June 7, 2012

Talking about masturbation causes grave harm, according to the Holy See

(TIME) As if the Vatican weren’t already knee-deep in scandals, the Holy See is now at odds with a group of American nuns over one sister’s book on sexuality. Demurely titled Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, Sister Margaret Farley’s 2006 treatise has nevertheless drawn the ire of the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, which said Monday that the work poses “grave harm” to the Catholic flock for its comparatively progressive positions on homosexuality and masturbation, among other issues.

Farley told the Associated Press that she never meant for the book to reflect official Catholic teaching but, instead, wanted to explore sexuality across religions, theological doctrines and human experience.

A prominent theologian and professor emeritus at Yale’s School of Divinity, Farley is a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order, a group represented by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) — the largest organization of American nuns.

The indictment is the latest flashpoint in a years-long conflict between the Vatican and the LCWR—a group that the church has characterized as “radically feminist”—and comes just days after the LCWR publicly challenged a recent two-year-long investigation of its activities by the Vatican. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/06/a-nuns-guide-to-sex-the-latest-vatican-scandal/#ixzz1x4RB1ZaG

June 7, 2012

Americans Cling to Jobs as U.S. Workforce Dynamism Fades

(Bloomberg) After 4 1/2 months of meetings, interviews and hand-holding, personnel recruiter William Rowe thought he had sealed the deal.

The senior executive of a major corporation Rowe had been courting finally agreed to take a top post at a venture capital- backed technology firm in California. Then four days after giving notice, the mid-to-late 40-year-old executive had second thoughts about leaving the security of his company and returned to his old job.

“He decided to go back to the mother ship” and not uproot his family to take a chance on joining a new firm, said Rowe, vice chairman of Pearson Partners International Inc., a search firm in Dallas.

The deepest economic slump since the Great Depression has left its mark on both job seekers and job creators, making them more wary about taking risks in a slowly recovering labor market. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-07/americans-cling-to-jobs-as-u-s-workforce-dynamism-fades.html

June 7, 2012

Is Global Finance a Ponzi Scheme? Ask a Russian Expert

(Bloomberg) What's the difference between today's global finance system and a Ponzi scheme? This is the question that a 56-year-old veteran Russian financial scammer has been asking his victims.

Chillingly, he almost has a point.

Sergei Mavrodi is one of the most infamous names in Russia's recent history. Back in February 1994, amid the turmoil of the country's transition to a market economy, the mathematician organized a Ponzi scheme called MMM. He offered returns of 100 percent a month and advertised aggressively on national television. Before the pyramid crashed in July 1994, it attracted as many as 10 million depositors, making it more popular than the voucher privatization program that was supposed to give regular Russians a chance to take a stake in formerly state-owned enterprises.

Mavrodi managed to avoid prison for nearly a decade, in part by getting elected as a parliamentary deputy and using the status to obtain immunity from prosecution. He ultimately served out a four-and-a-half-year sentence for fraud. While in prison, Mavrodi wrote books and movie scripts, one of which -- PyraMMMid -- was later made into a successful film. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/is-global-finance-a-ponzi-scheme-ask-a-russian-expert.html

June 7, 2012

Robert Scheer: Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin

from truthdig:



Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin

Posted on Jun 7, 2012
By Robert Scheer


On, Wisconsin! Or so it was meant to be with a union-led recall in the home state of Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette Sr., the populist governor and senator who once shaped the cry for anti-corporate social justice in this nation. After La Follette there was the Wisconsinite William Proxmire, the great conscience of the U.S. Senate, followed by the equally impressive Russ Feingold, who, despite being exactly correct in warning of the consequences of unfettered banking greed, was turned out by Wisconsin voters in 2010. Perhaps if the original McCain-Feingold legislation—gutted by the Supreme Court—was still the law of the land on campaign finance, the Democrats and their union base would have survived Tuesday’s election.

Certainly that is the excuse provided by what remains of the liberal media, which point to the lopsided advantage in funding for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and to the high court’s Citizens United ruling in seeking reasons for this “billionaire’s victory” over “people power.” But the larger truth is that the spirit of populism has been perverted by the Republican tea party right and that Democrats are left defending government bureaucracy while remaining incapable of responding to America’s widespread economic pain.

At a time when so many are worried about obtaining or holding on to work, it’s difficult to rally around the guaranteed job security and high pensions of some privileged government employees. Not all public workers fit into this category, to be sure. But nonpublic workers who must struggle with the vagaries of private employment have seen more than enough examples of government employee unions, the last stronghold of organized labor, exercising their power to ensure what appears to be outsized compensation for their members.

Of course this argument is a red herring. The budget crises of state and municipal governments were not brought on by excessive pay to firemen, cops and other civil servants, but rather by a banking meltdown that has enriched those who engineered it. Housing values, and the local taxes dependent on them, are down because of financial shenanigans that wrapped mortgages into collateralized debt obligations, and that is the root cause of government red ink. But the job security and pensions of government employees make terribly convenient scapegoats at a time when so many Americans are lining up at food banks. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/democrats_failed_in_wisconsin_because_they_failed_wisconsin_20120607/

June 7, 2012

Joseph Stiglitz on the American Dream myth

Published on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 by Project Syndicate
The Price of Inequality and the Myth of Opportunity

by Joseph Stiglitz


America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity, and others view it in much the same light. But, while we can all think of examples of Americans who rose to the top on their own, what really matters are the statistics: to what extent do an individual’s life chances depend on the income and education of his or her parents?

Nowadays, these numbers show that the American dream is a myth. There is less equality of opportunity in the United States today than there is in Europe – or, indeed, in any advanced industrial country for which there are data.

This is one of the reasons that America has the highest level of inequality of any of the advanced countries – and its gap with the rest has been widening. In the “recovery” of 2009-2010, the top 1% of US income earners captured 93% of the income growth. Other inequality indicators – like wealth, health, and life expectancy – are as bad or even worse. The clear trend is one of concentration of income and wealth at the top, the hollowing out of the middle, and increasing poverty at the bottom.

It would be one thing if the high incomes of those at the top were the result of greater contributions to society, but the Great Recession showed otherwise: even bankers who had led the global economy, as well as their own firms, to the brink of ruin, received outsize bonuses. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/06-6

June 7, 2012

NY Repug worries that weed decriminalization will result in 10 joints in each ear

NY Sen Skelos is Against Pot Law Reform, Too Worried About People Carrying "10 Joints in Each Ear"


Following a storm of public criticism of illegal, racially biased marijuana arrests in New York City, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo publicly endorsed legislation to decriminalize marijuana "in public view" on Monday. In New York City, almost 50,000 people are arrested annually for marijuana arrests, and almost 90 percent of them are Black or Latino. Research consistently reveals that many of those arrested did not actually possess pot 'in public view', but had some weed in their pockets or back packs (which is decriminalized) that police placed into public view -- an arrestable, more serious offense -- during similarly racially-biased stop-and-frisks.

But despite widespread support for the legislation, including from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissione Ray Kelly, whose policies are targeted by the proposal, New York Senator and Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R) is speaking out against bipartisan plans to remove the 'in public view' loophole. He is worried that people with giant ears may carry massive amounts of weed behind them:

“Being able to just walk around with 10 joints in each ear, and it only be a violation, I think that’s wrong,” Skelos told reporters. But for someone so concerned with marijuana in public view, Skelos has not spoken out against the wide disparities in the law's enforcement. New York City accounts for about 50,000 of the 53,000 marijuana arrests annually, and white, suburban kids who hold weed in public seem to get away without any kind of charge. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/939294/ny_sen_skelos_is_against_pot_law_reform%2C_too_worried_about_people_carrying_%2210_joints_in_each_ear%22/

June 7, 2012

Amy Goodman: It’s One Person, One Vote, Not 1 Percent, One Vote

from truthdig:



It’s One Person, One Vote, Not 1 Percent, One Vote

Posted on Jun 7, 2012
By Amy Goodman


The failed effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is widely seen as a crisis for the labor movement, and a pivotal moment in the 2012 U.S. presidential-election season. Walker launched a controversial effort to roll back the power of Wisconsin’s public employee unions, and the unions pushed back, aided by strong, grass-roots solidarity from many sectors. This week, the unions lost. Central to Walker’s win was a massive infusion of campaign cash, saturating the Badger state with months of political advertising. His win signals less a loss for the unions than a loss for our democracy in this post-Citizens United era, when elections can be bought with the help of a few billionaires.

In February 2011, the newly elected Walker, a former Milwaukee county executive, rolled out a plan to strip public employees of their collective-bargaining rights, a platform he had not run on. The backlash was historic. Tens of thousands marched on the Wisconsin Capitol, eventually occupying it. Walker threatened to call out the National Guard. The numbers grew. Despite Walker’s strategy to “divide and conquer” the unions (a phrase he was overheard saying in a recorded conversation with a billionaire donor), the police and firefighters unions, whose bargaining rights he had strategically left intact, came out in support of the occupation. Across the world, the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt was in full swing, with signs in English and Arabic expressing solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin.

The demands for workers rights were powerful and sustained. The momentum surged toward a demand to recall Walker, along with a slew of his Republican allies in the Wisconsin Senate. Then laws tempered the movement’s power. The Wisconsin recall statute required that an elected official be in office for one year before a recall. Likewise, a loophole in the law allowed the target of the recall to raise unlimited individual donations, starting when the recall petitions are filed. Thus, Walker’s campaign started raising funds in November 2011. His opponent, Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, was limited to individual donations of up to $10,000, and had less than one month to campaign after winning the Democratic Party primary May 8.

Coupled with the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the Wisconsin loophole set the stage for grossly lopsided fundraising between Walker and Barrett, and an election battle that was the most expensive in Wisconsin’s history. According to the most recent state campaign-finance filings, Walker’s campaign raised over $30.5 million, more than seven times Barrett’s reported $3.9 million. After adding in super PAC spending, estimates put the recall-election spending at more than $63.5 million. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/its_one_person_one_vote_not_1_percent_one_vote_20120607/

June 7, 2012

Vatican: Nun's pro-masturbation book poses grave harm to Catholics

(TIME) As if the Vatican weren’t already knee-deep in scandals, the Holy See is now at odds with a group of American nuns over one sister’s book on sexuality. Demurely titled Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, Sister Margaret Farley’s 2006 treatise has nevertheless drawn the ire of the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, which said Monday that the work poses “grave harm” to the Catholic flock for its comparatively progressive positions on homosexuality and masturbation, among other issues.

Farley told the Associated Press that she never meant for the book to reflect official Catholic teaching but, instead, wanted to explore sexuality across religions, theological doctrines and human experience.

A prominent theologian and professor emeritus at Yale’s School of Divinity, Farley is a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order, a group represented by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) — the largest organization of American nuns.

The indictment is the latest flashpoint in a years-long conflict between the Vatican and the LCWR—a group that the church has characterized as “radically feminist”—and comes just days after the LCWR publicly challenged a recent two-year-long investigation of its activities by the Vatican. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/06/a-nuns-guide-to-sex-the-latest-vatican-scandal/#ixzz1x4RB1ZaG

June 7, 2012

Noam Chomsky - When Elites Fail, and What We Should Do About It

Noam Chomsky, world renowned linguist and dissident author, delivers the keynote address at the ECONVERGENCE CONFERENCE in Portland, Oregon, on October 2nd, 2009.

June 7, 2012

Is Global Finance a Ponzi Scheme? Ask a Russian Expert

(Bloomberg) What's the difference between today's global finance system and a Ponzi scheme? This is the question that a 56-year-old veteran Russian financial scammer has been asking his victims.

Chillingly, he almost has a point.

Sergei Mavrodi is one of the most infamous names in Russia's recent history. Back in February 1994, amid the turmoil of the country's transition to a market economy, the mathematician organized a Ponzi scheme called MMM. He offered returns of 100 percent a month and advertised aggressively on national television. Before the pyramid crashed in July 1994, it attracted as many as 10 million depositors, making it more popular than the voucher privatization program that was supposed to give regular Russians a chance to take a stake in formerly state-owned enterprises.

Mavrodi managed to avoid prison for nearly a decade, in part by getting elected as a parliamentary deputy and using the status to obtain immunity from prosecution. He ultimately served out a four-and-a-half-year sentence for fraud. While in prison, Mavrodi wrote books and movie scripts, one of which -- PyraMMMid -- was later made into a successful film. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/is-global-finance-a-ponzi-scheme-ask-a-russian-expert.html