Monday Reads
Posted: February 18, 2013 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: declining upward mobility in the US, Django Unchanged v. Lincoln, early childhood education, Homeless women, Keystone Pipeline Protests, language reconstruction, Territorial Tax System 41 Comments
Good Morning and Happy President’s Day!
Some of you have a long weekend so I hope you’re enjoying it! Here’s some news to think about today. Republicans are trying to intimidate the nonpartisan and highly respected CBO after it showed yet another one of their tax schemes for their donor corporations does exactly the opposite of what Republicans say it will do. So, we’ve got yet another example of trying to suppress the studies since the facts don’t match the memes.
Last month, another non-partisan agency, the Congressional Budget Office, released an analysis showing that one of the GOP’s favorite corporate tax ideas would end up pushing jobs overseas. Again, instead of reexamining their ideas, Republicans are attacking the messenger:
The Congressional Budget Office is defending a recent report on how U.S. multinational corporations are taxed, after a top Republican criticized the analysis as biased. […] “This report purports to provide an even-handed review of different policy issues related to the taxation of foreign source income,” [House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave] Camp (R-MI) wrote to [CBO Director Doug] Elmendorf last month.
“However, a closer analysis of the report reveals that it is heavily slanted and biased in favor of one specific approach to the taxation of foreign source income – and relies heavily on sources that tend to support that conclusion while ignoring sources that support a different conclusion,” he added.
Elmendorf defended the report, saying it “presents the key issues fairly and objectively and that its findings are well grounded in economic theory and are consistent with empirical studies in this area.”
The GOP’s idea — known as a “territorial” tax system — would permanently exempt U.S. corporations from paying taxes on profits they make overseas. CBO found such a system would result in “increasing incentives to shift business operations and reported income to countries with lower tax rates.”
A horrifying tale of treatment of homeless women comes from a Florida woman who went undercover to learn more about the experience. Alternet has some details but be sure to read her account that’s written in a local magazine. Florida has one of the highest populations of homeless and many women and children are among their ranks.
Renee Miller, a Tallahassee woman who works with a Christian group that helps the homeless, went undercover to check out a local shelter after hearing reports of abuse. She claims that immediately upon arrival she was sexually propositioned by a staff member:
He said, “Okay, well here is my number. Call me and we can hook up later tonight.”
Did I just get propositioned by a staff member? I was infuriated but did not want to break my cover.
I answered, “Nah, man, I just need some food and some sleep.”
“You don’t want to sleep in there. It’s dangerous. You can come sleep at my place. We can stop at McDonald’s.”
Seriously, a staff member – a person with some authority – was propositioning me – no, better yet, PREYING on a woman he KNOWS is in a vulnerable situation. A woman comes to The Shelter to escape the insecurity of the streets, not to be thrown to the wolves. Now I know why he let me stay and kicked the older woman out. He didn’t want to get in her pants.
I wanted to stall him so I asked for a drink of water. He came back with his own half-drank bottled water for me.
He propositioned me again. He said, “It’s not safe in there for women. You are better off coming home with me. I get off at 11:45. Just meet me in that parking lot over there.”
I wanted him to leave me alone so I told him I would go with him later.
He asked me to be discreet and don’t tell anyone I was going.
Eventually, she got so creeped out by the staffer that she called police to safely escort her out, she says.
Here’s the link to Renee’s first hand account.
The Economist explains the links between the US’s declining upward mobility and the incredible differences between the amount of monies and time spent on early childhood education in other countries and the US.
But it is most acute in America. Back in its Horatio Alger days, America was more fluid than Europe. Now it is not. Using one-generation measures of social mobility—how much a father’s relative income influences that of his adult son—America does half as well as Nordic countries, and about the same as Britain and Italy, Europe’s least-mobile places. America is particularly exposed to the virtuous-meritocracy paradox because its poor are getting married in ever smaller numbers, leaving more children with single mothers short of time and money. One study suggests that the gap in test scores between the children of America’s richest 10% and its poorest has risen by 30-40% over the past 25 years.
American conservatives say the answer lies in boosting marriage; the left focuses on redistribution. This newspaper would sweep away tax breaks such as mortgage-interest deduction that help richer people, and target more state spending on the poor. But the main focus should be education policy.
Whereas most OECD countries spend more on the education of poor children than rich ones, in America the opposite is true. It is especially bad at early-childhood education, which can have a big influence on results later (see article): only one four-year-old in six in America is in a public pre-school programme. Barack Obama has increased pre-school funding, but deeper change is needed. Because the school system is organised at the local level, and funded mainly through property taxes, affluent areas spend more. And thanks to the teachers’ unions, America has been far less willing than, say, Sweden to open its schools to choice through vouchers.
In higher education stiff fees in America mean that many poor children never get to university, and too many of those who do drop out. Outdated affirmative-action programmes should give way to schemes to help students based on the poverty of the applicant rather than the colour of his skin.
As for the rich strivers, there is nothing that you can, or should, do to stop people investing in their children, but you can prevent them from unfairly adding to their already privileged position. For instance, standardised tests were supposed to favour the brainy, but the $4.5 billion test-prep industry, which disproportionately caters to the rich, indicates that this is being gamed. Intelligence tests should be more widely used. The other great unfairness has to do with the preferences that elite American universities give to well-connected children, either because their parents went to the university themselves or because they have given money. An educational institution should focus on attracting the best people, and then work out how to finance the poorer people in that category.
A new computer program has been developed to reconstruct ancient, dead languages.
Researchers have created software that can rebuild protolanguages – the ancient tongues from which our modern languages evolved.
To test the system, the team took 637 languages currently spoken in Asia and the Pacific and recreated the early language from which they descended.
The work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Currently language reconstructions are carried out by linguists – but the process is slow and labour-intensive.
Dan Klein, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “It’s very time consuming for humans to look at all the data. There are thousands of languages in the world, with thousands of words each, not to mention all of those languages’ ancestors.
“It would take hundreds of lifetimes to pore over all those languages, cross-referencing all the different changes that happened across such an expanse of space – and of time. But this is where computers shine.”
A Brit professor specializing in colonial studies compares the life and portraits of US Slaves portrayed in two recent movies to history. Those would be, of course, Django Unchained and Lincoln. It’s an interesting read from AJ.
American slaves and ex-slaves are portrayed by Spielberg as a bunch of nicely dressed Black soldiers, who are nothing but secondary characters in the background of a much bigger stage and plot, where Lincoln, William Seward, Thaddeus Stevens and other white men define their futures without much input from them. The absence of Douglass, a consummate abolitionist whose opinions were always heard and on occasion supported by Lincoln is a historical calamity that excludes probably the most significant African-American protagonist altogether from a history he helped to write.
In Tarantino’s world, on the other hand, slavery and race are exhibited through the lens of violence, blood and death. Django is a slave with attitude and panache. While in Lincoln white men fight for and against slavery mostly in civilised manners and in sanitised quarters, here they are killed left, right and centre, and in true Tarantinesque style, their blood splatters everywhere. More importantly, much more importantly, this is the main difference between these two films. The protagonist of Tarantino’s film is a black man, a slave.
Django Unchained has been criticised because of its violent content, especially considering the recent shootings that have taken place in the US. However, that should not take away credit from Tarantino who, in my opinion, chose an honest path when he decided to portray American slavery as it really was – a nasty, violent business.
Those who find Mandingo fighting or a slave being killed by dogs revolting should know that violent instances like these were by no means extreme or extraordinary events. Across the Americas and on a daily basis, African slaves and their descendants were subject to punishments like these, and to some that were probably even worse.
Environmental groups marched on Washington to convince Obama to nix the Keystone Pipe Line.
The pipeline would bring fossil fuels from Canadian tar sands fields to the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists are painting Obama’s upcoming decision as the litmus test for whether he plans to make good on recent comments about tackling climate change.
Activists at Sunday’s rally said approving the pipeline would taint Obama’s record on climate change. They said they hoped the demonstration would give the president the will to nix Keystone, even when a majority of both the House and the Senate want it built.
“His heart is there. The question is can we change the politics enough so he can do what he knows is right. And I believe that he will,” Van Jones, a former Obama adviser, told The Hill.
The politics surrounding the project are formidable.
So, that’s a few tidbits to get us started today. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Good Morning!!
Here’s a White House initiative I can support wholeheartedly: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain
That’s a great use for the money.
I haven’t seen Django Unchained yet, but that assessment of Lincoln reflects my own very well.
I finally got around to reading “Team of Rivals” which supposedly is the basis for the movie “Lincoln” – but from what is said above Spielberg left a lot out. The book (Doris Kearns Goodwin) is wonderful. Lots of details of life in the 19th century and she certainly included Douglass as a friend of Lincoln, they had in interesting relationship, relied on for input by Lincoln in his some of his decisions. If you haven’t read it – I recommend it – and was looking forward to the movie.
The movie is worth seeing, but Spielberg almost completely ignores the contributions of women and African Americans to abolition of slavery.
Dak, that was a great AJ article, thanks for including it. I haven’t seen either film…they did not stay for long at our local movie theater.
The brutality of slavery comes through in the movie like nothing I have ever seen depicted. It was excellent.
NYT editorial: About Those Black Sites
O/T, but the Sunday talk shows had McCain once again, spouting off about Hagel “not fit” to become Secretary of Defense.
This from a man who chose as his running mate one of the least qualified people to ever be in consideration to “lead” should he have not been able to finish his term.
Can anyone else see the hypocrisy in this declaration? And why do these shows continue to showcase John McCain who is filled with such bitterness, hate, and vitriol?
Then Lady Lindsay pops up full of faux outrage that Hagel apparently does not “love Israel” enough to hold the same post. Since when does any criticism of Israel and its policies preclude a vote?
McCain is unable to live with his defeat to become POTUS while Lindsay is running for his political life in SC for fear of being primaried while he bows to the Religious Right in a move to hold his seat
Shameful that the networks continue to offer these two a forum for continually blocking appointments based on self serving statements. McCain will never live down the choice of Sarah Palin no matter how much he bashes the current administration.
Thank goodness he never became president no matter how disappointing we find Obama. This guy lives for revenge.
Man who slapped boy on Delta flight has been fired from his job.
He’s been charged with simple assault and faces a year in prison.
They’re moving pretty fast. Yesterday he was suspended from his job, today he’s fired. He could do time and that’s good.
I just saw the mother and child on one of the morning talks today. I wasn’t aware at first that the mom was white and the baby was black. The child had been adopted by two heterosexual parents. I have little doubt that what set the racist off was that a white woman was presumably in a relationship with a black man and had a baby with him. I have experienced similar hatred, although without the violence, from two police officers, one black and one white, at a church picnic while I was walking around carrying my friend’s granddaughter. Just be a white woman carrying a black baby, and you’d be shocked at the utter contempt people feel for you.
Both of the parents are white. The boy is adopted.
Yes, I know, but I thought only the mom was on the flight.
Great post. On that CBO report, of course this will result in more jobs going overseas. Duh.
What we should do instead is tax corporate profits made anywhere, whether repatrioted or not, giving them a deduction for foreign taxes paid. Something close to that would bring a lot of money into the Treasury and be quite fair I think.
I wish the GOP actions to kill these reports made more news headlines.
It should since they are trying to cover up the truth about their policies and keep the public in the dark. That’s what the media are for, darn it!
That’s far too logical for the republicans.
WaPo: Congressional staffers often travel on tabs of foreign governments
This seems relevant since Congress has been so interested in Chuck Hagel’s funding!
I wonder if Senators McNasty or Closet Case benefited?
I would bet the answer to that is yes. Wish we had the data to know the amounts.
Breaking news in Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood to close Chippewa Falls center
Assholes republicans.
This is something: Food poverty ‘puts UK’s international human rights obligations in danger’ | Society | The Guardian
Dee Dee Myers and Karl Rove; What if Hillary had beaten Obama in ’08? (video) This could be the first Hillary/2016 commercial.
Tiger Beat: Why John McCain turned on Chuck Hagel
I doubt they intended it but this is a broad indictment of both McCain and Graham as first class douchenozzles who are unfit to serve.
WOULD THE HAGEL-HATERS HAVE FILIBUSTERED GEORGE W. BUSH?
The Daily Caller has another “scoop” which is spectacularly hosed and a giant bowl of fail.
Maybe we didn’t realize at the time, what a calming influence Senator Lieberman (I – Israel) had on Senator McClown (R – AlZheimer) and Senator Limpseed Cornpone Grahamcracker (R – Closet).
The old bird and the old girl seem to be more than a bit off their med’s lately.
Oh well, the Three Stooges were never the same after Curly died, either.
Kelly Ayotte = Shemp?
More from Tiger Beat:
I agree but don’t think McCain had any credibility left to sacrifice, so wtf.
Horse meat in Eurozone beef traced back to ex-KGB arms merchant?
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2013/02/bout-steak.html
Don’t like the idea of getting a cold along with your Americano or dinner, served by your sneezing, coughing barista or waitperson? Paid sick leave helps sick workers afford to stay home rather than come in to work to spread sickness around to co-workers and customers.
Like Dak said above, Asshole republicans.
Did I just hear that Mississippi just ratified the 13th amendment??????????????
Maddow special on Iraq should be very good!
Wish she’d have spent some time on how the press strew the path with rose petals and even more hubris.
I still think Judy Miller should go to the Hague with Cheney & Wolfie and sit in the same jail cell.
I couldn’t agree more. One of the problems I have even with liberal leaning journalists like Rachel is they are still journalists and protect each other. The person who said something about the press failing was Mike Isikoff and he soft pedaled it.
Speaking of human brains, here’s a story with some lovely pics of neural networks or nerve pathways in the brain. The reporter thought that being in the MRI machine was “a pleasant experience.” Huh. Can’t say I’ve heard that too often!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21487016
Two 5th grade boys armed with a stolen semi-automatic gun plotted to kill a classmate: http://maig.us/Xiy8TN
Sound like little sociopaths. Maybe one of them will grow up to be CEO of JPMC?