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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
April 9, 2015
Why the California drought will be worse than everyone thinks
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — We’re told by economists that the California drought is no cause for concern to the nation. The agriculture industry isn’t being forced into additional cuts. Food prices will increase only slightly.
Stephen Levy, director and staff economist at the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto argues that the market will correct a water imbalance. The state can eventually draw from new sources — desalination plants, diversions from Canada, and Washington and Oregon, to name a couple states. Some state crops including cotton and alfalfa will likely be phased out.
As for prices, “the big price moves have had to do with housing and energy,” Levy said. “Food is a relatively small impact when moving the index (Consumer Price Index, or CPI).”
.....(snip)......
Sumner puts a 10% increase in California food prices at 0.06% of CPI. But should the drought continue, and prices rise 20%, it would add 0.12% to CPI.
It all sounds very reassuring. After all, so what if a quart of strawberries that used to cost $5 now costs $6?
No big deal — unless these economists are wrong. And, frankly, there’s a pretty strong case that should the drought persist, say another two to three years or more, prices will skyrocket. Remember, California is the biggest farm state in the nation, producing more than Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota combined. ...............(more)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-california-drought-will-be-worse-than-everyone-thinks-2015-04-07
April 9, 2015
(Bloomberg) Dave Stow, 71, strains to push the wheelchair carrying his 250-pound son, Bryan, up a series of ramps and into the basement of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Capitola, Calif., for its Friday fish fry. Bryan Stow is greeted by ladies who kiss him, men who hug him, and a 103-year-old woman who grabs his hand and asks if he is walking yet.
Four years ago, Bryan Stow was a strapping paramedic who spent his days off biking with his son and daughter. That was before March 31, 2011, when he and three friends made the mistake of wearing San Francisco Giants garb to an Opening Day game against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. They were harassed and threatened in the stands. Afterwards, two Dodgers fans beat Stow so savagely in a parking lot that doctors had to induce a coma to save him. He was hospitalized for seven months.
The damage to Stow, 46, remains unmistakable. A scar runs from the left side of his forehead to the back of his head. On the right side, a shunt used to drain fluid from his brain protrudes from his skull. The thick black hair he once fussed over is now patchy and thin. Special stockings on his legs prevent life-threatening blood clots.
The beating of Stow drew national attention to sports hooliganism. It’s also brought to light a virtually unknown aspect of the legal system that cuts compensation to victims. In effect, Stow was sucker-punched twice: first by his assailant and then by his health insurer. ....................(more)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-07/how-an-insurer-is-taking-money-from-the-fan-beaten-at-dodger-stadium
How an Insurer Is Taking Money From the Fan Beaten at Dodger Stadium
(Bloomberg) Dave Stow, 71, strains to push the wheelchair carrying his 250-pound son, Bryan, up a series of ramps and into the basement of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Capitola, Calif., for its Friday fish fry. Bryan Stow is greeted by ladies who kiss him, men who hug him, and a 103-year-old woman who grabs his hand and asks if he is walking yet.
Four years ago, Bryan Stow was a strapping paramedic who spent his days off biking with his son and daughter. That was before March 31, 2011, when he and three friends made the mistake of wearing San Francisco Giants garb to an Opening Day game against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. They were harassed and threatened in the stands. Afterwards, two Dodgers fans beat Stow so savagely in a parking lot that doctors had to induce a coma to save him. He was hospitalized for seven months.
The damage to Stow, 46, remains unmistakable. A scar runs from the left side of his forehead to the back of his head. On the right side, a shunt used to drain fluid from his brain protrudes from his skull. The thick black hair he once fussed over is now patchy and thin. Special stockings on his legs prevent life-threatening blood clots.
The beating of Stow drew national attention to sports hooliganism. It’s also brought to light a virtually unknown aspect of the legal system that cuts compensation to victims. In effect, Stow was sucker-punched twice: first by his assailant and then by his health insurer. ....................(more)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-07/how-an-insurer-is-taking-money-from-the-fan-beaten-at-dodger-stadium
April 8, 2015
Follow the Money: Invisible Investors Seek Big Bucks in Mass Incarceration
Wednesday, 08 April 2015 00:00
By James Kilgore and Brian Dolinar, Truthout | News Analysis
When authorities booked Richard Murphy into the jail in Monterey, California, on January 18, 2013, the war veteran likely never envisioned ending up being back in court months later, not to face criminal charges, but to expose the abuse he would suffer at the hands of the jail's private health-care provider.
His saga began when he complained to guards about his injured back. Before his arrest he managed the pain with prescribed medication and regular cortisone shots, neither of which he could get in jail. Despite his repeated pleas, it took several months to get even a cane. During this time, he could not get out of bed without serious pain, and his condition worsened.
In addition, Murphy had a severe mental illness. He received no attention from jail authorities even after claiming he heard demonic voices and felt suicidal. In a sick call note, he complained, "I'm a disabled vet who served my country with honorable discharge and should not be treated like trash over an officer's attitude."
On at least five occasions, the guards responded by putting him in a "rubber room," where he was stripped naked and dressed in a thin smock. There were feces on the wall and on the floor where he slept. One time he spent 38 hours in a rubber room without any food and only three drinks of water. .................(more)
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29809-follow-the-money-invisible-investors-seek-big-bucks-in-mass-incarceration
Follow the Money: Invisible Investors Seek Big Bucks in Mass Incarceration
Follow the Money: Invisible Investors Seek Big Bucks in Mass Incarceration
Wednesday, 08 April 2015 00:00
By James Kilgore and Brian Dolinar, Truthout | News Analysis
When authorities booked Richard Murphy into the jail in Monterey, California, on January 18, 2013, the war veteran likely never envisioned ending up being back in court months later, not to face criminal charges, but to expose the abuse he would suffer at the hands of the jail's private health-care provider.
His saga began when he complained to guards about his injured back. Before his arrest he managed the pain with prescribed medication and regular cortisone shots, neither of which he could get in jail. Despite his repeated pleas, it took several months to get even a cane. During this time, he could not get out of bed without serious pain, and his condition worsened.
In addition, Murphy had a severe mental illness. He received no attention from jail authorities even after claiming he heard demonic voices and felt suicidal. In a sick call note, he complained, "I'm a disabled vet who served my country with honorable discharge and should not be treated like trash over an officer's attitude."
On at least five occasions, the guards responded by putting him in a "rubber room," where he was stripped naked and dressed in a thin smock. There were feces on the wall and on the floor where he slept. One time he spent 38 hours in a rubber room without any food and only three drinks of water. .................(more)
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29809-follow-the-money-invisible-investors-seek-big-bucks-in-mass-incarceration
April 8, 2015
Posted on Apr 8, 2015
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt
This piece first appeared at Web of Debt.
According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of – or even against – the will of the majority of voters. America’s political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites.
“Making the world safe for democracy” was President Woodrow Wilson’s rationale for World War I, and it has been used to justify American military intervention ever since. Can we justify sending troops into other countries to spread a political system we cannot maintain at home?
The Magna Carta, considered the first Bill of Rights in the Western world, established the rights of nobles as against the king. But the doctrine that “all men are created equal” – that all people have “certain inalienable rights,” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – is an American original. And those rights, supposedly insured by the Bill of Rights, have the right to vote at their core. We have the right to vote but the voters’ collective will no longer prevails.
In Greece, the left-wing populist Syriza Party came out of nowhere to take the presidential election by storm; and in Spain, the populist Podemos Party appears poised to do the same. But for over a century, no third-party candidate has had any chance of winning a US presidential election. We have a two-party winner-take-all system, in which our choice is between two candidates, both of whom necessarily cater to big money. It takes big money just to put on the mass media campaigns required to win an election involving 240 million people of voting age.
.....(snip).....
In every presidential election between 1872 and 1896, there was a third national party running on a platform of financial reform. Typically organized under the auspices of labor or farmer organizations, these were parties of the people rather than the banks. They included the Populist Party, the Greenback and Greenback Labor Parties, the Labor Reform Party, the Antimonopolist Party, and the Union Labor Party. They advocated expanding the national currency to meet the needs of trade, reform of the banking system, and democratic control of the financial system.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_america_became_an_oligarchy_20150408
How America Became an Oligarchy
How America Became an OligarchyPosted on Apr 8, 2015
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt
This piece first appeared at Web of Debt.
According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of – or even against – the will of the majority of voters. America’s political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites.
“Making the world safe for democracy” was President Woodrow Wilson’s rationale for World War I, and it has been used to justify American military intervention ever since. Can we justify sending troops into other countries to spread a political system we cannot maintain at home?
The Magna Carta, considered the first Bill of Rights in the Western world, established the rights of nobles as against the king. But the doctrine that “all men are created equal” – that all people have “certain inalienable rights,” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – is an American original. And those rights, supposedly insured by the Bill of Rights, have the right to vote at their core. We have the right to vote but the voters’ collective will no longer prevails.
In Greece, the left-wing populist Syriza Party came out of nowhere to take the presidential election by storm; and in Spain, the populist Podemos Party appears poised to do the same. But for over a century, no third-party candidate has had any chance of winning a US presidential election. We have a two-party winner-take-all system, in which our choice is between two candidates, both of whom necessarily cater to big money. It takes big money just to put on the mass media campaigns required to win an election involving 240 million people of voting age.
.....(snip).....
In every presidential election between 1872 and 1896, there was a third national party running on a platform of financial reform. Typically organized under the auspices of labor or farmer organizations, these were parties of the people rather than the banks. They included the Populist Party, the Greenback and Greenback Labor Parties, the Labor Reform Party, the Antimonopolist Party, and the Union Labor Party. They advocated expanding the national currency to meet the needs of trade, reform of the banking system, and democratic control of the financial system.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_america_became_an_oligarchy_20150408
April 8, 2015
http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2015/04/old-fire-department-hq-edges-closer-to-29m-hotel-rehab.php
http://cdn.cstatic.net/gridnailer/500x/
The brick-dropping Wurlitzer is threatening to go boutique and the Roosevelt Hotel now has windows. Hell, even the infamous Corktown Inn is proudly swapping hookers for hipsters. Where might the magic spread next? Keep an eye on the old Detroit Fire Department headquarters downtown, where a long-awaited $29M conversion into the Foundation Hotel could soon show signs of life.
With plans for 100 rooms and a decor theme that celebrates Detroit history, the Foundation could begin construction within 90 days, reports the Free Press. A job listing for a hotel manager pegs the ETA at spring 2016, so things really need to get moving soon. These renderings from McIntosh Poris are definitely a good start.
http://cdn.cstatic.net/gridnailer/500x/
Foundation Hotel: $29M Firehouse Remod Arrives Soon (downtown Detroit)
http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2015/04/old-fire-department-hq-edges-closer-to-29m-hotel-rehab.php
http://cdn.cstatic.net/gridnailer/500x/
The brick-dropping Wurlitzer is threatening to go boutique and the Roosevelt Hotel now has windows. Hell, even the infamous Corktown Inn is proudly swapping hookers for hipsters. Where might the magic spread next? Keep an eye on the old Detroit Fire Department headquarters downtown, where a long-awaited $29M conversion into the Foundation Hotel could soon show signs of life.
With plans for 100 rooms and a decor theme that celebrates Detroit history, the Foundation could begin construction within 90 days, reports the Free Press. A job listing for a hotel manager pegs the ETA at spring 2016, so things really need to get moving soon. These renderings from McIntosh Poris are definitely a good start.
http://cdn.cstatic.net/gridnailer/500x/
April 8, 2015
You can stand on the wrong side of history for only so long.
Things change. Sometimes by slow and painful inches. Sometimes in an onrush of miles, eating up terrain at a breakneck pace.
We've said it before, in a thousand small ways, wrapped in broader messages and in service of larger points. Today, we're saying it plainly: Discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is wrong, whether done in open hatred or cloaked in religion.
The freedom to worship God, gods, or no god at all is intrinsic to the American experience. Because of that, we, as a nation, have too often indulged the assumption that religion was sufficient to justify discrimination.
This argument was once used to justify racism, in law and in practice. It was false then. It is false now. ................(more}
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/04/04/rfra-indiana-lgbt/25274903/
Detroit Free Press editorial: Time Michigan got on the right side of history
You can stand on the wrong side of history for only so long.
Things change. Sometimes by slow and painful inches. Sometimes in an onrush of miles, eating up terrain at a breakneck pace.
We've said it before, in a thousand small ways, wrapped in broader messages and in service of larger points. Today, we're saying it plainly: Discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is wrong, whether done in open hatred or cloaked in religion.
The freedom to worship God, gods, or no god at all is intrinsic to the American experience. Because of that, we, as a nation, have too often indulged the assumption that religion was sufficient to justify discrimination.
This argument was once used to justify racism, in law and in practice. It was false then. It is false now. ................(more}
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/04/04/rfra-indiana-lgbt/25274903/
April 7, 2015
from In These Times:
Harvard Feels the Heat on Fossil-Fuel Divestment
It’s not Al Gore’s movement anymore. Student activists are bringing a new militancy to the fight against climate change.
BY KATE ARONOFF
“Push back. Use social media, use the Internet.”
That was the advice on climate change that former Vice President Al Gore gave to a packed auditorium at South by Southwest this March.
Gore’s Oscar-winning 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, sparked a new sense of urgency with its no-nonsense look at the bleak science of global warming. His advice in 2015, though, seems less than adequate. Almost a decade after An Inconvenient Truth’s release, the climate fight is focused less on raising awareness than on building grassroots power, and college students—using social media, the Internet and more—are leading the way.
On March 19, in the early hours of the morning, 43 students and alumni of Swarthmore College filed into their school’s Finance and Investment Office and plopped themselves on the floor in front of a few anxious administrators. They say they will remain there in rotating shifts until their demand for good-faith negotiations toward fossil fuel divestment is met. More than 1,000 faculty and alumni have expressed support, including UN Climate Chief and Swarthmore alumna Christiana Figueres, who wrote a letter to administrators and students urging divestment.
Swarthmore's occupiers are among the thousands of students across an estimated 400 U.S. campuses calling on their institutions to sell off stocks in the top 200 publicly traded coal, oil and natural gas companies. Divestment goes beyond simply sounding the alarm about climate change to naming a culprit: the fossil fuel industry. The goal is not to hurt companies’ bottom lines—which a loss of shareholders won’t readily accomplish—but to shift popular opinion against the fossil fuel industry and, ultimately, remove its social license to operate. ................(more)
http://inthesetimes.com/article/17812/harvard_fossil_fuel_divestment
Harvard Feels the Heat on Fossil-Fuel Divestment
from In These Times:
Harvard Feels the Heat on Fossil-Fuel Divestment
It’s not Al Gore’s movement anymore. Student activists are bringing a new militancy to the fight against climate change.
BY KATE ARONOFF
“Push back. Use social media, use the Internet.”
That was the advice on climate change that former Vice President Al Gore gave to a packed auditorium at South by Southwest this March.
Gore’s Oscar-winning 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, sparked a new sense of urgency with its no-nonsense look at the bleak science of global warming. His advice in 2015, though, seems less than adequate. Almost a decade after An Inconvenient Truth’s release, the climate fight is focused less on raising awareness than on building grassroots power, and college students—using social media, the Internet and more—are leading the way.
On March 19, in the early hours of the morning, 43 students and alumni of Swarthmore College filed into their school’s Finance and Investment Office and plopped themselves on the floor in front of a few anxious administrators. They say they will remain there in rotating shifts until their demand for good-faith negotiations toward fossil fuel divestment is met. More than 1,000 faculty and alumni have expressed support, including UN Climate Chief and Swarthmore alumna Christiana Figueres, who wrote a letter to administrators and students urging divestment.
Swarthmore's occupiers are among the thousands of students across an estimated 400 U.S. campuses calling on their institutions to sell off stocks in the top 200 publicly traded coal, oil and natural gas companies. Divestment goes beyond simply sounding the alarm about climate change to naming a culprit: the fossil fuel industry. The goal is not to hurt companies’ bottom lines—which a loss of shareholders won’t readily accomplish—but to shift popular opinion against the fossil fuel industry and, ultimately, remove its social license to operate. ................(more)
http://inthesetimes.com/article/17812/harvard_fossil_fuel_divestment
April 7, 2015
(In These Times) Underscoring the extent to which Chicago’s April 7 election has taken on national symbolism, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) visited a church on Chicago’s Southeast Side on April 2 to call for a “political revolution” and rally behind mayoral hopeful Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and 10th ward City Council candidate Sue Sadlowski Garza.
Sanders told the wildly cheering crowd of several hundred Southeast Side residents that Garcia and Sadlowski Garza—a Chicago Teachers Union leader from a family of vaunted United Steelworkers activists—represent a break from the corporate-minded “oligarchy” that has ruled on municipal, state and federal levels.
Garcia, Sadlowski Garza, CTU President Karen Lewis and members of the crowd also came to the stage to speak, many describing the Southeast Side as symbolic of the way working-class neighborhoods have been decimated by globalization and then neglected by neoliberal politicians. The Southeast Side was once a thriving industrial area where tens of thousands of people worked well-paying union jobs in the steel mills. But as the steel industry largely moved overseas in search of cheaper labor, the neighborhood became plagued by unemployment and disinvestment. Residents say things have grew worse as successive mayoral administrations focused on downtown and wealthier areas, allowing crime and structural deterioration in their neighborhoods to spiral.
“Where there was a unified 10th ward, there is now isolation; where there were safe streets, now there are kids turning to gangs and drugs and despair,” Sadlowski Garza lamented. “None of this happened to us by accident.” ..............(more)
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17814/bernie_sanders_endorses_chuy_garcia_in_chicago_mayoral_election
Bernie Sanders Endorses Chuy Garcia, Calls Chicago Election a ‘Political Revolution’
(In These Times) Underscoring the extent to which Chicago’s April 7 election has taken on national symbolism, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) visited a church on Chicago’s Southeast Side on April 2 to call for a “political revolution” and rally behind mayoral hopeful Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and 10th ward City Council candidate Sue Sadlowski Garza.
Sanders told the wildly cheering crowd of several hundred Southeast Side residents that Garcia and Sadlowski Garza—a Chicago Teachers Union leader from a family of vaunted United Steelworkers activists—represent a break from the corporate-minded “oligarchy” that has ruled on municipal, state and federal levels.
Garcia, Sadlowski Garza, CTU President Karen Lewis and members of the crowd also came to the stage to speak, many describing the Southeast Side as symbolic of the way working-class neighborhoods have been decimated by globalization and then neglected by neoliberal politicians. The Southeast Side was once a thriving industrial area where tens of thousands of people worked well-paying union jobs in the steel mills. But as the steel industry largely moved overseas in search of cheaper labor, the neighborhood became plagued by unemployment and disinvestment. Residents say things have grew worse as successive mayoral administrations focused on downtown and wealthier areas, allowing crime and structural deterioration in their neighborhoods to spiral.
“Where there was a unified 10th ward, there is now isolation; where there were safe streets, now there are kids turning to gangs and drugs and despair,” Sadlowski Garza lamented. “None of this happened to us by accident.” ..............(more)
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17814/bernie_sanders_endorses_chuy_garcia_in_chicago_mayoral_election
April 7, 2015
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) –
President Barack Obama’s negotiations with Iran to ensure that its nuclear enrichment program remains purely civilian, for generating electricity, ought to be bipartisan in spirit. Achieving that goal would benefit all Americans.
The GOP presidential field in particular and the Republican Party in general have decided to treat the Iran negotiations the way they did Obamacare, as the unfortunate apparent achievement of a president they had determined to emasculate, which needs to be abrogated yesterday. In short, they are making the Iran talks a partisan domestic issue, refusing to recognize it as a diplomatic victory.
Some of the Republican obstreperousness derives from a desire to please one man: Sheldon Adelson, the sleazy casino magnate who made his pile in unsavory ways in Macao, China and who threw $100 million of his own money behind Newt Gingrich and then Mitt Romney in 2012. As a result of recent Supreme Court rulings such as Citizens United and the striking down of campaign finance reform by that theorist of capitalist dictatorship, John Roberts, cranky individual billionaires like Sheldon Adelson have abruptly been awarded the right to buy and sell American presidents. Chris Christie traipsed off to try to please Adelson in Nevada and called the Occupied Territories of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Occupied Territories, and was taken to the wood shed by Adelson, who wouldn’t be able to see oppressed persons if they were carrying him in a palanquin. .................(more)
http://www.juancole.com/2015/04/frontrunners-besides-sanctions.html
Juan Cole: Do GOP Frontrunners have an Iran policy besides Sanctions and Bombs?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) –
President Barack Obama’s negotiations with Iran to ensure that its nuclear enrichment program remains purely civilian, for generating electricity, ought to be bipartisan in spirit. Achieving that goal would benefit all Americans.
The GOP presidential field in particular and the Republican Party in general have decided to treat the Iran negotiations the way they did Obamacare, as the unfortunate apparent achievement of a president they had determined to emasculate, which needs to be abrogated yesterday. In short, they are making the Iran talks a partisan domestic issue, refusing to recognize it as a diplomatic victory.
Some of the Republican obstreperousness derives from a desire to please one man: Sheldon Adelson, the sleazy casino magnate who made his pile in unsavory ways in Macao, China and who threw $100 million of his own money behind Newt Gingrich and then Mitt Romney in 2012. As a result of recent Supreme Court rulings such as Citizens United and the striking down of campaign finance reform by that theorist of capitalist dictatorship, John Roberts, cranky individual billionaires like Sheldon Adelson have abruptly been awarded the right to buy and sell American presidents. Chris Christie traipsed off to try to please Adelson in Nevada and called the Occupied Territories of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Occupied Territories, and was taken to the wood shed by Adelson, who wouldn’t be able to see oppressed persons if they were carrying him in a palanquin. .................(more)
http://www.juancole.com/2015/04/frontrunners-besides-sanctions.html
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