June 4, 2013

How does the GOP find so much human waste?

WASHINGTON -- Alaska Republicans have elected new party leaders, including a man who once said the disappearance of Alaska Natives may be justified and who advocated for the end of federal assistance to these communities.

The state Republican Party named Dr. David Eichler, a dentist from the city of North Pole, as its new vice chair on May 25.

In 2006, as president of the Alaska Dental Society, Eichler came under fire for claiming that Alaska Natives' tooth decay was a cultural deficit that could "rightfully" lead to the culture's demise. As the Anchorage Daily News reported:



Eichler made the comments in the midst of a lawsuit pushing to allow dental therapists to do the work of fully licensed dentists -- a move that advocates said would help alleviate the extreme shortage of dentists in some of the rural areas of Alaska. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/alaska-gop-vice-chair_n_3385052.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

June 4, 2013

Meals On Wheels Sequester Cuts Mean Layoffs, Waiting Lists And Canceled Food Deliveries

WASHINGTON -- Budget cuts are stealing meals from elderly Americans all across the country, according to a new survey by the Meals On Wheels Association of America.

The association represents about 5,000 local senior nutrition groups in every state, coordinating volunteers who deliver a million meals a day to poor senior citizens. Since 1972, the federal government has helped pay for the meals through the Administration on Aging, which did not escape the 5.1 percent cut to non-defense discretionary spending this year, also called sequestration.

Meals On Wheels surveyed 640 of its local member organizations on how they've coped since the cuts took effect in March. Forty percent of programs have eliminated staff positions. Seventy percent are putting more people on waiting lists, increasing the number of those on waiting lists by an average of 58 seniors per list. And programs have cut an average of 364 meals per week.

"Every day, Meals on Wheels programs provide a lifeline by serving meals to our nation’s most vulnerable, frail, and isolated seniors," association president Ellie Hollander said in a statement. "The real impact of sequester is that our programs don’t have the ability to expand to meet the growing need. We should be investing in these programs to ensure our seniors have the nutritious meals they need to remain healthy and independent." .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/meals-on-wheels-sequester_n_3384817.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

June 4, 2013

Jaded kitty is no fan of autotune pop stars

June 4, 2013

San Antonio: Six streetcar routes on the table

If VIA Metropolitan Transit trustees decide to build the longest of six proposed streetcar routes, the cost for the project could balloon to $272 million — $62 million more than what the agency currently can afford to spend on the downtown rail system.

That estimate was among dozens of cost, ridership and environmental issues discussed at a special VIA board meeting Monday. It was the first time trustees have gotten a look at how much it could cost to make streetcars a reality, and it's also the first of several meetings this month about the controversial project.

VIA officials must consider numerous factors in deciding where to put the tracks, weighing cost against ridership and economic development potential, for example. At the same time, they must appease any concerns about potential effects to San Antonio's historic downtown.

San Antonio's project also has the potential to be “the largest starter streetcar system ever undertaken in the United States,” said VIA's Chief Development Officer Brian Buchanan. .....................(more)

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Six-streetcar-routes-on-the-table-4572343.php#ixzz2VGzyJPFT

June 4, 2013

D.C.'s Outer Beltway Plan Draws Ferocious Opposition, as Business Leaders Cry For More Lanes

A plan to add roadways to the D.C. suburbs is drawing fierce opposition. The so called "outer beltway" project stole the show at a recent public meeting, hinting at the ferocity of resistance in store for the plan to build a 45-mile, north-south corridor in the western suburbs of Washington.

At a public hearing on Virginia's six-year, $15 billion program to fund road and rail projects this week, about 200 unhappy residents turned out to condemn the plan to build a "north-south corridor of statewide significance."

"I double dog dare you to try to put this kind of a road through Loudoun County's non-development area. They would have you all tarred and feathered," said Mary Ann Ghadban, a resident of Gainesville, where 100 homes could potentially be condemned in the highway corridor. "We are not going to stand for this in Prince William County. It's our rural crescent. It's our historic district."

The new road would connect I-95 in Prince William County to Rt. 7 in Loudoun County, arcing west of Dulles Airport and rubbing the western fringe of Manassas Battlefield National Park. On a map, the corridor looks like part of an incomplete circle, leading opponents to refer to it as an "outer beltway." ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2013/may/31/dcs-outer-beltway-plan-draws-ferocious-opposition-business-leaders-cry-more-lanes/

June 4, 2013

Keiser Report: Fake it till you make it or Potemkin policies

Published on Jun 4, 2013

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the emergence of a new economic theory of Potemkinism where posters of thriving towns substitute for towns that aren't actually thriving. And, if that fails, then the towns are demolished to avoid seeing such failure. In the second half, Max talks to writer, producer, journalist, Charlie Skelton about the upcoming Bilderberg event in Watford, UK and the protest groups around it.

June 4, 2013

Man Sneaks Off From Animal Shelter Tour, Has Sex With Pit Bull: Cops

A Chicago man allegedly sneaked away during a tour of an animal shelter to have sex with one of the facility's dogs.

Gerardo Perez, 50, was involved in a Wednesday tour of the Chicago Animal Care and Control Facility when he disappeared from the group, the Chicago Sun Times Reported.

A shelter employee saw Perez in a restricted area and told the man to leave. The employee came back a short time later and said Perez was still there. This time, though, Perez was allegedly on all fours inside an animal cage and appeared to have just finished having sex with a pit bull, according to the Chicago Tribune. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/gerardo-perez-sex-pit-bull-chicago-animal-shelter_n_3377866.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

June 4, 2013

The Problem Is Capitalism: Only radical reforms will solve neoliberalism’s crisis of democracy

from In These Times:


The Problem Is Capitalism
Only radical reforms will solve neoliberalism’s crisis of democracy.

BY Joseph M. Schwartz and Maria Svart


In “Lean Socialist: Why Liberalism Needs Socialism—and Vice Versa” (May 2013), Bhaskar Sunkara calls for the rebirth of a socialist movement that would work alongside liberals for immediate gains for working people, while simultaneously offering a vision of a socialist society that would extend democracy into the economic sphere. And, at the same time, that movement would fight for the structural reforms most likely to lead towards that goal. We at Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including our founding co-chair Michael Harrington, have always embraced this strategy. The problem? Socialists became indistinguishable from liberals because the liberals and a strong labor movement disappeared, swept away when “the tides of neoliberalism moved in.” As Barbara Ehrenreich frequently noted in the 1990s, with liberals and social democrats endorsing Clinton’s and Blair’s “kinder, gentler” dismantling of the welfare state, socialists were often the last defenders of the liberal gains of the 1930s and 1960s. But to go beyond liberalism, we absolutely agree with Sunkara that work must be done alongside movement activists, rather than so-called liberal technocrats. Socialists need to teach the liberals to fight once again. But how?

First, we must remind liberals of history. Before social democracy retreated, socialists foresaw the dangers of insufficiently radical reforms. In the 1970s and 1980s, European socialist theorists such as Nicos Poulantzas and Andre Gorz joined Harrington in warning that if the Left failed to socialize control over investment, the corporate drive for profit would lead capital to abandon the “social contract” compromise of the welfare state. Socialist governments in France, Sweden and elsewhere pushed for democratizing investment. But capital immediately fought back, beginning with the CIA-aided overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile in 1973 and continuing with French capital’s strike of the early 1980s. In the face of the onslaught, democracy and old-style liberalism began to crumble. This time around, liberals must recognize the true enemy and embrace radical reforms. Socialists will be there to push them to do so.

Second, we must remind liberals that racism and the center and Right’s use of a racialized politics played a central role in the rise of neoliberal capitalism. Thatcher’s and Reagan’s opportunistic attack on income-based child support for single mothers (aka “welfare”) played a major role in constructing a right-wing majority. Though the main beneficiaries of means-tested “welfare” were white, Clinton passed “welfare reform” to rein in mythical, non-white “welfare queens.” This distracted the public from Corporate America’s job-killing deindustrialization and outsourcing policies. So, since conscious socialists are but a small part of the American public, how do we build the revived Left that Sunkara calls for? Clearly, we need an anti-racist radical movement capable of refuting pervasive myths about the U.S. welfare state. The emergence of a militant immigrant rights movement and low-wage workers movement will be central to a Left and labor revival, as will the resistance of underemployed and indebted college graduates.

We take heart along with Sunkara that younger people are favorable (or at least open) in their attitudes toward socialism. But 30 years of neoliberal capitalist state policies have fostered a deep skepticism about politics. Many find it hard to envision mass movements winning reforms in state policy that would improve their lives. Sunkara is right to issue his impassioned plea to “Lean Socialist,” and young people are joining the socialist movement, in part due to the invaluable intellectual work that he and his colleagues carry out at Jacobin magazine. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15005/the_problem_is_capitalism

June 4, 2013

Bellhops, check-in clerks and room service face extinction

(MarketWatch) The next time you check into a hotel, don’t be surprised if the front-desk clerk and bellhop are the same person. Or if there is no clerk or bellhop at all.

To cut costs as consumers cut their travel spending, some hotels are taking a page from airlines, adopting a no-frills policy. New York’s Hilton Midtown, the largest hotel in the city with almost 2,000 rooms, will in August cease to provide room service and will lay off 55 room-service staffers, according to a recent report in Crain’s New York Business. A spokesman for the hotel says it’s “committed to placing qualified employees in alternate positions within the hotel, where possible.” Catering to the whims of 2,000-plus guests is expensive and time-consuming, says Andrew Young, editorial director of Travelzoo. In October, the Hilton Hawaiian Village also dropped room service. “Much like airlines, hotels are looking for ways to maximize ancillary revenue and reduce costs,” Young says.

Hotel companies are also expanding their “value-price” brands — that is, their hotels without room service. Case in point: Intercontinental Hotels Group is adding 454 more hotels (about 52,000 rooms) to its Holiday Inn Express line — the company’s only limited-service brand. Nowadays, “guests tend to be in and out of their rooms more,” says Kirk Kinsell, president for the Americas at IHG. As a result, he says, they order-in less often. And when they do order in, they don’t spend much: Room service revenue at U.S. hotels averaged just $3.33 per occupied room last year, broadly unchanged from 2011, according to PKF Hospitality Research.

“Full-service hotels have restaurants,” says Jan Freitag, senior vice president with Smith Travel Research, “but it’s very, very hard to make money in those.” The number of limited-service hotel rooms rose 16% to 2.7 million over the past decade, while full-service rooms increased by 6% to 2.2 million rooms, he says. In fact, business centers, minibars and spas are the three least popular amenities in hotels, according to a recent survey by TripAdvisor.com, while free Wi-Fi, free breakfast and free parking are the most desired. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hotels-copy-airlines-no-frills-approach-2013-06-04

June 4, 2013

Fountain fans say Apple’s S.F. store plans all wet

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Apple Inc., the darling of Silicon Valley and Bay Area gadget geeks, could be in for a public fight close to home over preliminary plans for a new store in San Francisco’s Union Square.

Last week, San Francisco Chronicle architecture critic John King wrote a blistering critique of preliminary plans for a new glass store on Union Square, designed by the star-chitecture firm of Foster + Partners of London, also the designers of Apple’s proposed spaceship-like R&D campus in Cupertino, Calif.

King called the proposed new store, planned for a premium corner of Union Square at Post and Stockton, a “crate,” a “misfire” and a “box that would look at home in Anymall U.S.A.” But of even greater concern to many locals is that the plans calls for the removal of a beloved bronze folk art fountain by San Francisco sculptor Ruth Asawa.

The circular fountain, installed in 1973, was made of baker’s clay and cast in bronze. It is seven feet high and a focal point of a triangular-shaped public square just off the main hubbub of Union Square. The fountain depicts hundreds of figures, local places and events near and dear to any San Franciscan. “The fountain depicts San Francisco, and approximately 250 friends and school children helped in its making by contributing self-portraits, cars, buildings, and various San Francisco landmarks,” the Japanese-American sculptor, now 87, explains on her website. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-faces-backlash-over-popular-sf-fountain-2013-06-04?dist=lcountdown