Granby01033

Blue Mass Group has been a godsend for news, dialogue, and activism. Today’s interview with Gov. Deval Patrick is one of the Editors forays into journalism. Visit BMG here to read some interview highlights.

Mark

This is us. You and me.

The Internet overtook print newspapers as a news source this year, according to a report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which asked more than a thousand people where they got “most of” their national and international news. (Respondents were allowed to name more than one medium.)

–Mb

This is scary. From the Associated Press:

Workers are set to begin cutting down thousands of trees in Worcester’s battle to eradicate the Asian longhorned beetle in Central Massachusetts. The Worcester Telegram reported that five months after the beetle was found in the city’s Greendale section, the first of approximately 6,000 trees will be cut down today - the start of a long process that could reshape the landscape in parts of Worcester. Infested trees in a 2-square mile area face the chipper in the hopes of halting the spread of the black and white beetles, which bore dime-sized holes in hardwood trees, eventually killing them. Officials say it could take a decade to complete the eradication process within the full 64-square-mile regulated area.

If we don’t act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.

–Barack Obama

The Great Depression has been well-studied in the last 80 years. The causes are clear, and the solutions, the success of which depend on them being carried out correctly, are clear too.

To work, the forthcoming economic stimulus must be bold and resolute, but conservatives and the Republican Party may bloody the waters by delaying the legislation and limiting its size. 

Conservatives are politically and ideologically opposed to the history and the the solution. And to sabotage the Democrats, all they need to do is drag their feet.

He Who Must Be Read fears a Depression. Economically, a stimulus package is far from a sure thing. Politically, there’s a nightmare scenario:

It takes Congress months to pass a stimulus plan, and the legislation that actually emerges is too cautious. As a result, the economy plunges for most of 2009, and when the plan finally starts to kick in, it’s only enough to slow the descent, not stop it. Meanwhile, deflation is setting in, while businesses and consumers start to base their spending plans on the expectation of a permanently depressed economy — well, you can see where this is going.

….the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years.

More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.

The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs — a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.

This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment “which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.

–Mb

I was shocked. Shocked. In the nine years I’ve been here, I had never seen such a line before for any of our story times.”

–Quincy Librarian, Jane Miller

You can now access the card catalog online. I guess it’s not a card catalog anymore. You can take out videos, DVDs, books on tape, and even CDs. You can order books from different libraries. And that’s not even considering the reading groups and programs libraries offered.

Sharon volunteers at the Granby Public Library and covers the occasional absence, and she’s noticed not only an increase in traffic, but an increase in interlibrary loans.  Given the economy and the ease of interlibrary loan, it’s no surprise circulation is up. The same is true across the state, according to the Boston Globe.

In the fast-paced, instant message, Internet era, public libraries have often struggled for attention from patrons. But with the economy sputtering, unemployment rising, and no relief in sight, Massachusetts libraries, long the victim of budget cuts, are busier than ever before, said Robert Maier, director of the state Board of Library Commissioners.

Attendance is surging. Check-out rates are soaring. At some libraries, circulation - the number of items checked out in a given month - is up as much as 33 percent since last summer. And for the unemployed, libraries have become something like an office, with computers, Internet access, and even classes that teach how to write a r??sum?? and peddle it online. In a tough time, it seems, people are returning to a place where whispering trumps shouting and no credit card is necessary. At the library, just about everything is free….

Libraries have been changing for years, repositioning themselves to attract patrons in a digital age. In recent years, libraries have expanded their DVD collections, opened Internet cafes, attracted children with video game hours, and even used technology to let people download music and video.

Click here to read the Globe’s article…

–Mb

Recent news stories concerning Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme pointed out the fact that regulators had been warned something funny was going on. Not wanting to be party poopers, they did what The Worst Presidency Ever has often done best: nothing. 

Reader Tom Malone sent me an Associated Press story saying much the same thing about the mortgage crisis that set off the current recession or depression whatever it is.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents….

Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

“These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages,” David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The administration’s blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.

–Mb

Of the six men are vying for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, two are African American and three are controversial.

Former Ohio governor of Ohio Ken Blackwell was actively involved in voter suppression in the 2004 Presidential election. I think there are still law suits pending.

Another candidate is Chip Saltsman who is now somewhat infamous for disseminating CD’s with the song Barack the Magic Negro. (I don’t know if you’ve heard any of Paul Shanklin’s “work.” I’ve heard it occasionally listening to Rush Limbaugh (after taking an anti-emetic, of course). The guy’s work is amazing for its lack of cleverness. I’ve heard better from high school kids. Shanklin penned the ditty).

Electoral-vote.com writes:

The election for RNC chairman is not only about who will wield the gavel at RNC meetings, but is really a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party. Does the party want to become more conservative, strengthen its base in the South, and reflexively oppose everything the Democrats do (Saltsman, Dawson)? Or does it want its own 50-state strategy, copied from Howard Dean (Anuzis, Steele)? Or it could keep on doing what it is already doing by re-electing Mike Duncan. Unusual for the Republicans, two of the candidates are black (Blackwell and Steele). Does the party want to reach out to minorities? Electing a black man as national chairman would certainly send a message of inclusion.

–Mb

GRANBY, MA - James P. Wilson 72 who was born on March 24, 1936 passed away peacefully surround-ed by his loved ones at his home in Granby, Ma. on Dec. 31, 2008. James is survived by his dedicated loving wife Susan ( Payne) Wilson of 47 years, as well as his children Elizabeth “Leur” Saunders and her husband Daniel of Granby Ma, Andrew James Wilson CPO ( USN) and his wife Catherine of Woodbridge Va., Sarah Jean DeCandio and her husband Kenneth of Rutland Vt., Robert Warren Wilson Mst-Sgt (USMC) and his wife Jennifer of Pace Fl., a brother Captain Robert William Wilson and his wife Barbara of E. Grafton Va., nine cherished grandchildren Adam, Timothy, Joshua, Richard, Samantha, Francisco, Jacob, Georgia, and Isabella.

James was a former Marine and worked for the United Parcel Service (UPS) and other trucking companies for many years. As an avid farmer and woodsman he dedicated his life to his family and friends. There will be no formal funeral services at this time.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers he may be honored by sending donations to the following agencies: Providence Hospital Outpatient Services, 1233 Main St. Holyoke,Ma. 01040 or to Hospice Life Care 113 Hampden St Holyoke, Ma. 01040 Semperfy. The Dillon & Edward F. Day Funeral Home 124 Chestnut St Holyoke was entrusted with the arrangements.

The last I checked, it was almost impossible to sue the government. I don’t know if Bob and Carol Ward have discovered new grounds for doing so. I posted on this story previously here.  Sandra Constantine filed a story yesterday in the Springfield Republican. Here it is: 

The complaint also states that at the outset of the siege, Murphy did not threaten harm to any other person and did not present an imminent threat or danger to himself. It alleges police “unreasonably and impermissibly” raised Murphy’s anxiety levels and the likelihood he would cause himself harm. Between 9:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., police fired at least 100 projectiles of tear gas into the home, a number the Wards allege was excessive and unreasonably caused permanent damage to the Ward home and the personal belongings within it, the complaint states.

The damage left the house uninhabitable and forced the Wards to find and pay for accommodations elsewhere “at significant expense,” the complaint states.

–Mb

The Democrats, and rational Republicans, have no choice but to invest in the economy, which needs money. The Worst Presidency Ever, however, has spent us into the biggest hole ever. By the time the first dollars of whatever stimulus bill comes out of Congress are spent, it will (almost) equal the cost of the totally unnecessary Iraq War. Worst of all, we’ve borrowed record amounts of money to wage the war. We’ll go hat in hand again to raise the needed money for the stimulus package.

The Warshington Post reports:

Obama and congressional Democrats are debating as much as $850 billion in new federal spending and tax cuts to create or preserve jobs and slow the grim, upward march of unemployment, which stood in November at 6.7 percent.

Congress is not planning to raise taxes or cut spending to cover the cost of those programs, because economists say doing so would further slow economic activity. That means the government has to borrow the money.

Some of the borrowing was done during the fiscal year that ended in September, when the Treasury added nearly $720 billion to the national debt. But the big borrowing binge will come during the current fiscal year, when the cost of the bailouts plus another stimulus package combined with slowing tax revenues will force the government to increase the debt by as much as $2 trillion to finance its obligations, according to a Treasury survey of bond dealers and other market analysts.

As of yesterday, the debt stood at nearly $10.7 trillion, of which about $4.3 trillion is owed to other government institutions, such as the Social Security trust fund. Debt held by private investors totals nearly $6.4 trillion, or a little over 40 percent of gross domestic product.

–Mb

Put aside moral arguments. Both sides have them. Look at the Israeli-Gaza War from a pragmatic point of view. Is it accomplishing anything for the Israelis? I have my doubts. So does The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland:

there may be short-term advantage for Israel’s politicians, eyeing the election calendar, in hitting Hamas hard. But the senior European official who told me that this is “tactics, not strategy by the Israelis, who are expert in dealing with symptoms, not causes” is surely right. This is the act of a nation that has plenty of tactics for war - but no strategy for peace.

If it did, it would realise that Israel cannot pick the Palestinians’ leaders for them, that Hamas - however repulsive its charter - is part of the Palestinian reality and will eventually have to be accommodated. Such a peace strategy would see a decision to withdraw from almost all of the West Bank and end settlement expansion, thereby making Abbas - and the peace process - credible in the eyes of his own people.

But there is no such peace strategy, only an Israeli leadership so dazzled by its own military might that it has come to believe that force is almost always the answer - and the way to avoid the toughest questions.

–Mb

I have three articles I have yet to start. One is an interview with Granby teacher and local hero Joan Vohl Hamilton. Another is a piece on health care for which Alan Shaw provided some background. And an article on the mortage crisis that reader Tom Malone forwarded to me.

I will be getting to them soon. I appreciate your participation, thoughts, and support.

mark

I read a lot in a week. I receive two weekly magazines (though I don’t read them cover to cover) and three monthlies. And I visit four newspaper websites and an equal number of blogs (sometimes more). That’s what blogging news and politics does to you.

Writing, like teaching, is a great way to learn.

This morning with my breakfast I am blogging and reading an article called Race, Place, and Opportunity that appeared in the October issue of The American Prospect. (I never said I read everything on time). The article provides some historical details on concepts I was introduced to in graduate school, concepts called social capital and cultural capital.

Cynics are fond of saying it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. To a certain extent, they’e right. The idea of networking is pretty basic these days. Business people use the term as a matter of course. The business cards you hand out, the more you collect, the more opportunities for doing business you have.

Social capital doesn’t just apply to business, however. If you belong to a church, you have some social capital. If you know your neighbors, and they provide you support, whether they’re holding the ladder while you clean the gutters or cooking for you when a loved one dies. Social capital varies, and not necessarily by income. Rich folks might be able to buy and sell the rest of us, but we can literally richer in friends and community.

Rich people usually have much more cultural capital, the knowledge, skills, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society. In Granby, our cultural capital is such that many of us end up as teachers, nurses, and cops. Still many others enter the military or work in various building trades. Although we choose to pursue these jobs, few of us have enough social or cultural capital to become actuaries or investment bankers. There are no laws preventing us from pursuing these jobs, but most of us lack the social and cultural capital to do so. Most of us don’t grow up knowing actuaries or investment bankers or the worlds they inhabit. If we lived in Longmeadow or Wayland, entering these professions would not require such a leap of imagination.

The lack of social capital has an even more drastic effect on people from areas of high poverty. A kid in Granby may never have met an investment banker, but a kid in the South Bronx may never have met anyone with a decent job or a job at all. Before the 1970s, black neighborhoods were segregated, but there was some economic diversity. Increasingly that is not the case.

Before legislation passed in the 1960s, there was overt discrimination against black people owning homes. After World War II, aided by the federal highway system, whites began moving out of the city. Discrimination by realtors as well as the Federal Housing Authority virtually insured that the chance of blacks owning their own homes was close to zero. John Powell has an excellent article in the American Prospect that demonstrates not only racism, but its effects on the social and cultural capital of blacks living in the inner city. If you have the time, check it out. It’s a straightforward, worthwhile read.

Mark

The Wayne Gagnon is brilliant, true interpretive art.

- jon london

We spent New Year’s Eve with the Evrens, Gagnons, and Nancy Hoffenberg and her beau Tony Tirozzi. After playing Apples to Apples, a party game that didn’t quite live up to expectations,  we sat around listening to music and talking. It was then that I learned that Brother WAG, whose humility is matched only by his joie de vivre, had recently had a drawing published in the New York Times.

Mario Cuomo had evidently never sat for a formal portrait and the Times had solicited artist renderings. The Times’s City Room also decided to invite readers to submit their own portraits of any of the Empire State’s governors. Wayne accepted the invitation.

Armed with a four-color Bic pen and a piece of notebook paper from the recycle bin, Way spent his lunch hour at UMass’s Office of Internet Technology producing the sketch that appeared in the New York Times on December 5 and is included in this slideshow.

 You can also view the sketch and more of Granby’s artist-in-residence at Wayne’s website.

Mark

Mark

One problem with the Republican Party and conservatism in general is the fact that it’s underlying ideas are little more than a matter of refusal. No to the New Deal. No to government. And more recently, no to checks and balances. No to the rule of law. No to dissent. No to the truth. As Nancy Reagan once said, “Just say no.”

The Republican Strategy has been similarly negative, casting issues in terms of us versus them. Criminals vs. Law-abiding citizens. Black vs. white. Although in the Northeast our experience of racism is muted, the GOP has played the race ca(na)rd at least as far back as Richard Nixon.

He Who Must Be Read predicts that these GOP mainstays aren’t going to work, and the lack of GOP ideas offers an exceptional opportunity for Democrats.

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.

If the Bush administration became a byword for policy bungles, for government by the unqualified, well, it was just following the advice of leading conservative think tanks: after the 2000 election the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new team to “make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second.”

Contempt for expertise, in turn, rested on contempt for government in general. “Government is not the solution to our problem,” declared Ronald Reagan. “Government is the problem.” So why worry about governing well?

[Read more →]

Sen. Claiborne Pell was a New Englad patrician who felt he had a committment to those less fortunate than he. Some of my friends benefitted from his concern for people who had far, far less money. He was the creator of Pell Grants for college. Although I never received a Pell Grant, I had friends who benefitted from them.

The Globe reports:

WASHINGTON - Claiborne Pell, a six-term Rhode Island Democrat who rose to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, died yesterday at his Newport, R.I., home. He had Parkinson’s disease since 1994. He was 90.

A Yankee Brahmin and former Foreign Service officer who was virtually unbeatable at the polls in a largely Catholic, blue-collar state, Mr. Pell was best-known for his sponsorship of the 1972 program that has helped 54 million low-income and moderate-income students attend college. He also sponsored the legislation that founded the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

He also was committed to maritime and foreign affairs issues and was strongly pro-choice on abortion rights, a consistent vote for labor, and an ardent advocate of arms control and the rule of law in international affairs.

First elected to the Senate in 1960, Mr. Pell was aloof, diffident, courteous, and self-effacing. Unfailingly polite, he also had quirks, such as jogging in a tweed coat. One of his favorite sayings was, “I always let the other fellow have my way.” Eccentric and occasionally absent-minded, he was asked during a 1990 election-year debate what legislation he had sponsored that specifically benefited Rhode Island.

“I couldn’t give you a specific answer,” he averred in a famous reply. “My memory’s not as good as it should be.”

He won reelection by a ratio of almost 2 to 1.

–Mb

Gov. Deval Patrick’s Readiness Project wrapped some good ideas (universal preschool, low-cost community college) and some bad ideas (pseudo-charter schools with an anti-union bias) in an old-fashioned, big-ticket liberal program. Implementing one of the good ideas would have been a huge, expensive, but valuable accomplishment. Neither would have required a giga-committee with mega-sub-committees or a statewide listening tour creating the appearance of democracy.

In spite of the effort and good, if egotistical, intentions, the Readiness Project as a whole was unaffordable in the best of times. In the worst of times, toward which we are headed but still haven’t reached, it’s a joke. The Globe is reporting on what it doesn’t realize is the end of the Readiness Project (as we know it). It’s possible that the Obama Administration will pump some money into education, but it’s more likely to be used to preserve existing programs than invested in costly pipe dreams.

Whenever education news appears in the Globe, editorial opinions are sure to follow. Chances are they’ll want to force teachers to take the state’s insurance program and want the state to turn the screws tighter on educational standards. They’ll appeal to our children’s futures. And if they pull out all the stops, they’ll say the cost of not investing in education (the way they suggest) will be even more costly.

Mark

Conservatives framed Obama’s choice of  Secretary of Education in stark terms: either he chose someone who was a conservative, union-bashing “reformer,” or he chose someone who would destroy 20 years of educational progress. It looks like his choice of Arne Duncan will break the moldy, bipolar conservative mold.

E.J. Dionne writes:

“Way too much has been made of this battle between the reformers and the status quo,” said Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a group respected by reformers. She praises Duncan for dealing with “hard problems” that get scant attention in the set-piece education debates, including the need to change high school education and improve curriculums. He pushed hard to raise teacher quality, working closely with the New Teacher Project, which Rhee founded, to expand recruitment.

It’s a mistake, in any event, to paint all union officials with a single brush. Some school systems are more resistant to change than others. In the nation’s capital, it’s impossible not to respect Rhee’s sense of urgency and her passion for results.

But some union officials are eager to cooperate with reform efforts. When Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, headed the union local in Cincinnati, she supported “additional pay for additional responsibilities” aimed at rewarding exceptional teaching. “We developed our own accountability system,” Taylor says. “We do have to raise standards. . . . The key is collaboration.”

Collaboration is what Duncan and Obama are all about. Instead of taking sides in the education argument as it stands, they want to change the debate altogether. How Duncan fares will be a central test of Barack Obama’s philosophy of governing.

–Mb