in extreme cases we "stick it to them" by voting for the opposite party--but during elections we willfully listen to promises that we know won't be kept. We say things like "oh I know they won't do everything they say, but that's just politics. Why? Why have we let things get so out of control that candidates will say anything to get elected? It is estimated that 5.8 billion dollars will be spent for this campaign. That's a ridiculous amount of money to see who can put on the better show. That is what it seems to me. The most money gets the most media time and the most votes. What is the connection? I think of it this way... I take tests well. I learned at a very young age that I had a knack for cramming for tests. Because of this talent, my grades have always been excellent. A few years ago, I met someone who did not have this talent. This guy could remember every fact he'd ever learned--and actually understood the concepts on which he was tested. I can't remember something I learned yesterday. Unfortunately for this friend of mine, I look much better on paper. I will get scholarships and jobs- but I can admit that he is actually a better biologist. It seems that it's the same for politicians. There ARE honest people out there--even a few honest politicians (look at Dennis Kucinich)--but because they are honest, they will never get the big positions. Think about this--despite the record-breaking fundraising that the Obama campaign has done--only a quarter of it comes from small donors. And the rest? Well we'll probably find out based on his policies should he get elected. The worst is that because Obama refused public financing and proceeded to raise so much money---election reform is probably dead for another 10 years or so. Did somebody say Change?
But then again, we may never find out. A recent interview granted by Stephen Spoonamore (who is a conservative republican McCain supporter) outlines how the GOP used electronic means to subvert the 2000 and 2004 elections and plans to do the same in 2008. Spoonamore names names and outlines procedures. Google it to learn more. Is it true or just some disgruntled conservative causing trouble? I can't say for sure, but it doesn't surprise me in the least. We are the most powerful nation in the world, but we can't hold an election these days without charges of fraud or disenfranchisement. To top it off, the highest percentage of eligible voters to actually cast a vote in recent years was 64%! We'll see if we can top that this year--by all accounts we should.
Where is the outrage? We, as a country, have settled. We have settled for a pseudo-democracy. We have settled for corruption and corporate welfare. We have settled for presidents that can't run a baseball team and war-mongering profiteering vice-president. We have forced John McCain to choose a moron like Sarah Palin in order to please his base and get the "ignorant white woman vote." We have forced Barack Obama to spend millions on a cheesy public service announcement in order to reach the Budweiser-lovin baseball fans. What a country.
Citizens were outraged because our politicians were not holding the bankers and investors "accountable" for the recent debacle. My question is why should we expect them to hold Wall Street accountable when we don't hold politicians accountable? Sure in extreme cases we "stick it to them" by voting for the opposite party--but during elections we willfully listen to promises that we know won't be kept. We say things like "oh I know they won't do everything they say, but that's just politics. Why? Why have we let things get so out of control that candidates will say anything to get elected? It is estimated that 5.8 billion dollars will be spent for this campaign. That's a ridiculous amount of money to see who can put on the better show. That is what it seems to me. The most money gets the most media time and the most votes. What is the connection? I think of it this way... I take tests well. I learned at a very young age that I had a knack for cramming for tests. Because of this talent, my grades have always been excellent. A few years ago, I met someone who did not have this talent. This guy could remember every fact he'd ever learned--and actually understood the concepts on which he was tested. I can't remember something I learned yesterday. Unfortunately for this friend of mine, I look much better on paper. I will get scholarships and jobs- but I can admit that he is actually a better biologist. It seems that it's the same for politicians. There ARE honest people out there--even a few honest politicians (look at Dennis Kucinich)--but because they are honest, they will never get the big positions. Think about this--despite the record-breaking fundraising that the Obama campaign has done--only a quarter of it comes from small donors. And the rest? Well we'll probably find out based on his policies should he get elected. The worst is that because Obama refused public financing and proceeded to raise so much money---election reform is probably dead for another 10 years or so. Did somebody say Change?
But then again, we may never find out. A recent interview granted by Stephen Spoonamore (who is a conservative republican McCain supporter) outlines how the GOP used electronic means to subvert the 2000 and 2004 elections and plans to do the same in 2008. Spoonamore names names and outlines procedures. Google it to learn more. Is it true or just some disgruntled conservative causing trouble? I can't say for sure, but it doesn't surprise me in the least. We are the most powerful nation in the world, but we can't hold an election these days without charges of fraud or disenfranchisement. To top it off, the highest percentage of eligible voters to actually cast a vote in recent years was 64%! We'll see if we can top that this year--by all accounts we should.
Where is the outrage? We, as a country, have settled. We have settled for a pseudo-democracy. We have settled for corruption and corporate welfare. We have settled for presidents that can't run a baseball team and war-mongering profiteering vice-president. We have forced John McCain to choose a moron like Sarah Palin in order to please his base and get the "ignorant white woman vote." We have forced Barack Obama to spend millions on a cheesy public service announcement in order to reach the Budweiser-lovin baseball fans. What a country.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Gardening Lessons
This past Friday, I spent a good part of the day engulfed in the smell of rotting vegetable matter. This was the first year I had been able to have a veggie patch, and I certainly had a lot to learn. There is a pretty short growing season here in Flagstaff. The average last frost date is June 13 and the average first frost date is September 21. Nighttime temperatures reach below freezing for about 60% of the year. This is not a hospitable environment for many vegetables. To combat this problem, Isaac made me a PVC greenhouse. We were skeptical about its utility--but I must say, it definitely lengthened the growing season for us. Unfortunately, a week or so ago, the "real" cold snap happened. Temperatures dipped into the 20 degree range at night. Although we had about 10 lbs of unripe tomatoes and 11 juvenile cantaloupes left in our little plastic-covered paradise, we awoke one morning to disaster. Cell walls crumbled under the freeze thaw--and our harvest was unexpectedly halted. I remember my mother warning me about such an event. But like most things my mother told me--it didn't register until it happened to me.
For days I couldn't return to the site of the disaster. It was depressing. Our tomato plants were covered in fresh green fruits. The romas that I had grown from seed were just now rewarding me for all my painstaking care. Finally, on Friday, the smell escaping from the plastic blanket could be ignored no longer.
It should have been depressing--chopping down my little army of nutrient suppliers--but instead it gave me a warm feeling. I couldn't help but think about next year's garden and how all these reclaimed nutrients would be used. I love compost. There is something so satisfying about it. I wasn't counting on the amount of work it would take to chop down my tomato/squash jungle into a usable composting form. These were this year's sacrifices for next year's abundance. Recently Isaac and I have been discussing our final wishes for our flesh after we pass on. I suggested that I might just want my ashes to go in a compost pile. I love the idea of recycling those nutrients--my nutrients. Would I make good compost? Perhaps thoughts for another blog. So for the hours I worked, I reflected on my gardening lessons.
The biggest lesson--one that I seem to have to relearn over and over--is that its imperative to thin out vegetation or fruit. I have a really hard time with this one. It makes me sad to pull up baby shoots--and forget about picking off green fruit so that the others will develop more quickly. I should be good at it. I believe in evolution--I know that survival of the fittest is a universal truth. I guess there is too much bleeding heart liberal in me. I started to wonder if maybe Conservatives made better gardeners. People who feel that we shouldn't provide aid to the less fortunate should be good at gardening. I bet they are relentless "thinners." They may not produce many tomatoes--but the ones they do are big and juicy. That brings me to the contradiction though--in both liberals and conservatives. Why is it that conservatives believe in "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and that people get what they deserve--but yet are against abortion? Here I am--can't thin out my tomato crop because I feel that they all deserve a chance to .. to.. to.. become my lunch --but I stand firmly on the side of a woman's right to choose.
One day, I hope to master the art of gardening. I will never understand politics.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
An illustration
I just had to put this awesome letter from my local paper in my blog today--it so clearly illustrates my last point.
To the editor:
We're here to say that we support John McCain and Sarah Palin. John McCain has paid his dues and Governor Palin is well on her way to do the same. He will fight for us every bit of the way in protecting us and our country from terrorists, in creating new jobs and putting this country back on it's feet again, by putting an end to all this pork barrel spending, by ending the shipping of millions of dollars overseas to countries that hate us, by helping people to pay for their own medical plans, by helping small business to keep growing and by stopping tax increases. Obama promises to provide health care for all who live in the United States but he doesn't say how he will pay for it because he doesn't know. I can tell you who will pay for it! The current economic crisis is the result of a legislative move during the Clinton administration that has over the years snowballed into the mess that we have today.
Obama believes in abortion. Do you realize that the first organ to develop in a fetus is the heart within 10 days of conception?
Obama condones gay marriage. We believe that one reason America will colaspe is because of the failure of the family unit consisting of a married man and woman. We will vote 'Yes' on Prop 102.
Wake up, America. We are throwing our liberties away as our forefathers knew them. We are headed for change all right:socialism. Isn't that what Castro of Cuba promised his people?
JO ANN and HARVEY MICKELSON
Flagstaff
Thank you Jo Ann and Harvey! That was awesome. You say that Obama will take away our "liberties" but the only policy you mention is that he wants to provide healthcare to U.S. citizens. Of which liberty will that deprive you? Your freedom to send billions of dollars into Iraq?
Then you talk about YOUR beliefs--you want to deny women the right to choose and homosexuals the right to marry. Those sound way more like denial of liberties than providing health care. Just so I'm straight--you don't want to provide healthcare to poor women--but you want to force them to have babies that they know they can't care for. Brilliant plan. Man, I love this town sometimes.
To the editor:
We're here to say that we support John McCain and Sarah Palin. John McCain has paid his dues and Governor Palin is well on her way to do the same. He will fight for us every bit of the way in protecting us and our country from terrorists, in creating new jobs and putting this country back on it's feet again, by putting an end to all this pork barrel spending, by ending the shipping of millions of dollars overseas to countries that hate us, by helping people to pay for their own medical plans, by helping small business to keep growing and by stopping tax increases. Obama promises to provide health care for all who live in the United States but he doesn't say how he will pay for it because he doesn't know. I can tell you who will pay for it! The current economic crisis is the result of a legislative move during the Clinton administration that has over the years snowballed into the mess that we have today.
Obama believes in abortion. Do you realize that the first organ to develop in a fetus is the heart within 10 days of conception?
Obama condones gay marriage. We believe that one reason America will colaspe is because of the failure of the family unit consisting of a married man and woman. We will vote 'Yes' on Prop 102.
Wake up, America. We are throwing our liberties away as our forefathers knew them. We are headed for change all right:socialism. Isn't that what Castro of Cuba promised his people?
JO ANN and HARVEY MICKELSON
Flagstaff
Thank you Jo Ann and Harvey! That was awesome. You say that Obama will take away our "liberties" but the only policy you mention is that he wants to provide healthcare to U.S. citizens. Of which liberty will that deprive you? Your freedom to send billions of dollars into Iraq?
Then you talk about YOUR beliefs--you want to deny women the right to choose and homosexuals the right to marry. Those sound way more like denial of liberties than providing health care. Just so I'm straight--you don't want to provide healthcare to poor women--but you want to force them to have babies that they know they can't care for. Brilliant plan. Man, I love this town sometimes.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Speciation
Ok so I said I was going to edit that post, but I didn't get around to it. I'm just going to make a new one.
So yeah about speciation. As biologists, we learn that a single species can evolve into multiple species through a variety of mechanisms. Easily cited examples of speciation involve a geographic separation of groups of organisms. Different selective pressures in different areas result in more than one species. Simple enough. There is a concept known as "sympatric speciation" which is NOT widely accepted among biologists. Simply put, organisms can speciate without a geographic separation--but some other mechanism is driving the divergence. It could be a small niche within a larger population. It could be a pre-mating strategy. In 1987 an article was published in PNAS talking about mole rats in Israel. They looked at four different chromosomal species (same organism--different total number of chromosomes). Each had different mating calls. For the most part, females preferred the calls of the males with the same number of chromosomes as their own. Except the females with 2n= 60. This was the last group of mole rats to diverge (most recent). They still didn't care too much. The conclusion was that the call differentiation happened first and it resulted in a "speciation" (in this case--subspeciation).
I feel this is sort of what is going on with humans. We are free to breed (or not) with whomever we choose. To some of us, "calls" made by right-wing conservatives are not appealing--in fact they are repulsive. I'm sure they same can be said for women on the far right (about men with far left leanings). But its more than that. I hear the words coming out of the mouths of conservatives and ... well I understand the actual words. I mean taking each word individually, I know what they mean. Based on the reaction of like-minded folk around these people, however, I don't think they mean the same thing to them as they do to me. Does that make sense?
Take an issue with which I was involved recently here in Flagstaff. The train goes right through the center of town about once every eight minutes or so. There are 5 at-grade crossings in town at which the train operator must blast the horn. The town decided they wanted to silence the train. To do so requires that alternate safey measures be installed at all the crossings. So to make a long story short, in Flag, the Eastside of town is known as the "bad" part of town. The eastside is where I live. The city council decided to completely silence the downtown crossings--but to install "wayside" horns on the eastside crossings. So we on the eastside will actually get a horn that sounds for a longer period of time than the current train--but its stationary so you don't get the doppler effect. So while I was involved with this issue I heard folks say that this resolution was "fair" to both eastside folks and downtown folks. My definition of fair means equal or free from bias. I don't think leaving a horn in one neighborhood and allowing the other neighborhood to get total quiet qualifies as "fair" by that definition. But the people saying it were adamant. So the only conclusion I could come to is that they must have a different definition. We are using the same words but there are different meanings depending on your genetics. I think I should write the Liberal to Conservative dictionary.
So yeah about speciation. As biologists, we learn that a single species can evolve into multiple species through a variety of mechanisms. Easily cited examples of speciation involve a geographic separation of groups of organisms. Different selective pressures in different areas result in more than one species. Simple enough. There is a concept known as "sympatric speciation" which is NOT widely accepted among biologists. Simply put, organisms can speciate without a geographic separation--but some other mechanism is driving the divergence. It could be a small niche within a larger population. It could be a pre-mating strategy. In 1987 an article was published in PNAS talking about mole rats in Israel. They looked at four different chromosomal species (same organism--different total number of chromosomes). Each had different mating calls. For the most part, females preferred the calls of the males with the same number of chromosomes as their own. Except the females with 2n= 60. This was the last group of mole rats to diverge (most recent). They still didn't care too much. The conclusion was that the call differentiation happened first and it resulted in a "speciation" (in this case--subspeciation).
I feel this is sort of what is going on with humans. We are free to breed (or not) with whomever we choose. To some of us, "calls" made by right-wing conservatives are not appealing--in fact they are repulsive. I'm sure they same can be said for women on the far right (about men with far left leanings). But its more than that. I hear the words coming out of the mouths of conservatives and ... well I understand the actual words. I mean taking each word individually, I know what they mean. Based on the reaction of like-minded folk around these people, however, I don't think they mean the same thing to them as they do to me. Does that make sense?
Take an issue with which I was involved recently here in Flagstaff. The train goes right through the center of town about once every eight minutes or so. There are 5 at-grade crossings in town at which the train operator must blast the horn. The town decided they wanted to silence the train. To do so requires that alternate safey measures be installed at all the crossings. So to make a long story short, in Flag, the Eastside of town is known as the "bad" part of town. The eastside is where I live. The city council decided to completely silence the downtown crossings--but to install "wayside" horns on the eastside crossings. So we on the eastside will actually get a horn that sounds for a longer period of time than the current train--but its stationary so you don't get the doppler effect. So while I was involved with this issue I heard folks say that this resolution was "fair" to both eastside folks and downtown folks. My definition of fair means equal or free from bias. I don't think leaving a horn in one neighborhood and allowing the other neighborhood to get total quiet qualifies as "fair" by that definition. But the people saying it were adamant. So the only conclusion I could come to is that they must have a different definition. We are using the same words but there are different meanings depending on your genetics. I think I should write the Liberal to Conservative dictionary.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)