A New Academic Year is Upon Us. Education, Anyone?

If you want to understand the physical world, logic is imperative. But, I think, you have to have some courage to face reality even it is unpleasant. You develop courage by having confidence in yourself and your ability to think & analyze.

I believe good thinkers are leaders too. Hopefully, we teachers and the schools can facilitate such rational, creative thinking and by doing so to develop leaders. Those who don't know (either by choice or not) tend to be followers and more likely to be manipulated by the simplistic arguments of demagogues who want to be leaders of a flock of sheep.

Richard Dawkins

When someone doesn't know something, it's not the end of the world, because there's a way to fix that. Well, as long as there's free information available and the will to learn. What I find truly disheartening is the widespread lack of ignorance in advanced, modern societies like ours. It gets worse when I see young adults not having a thirst for knowledge. Critical thinking is rather abysmal. It's hard to find college classes where open discussion takes place that requires connecting the dots, you know, rational thinking.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard students say, "it's just a theory," meaning "it's an opinion," when they refer to scientific theories. Take, for example, the theory of evolution--one of the strongest body of knowledge we have--that is supported by tons of evidence from across several disciplines. This scientific theory competes for acceptance with creationism or intelligent design! I think it's losing right now!

I don't know if anti-intellectualism is winning in America, but Susan Jacoby--Age of American Unreason--thinks so. It's close-mindedness that impedes progress. And, don't tell me that our politics don't reflect this. How else can you explain a president who believes that "the jury on evolution is still out"? Or, serious presidential candidates accept superstition to science? Or, why worry about the environment & our planet when Jesus has saved us all (only if..) or will save us when Armageddon! [yes, the majority of Americans believe that Jesus will return sometime in their lifetime!]

Education is more than memorizing stuff. It's not indoctrination. It's the developed ability to be a learned person who can think critically, connect the dots, and ultimately accept reality.

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

Barack Obama

The Current Global Financial Crisis

The current financial crisis, just like any crisis, did not happen in a vacuum. In a sense, nothing does. It is my contention that this crisis is nothing short of a manifestation of the overall forces that are in control of the world economy.

Those who have chosen to emphasize the failure of personal rectitude of the borrowers by their failure to exercise proper caution and by agreeing to overextend their available resources miss the point. They conveniently dismiss the possibility that the consumers have always been willing, ready and able to throw caution to the wind if the opportunity of great financial gains presented itself.

And so the real question is not why is it that consumers acted “irresponsibly” by agreeing to take on risk that they could not handle; the real issue is to find out what were the conditions that led the financial institutions to lure the unsuspecting consumer to carry excessive debt burden.

Furthermore, the reason the crisis could not be contained had nothing to do with the borrowers and everything to do with the fancy financial packaging and creative marketing techniques that the debt originators resorted to. The urge to come up with the new and, in retrospect, unsound methods of debt financing was driven by greed; the urge to participate in amassing what appeared to be easy - though albeit- unethical profits , arose from the excess liquidity injected into the global financial markets by the major central banks.

This crisis is essentially a result of the developments in the world since Neo- Liberalism became the major guiding philosophy. Without the forces of globalization, at least globalized capital, then the financial institutions would not have been able to borrow, lend and collateralize then borrow, lend and collateralize again.

The triumph of the market economy in the mid 1980’s set in motion the forces that gave us the Asian contagion of 1997-99 and the current financial meltdown that exploded on the scene in the US in August 2007 and whose final effects have not been felt yet. Make no mistake about it, the whole world will be affected by this crisis and all individuals will be called upon to carry part of the cost of this debacle. The nay sayers go so far as to predict that this crisis carries within it the seeds that will lead to the total collapse of the international financial system.

This irresponsible behavior of encouraging households to assume debt beyond their means in order to “mint” huge profits from packaging these mortgages into collateralized securities of dubious quality has resulted in creating conditions that do not augur well for the world economy. The drive to enrich the few has bankrupted the many, not because of the irrationality of the borrower, but mainly because of the totally unregulated economy which permitted unfettered socially destructive behaviour.

How are we to explain the element of surprise and unpreparedness that seems to have accompanied this crisis? This is one event that should not have been difficult to foresee, especially by the originators. Since many of the loans and mortgages were made to look artificially appealing through teaser rates, it should have been reasonable to expect the originators to plan for the consequences of a sudden rise in the cash flow required of the borrowers to service the assumed debt once the teaser rates were set upwards. An upward setting of the interest rates resulted in a larger debt service burden for the same size loans and it should have been clear that the additional sums of money required to finance the newly set rates had to be found somewhere. But since it was also obvious that wages were stagnant, these additional monies had to come from reallocating the relatively constant flow of income.

The implications of an additional debt service burden combined with relatively stagnant wages and negative personal savings rate are close to devastating. The only way that the additional debt service payments can be made is to spend less on food, transportation, medical care and other expenditures that are deemed to be necessary. This was a classic case of a “wealth effect” in the reverse. It is estimated that the $1 trillion worth of contracts that were reset in the period 2007-08 resulted in an increase of 31% of the cash flow requirement to service the debt in question. Those who found the additional money did so by reallocating their expenditures and those that did not went into foreclosure. In both counts the economy suffered domestically and globally.

Easy money policies increased the availability of liquidity to the originators but these funds had to be lent if profits were to be derived from the easy money policies. That could be accomplished only through an increased volume of transactions. Unfortunately, the originators followed the path of least resistance by appealing to the sector of the economy that is the most vulnerable and the one with the most pent-up demand. During 1994 only 5% of total US mortgages were classified as sub-prime but by 2006 that proportion had risen to over 20%. Studies suggest that the same was true of the UK and also of Spain. This demand for homes was not difficult to understand since the governments own figures demonstrate that the majority of households during the early part of the 2000’s had become worse off in real terms.

It is true that the US economy had grown during that period, but most of that growth stayed at the top of the pyramid. The trickle down effect failed to materialize. What ensued is nothing else but the immoral pursuit of profits at the expense of the weak and vulnerable and the irrational belief that this time it is different: the music will never stop and no one will be caught holding the hot potato and no chair to sit on. Ironically the financial institutions that took the most risk and that profited most from the new financial instruments are the ones who were caught unprepared and thus had to take numerous write offs, recognize large losses and seek to improve their depleted capital base. That was done to a large extent through the acceptance of the oil producing countries’ sovereign funds to provide the needed capitalization. And so the easy money policies that were adopted in the first place to help avert an economic slow down initiated by terrorist attacks and to finance a war precipitated by fundamentalists on both sides has led to appreciably higher fuel prices which helped the accumulation of huge sovereign funds that were used to save the system.

Unfettered markets, as promulgated by the US, turned out to be their own best enemy in this case. They helped bring about an unplanned and unanticipated redistribution of wealth that does not favour the developed economies. So maybe the markets do work in a perverse way by eventually promoting a more even wealth distribution among nation states. But there should be a more civilized way of attaining the ultimate objective of equality without recourse to these periodic but devastating shocks to the system.

Peak Oil. How We've Tied Economic Growth to Oil

The following collection of salient points regarding the energy crisis and Peak Oil were made by Charles Hall [Peak Oil: The End of Economic Growth?] a major authority on energy. He was the major force behind that great poster that I had added to this blog last week. Please read carefully each and every point that Dr. Hall makes. He is a national treasure of very important information that we need to become aware of.

1) We have constructed an entire civilization based on cheap oil (and gas), a finite resource.

2) Oil was and remains cheap (yes at $4 a gallon) because the energy return on energy invested (EROI--my thing) in getting it was very high and remains fairly high.

3) Nevertheless EROI is declining – this has many economic effects.

4) The EROI for any conceivable substitute to oil is far less than oil for the foreseeable future.

5) Hence there is no possible substitute, qualitatively and quantitatively, for oil.

6) We are using oil 4 to 5 times faster than we are finding it.

7) Therefore we are just using up our remaining oil reserves, faster or slower depending in part upon economic growth.

8) Increased drilling historically has NOT led to increased oil finding or production.

9) Food prices and availability, subprime mortgages and Wall Street are all tightly related to oil availability and price.

10) Discretionary income in the US is declining and is likely to virtually disappear in the future as more and more of the output of our society is dedicated to the dollars and energy that must be used to get the energy required to run the economy. We must plan for this.

11) Efficiency is important but over rated (long story). It is not a silver bullet.

12) Most oil exporting countries cannot lower prices much as their own population growth requires the oil revenues for public programs. The money does not go only for luxury.

13) All of these issues were laid out very clearly by geologists and ecologists more than 30 years ago but were suppressed by economists who believe too much in markets and technology. The world is finite, we must adjust accordingly.

Frivolty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Only the Necessities of Life

I have always found it sad and amusing at the same time that very few, if any, practice praxis. It seems that individual humans are endowed with an uncanny ability to ask others to abide by certain principles that they hold themselves to be exempt from. The sad thing about the above is that, more often than not, they do not realize the logical absurdity of their position.

These seminal contradictions are found across all fields and they span all regions. One of the most absurd positions is to be found among the practitioners of the new religion of environmentalism. Often the strongest advocates of the need to act in an ecofriendly way are the rich and the wealthy. They campaign for alternative clean energy, take a strong stand against industrial farming and demonstrate to prevent deforestation.

Each of the above is a noble goal in itself but the irony is that those who are the most vocal in their demands are often the largest abusers of what they want us to protect. Many of these advocates who favour a smaller footprint are the most extravagant consumers. They are more often than not the ones who take the ski trips to far away places, live in homes of over 5000 Sf, but with an expensive PV system on the roof, subscribe to every imaginable magazine and do their food shopping at WholeFoods.

The same phenomenon is to be observed among those who advocate high tariffs against imported goods. They are the jet set that drives the Benzes, Beemers in addition to the Lexuses and Infinitis. This is often the same crowd who is worried about the trade deficit and wants measures that would reduce the availability of Chinese made goods at Wal Mart as long as the availability of the $50,000.00 Patek Phillip watches , the $2,000.00 Gucci hand bags and the $500.00 Italian shoes is not reduced.

This disconnect between what we say that we want and what we do has become so widely spread as to not spare anyone. Infamous Judge Robert Bork [linked story] whose failed nomination to the Supreme Court preoccupied the nation for months has written, lectured and campaigned vigorously against frivolous suits brought up by individuals against corporations and other large institutions. What is unbelievable is that the same judge, Bork, slipped as he was leaving the dais at Yale University during one of his appearances and he promptly sued the University for negligence and for physical pain and psychological traumas. The same person who has campaigned tirelessly against frivolous law suits brought one himself asking for a million dollars in compensation. Ironically he denied, with a straight face, the contradiction when he was confronted with it.

I guess that frivolity is in the eye of the beholder.

Energy Consumption Story Told with Balloons

Editor's note: this post was provided by Ghassan Karam. Click on the picture to open it into a larger window and see the bigger picture...

Education Means Critical Thinking. Knowledge is Power.

The Millenial Generation May Produce a New Realignment in the US

It's been an interesting semester with lots of work in the end, as per usual, but now it's over. I had a good experience over all. I like teaching, and, I dare say, most of my students seem to enjoy my classes. I encourage critical thinking and thoughtful discussion--something of a rarity in colleges today. Accumulating information without putting it into proper context is good for passing exams but it doesn't necessarily promote an understanding. Connecting the dots is often a skill that's lacking among Americans but also among too many college students.

Of course, it's the subject matter that allows for such a conversation. My subject is Political Science so I talk about political theories, ideologies, the information (?!) media, American political institutions, etc. But, I'm a science fan too. I'm a scientist in that I accept the scientific way as the most powerful tool we have for knowledge! The scientific method is a specific process, a methodology, of analyzing evidence, forming theories that explain & predict, and always keeping the door open to revision--when better data or a theory are available.

The process is very important and much is invested in it. The process of finding and analyzing evidence and then puting it in order. The conclusion comes later. It is not the other way around it as many people seem to be doing. That is, they first form a "conclusion" which is something they like, and then they try to find any piece of supporting evidence to their thesis. Any contradictory evidence that falls outside their narrow frame (of mind) is discarded! Obviously, this is not an appropriate for knowing stuff; it may be good for escaping reality and/or feeling better for a while, but it is not a tool for learning.

I can't tell you how many times I had to explain--which is good, because at least we are talking about it--what a scientific theory is about. Such a theory is not a hunch, a guess, an opinion! The theory of evolution is perhaps controversial in the minds of the ignorant, but it is one of the strongest scientific theories we have. Modern genetics and technology have confirmed its tenets and have piled on more supporting data upon the tons of evidence we have from fossils, and other observations. Unfortunately, more Americans (US) believe in creation than evolution! In other words, more people believe that human beings were made in their present form rather recently than humanoids having evolved over hundreds of thousands of years! And, this in a society that has been at the forefront of technology, science, and freedom of information!

I like Richard Dawkins's explanation:
"We have two theories, A and B, both trying to explain the same phenomenon. Theory A fails in some particular. Theory B must be right, even if theory A is supported by loads of evidence and theory B is supported by no evidence at all...

Nevertheless, if you can find one phenomenon, call it X, for which, as far as you can see, theory A cannot provide an explanation, you therefore conclude theory B must be right....

What kind of logic is that?"

If you want to understand the physical world, logic is imperative. But, I think, you have to have some courage to face reality even it is unpleasant. You develop courage by having confidence in yourself and your ability to think & analyze. I believe good thinkers are leaders too. Hopefully, we teachers and the schools can facilitate such rational, creative thinking and by doing so to develop leaders. Those who don't know (either by choice or not) tend to be followers and more likely to be manipulated by the simplistic arguments of demagogues who want to be leaders of a flock of sheep.

Chickens of Environmental Skeptics have Come Home to Roost

For almost two decades environmental skeptics, those who believe that there is no problem that cannot be solved through the application of a healthy dose of unfettered markets and technological innovation, have never tired from gloating over the Ehrlich/Simon wager.

Paul Ehrlich the author of the Population Bomb and a staunch advocate that planet earth is overpopulated and that there are limits to growth had a wager with Julian Simon who was just the opposite. He believed that science and technology will always deliver and that there is no limit to the level and intensity of human activity.

Mr. Simon argued that if the bleak view held by Mr. Ehrlich is accurate then the prices of commodities will go up from the resulting scarcity. But he does not think that will happen because human ingenuity will find substitutes to prevent that from occurring. Ultimately they agreed to keep track of the prices of five commodities; tin, copper, chromium, nickel and tungsten; over a ten year period. That was agreed upon during 1980 and by 1990 all the prices were lower than 10 years ago even in nominal terms. Paul Ehrlich wrote a check to Mr. Simon and suggested another bet but Julian Simon turned down the offer.

As is often the case Mr. Ehrlich turned out to be correct in his pessimism but his mistake was in limiting the bet to ten years only. A recent recalculation of what has transpired over the past 28 years shows very clearly that the prices of each of the five commodities in question has increased , both in real and nominal terms significantly. So yes Julian Simon won the wager over the first ten years while the caution about excessive demand and limits to growth as advocated by Paul Ehrlich is the real winner.

Overconsumption began long time ago

Another illustration that demonstrates the prescience of Paul Ehrlich can be found in the recent study released by the University of London’s’ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease in which they calculate that obesity is a serious contributor to Climate Change because of the additional food that needs to be consumed, the energy needed to grow the food and the additional energy required to transport obese people. Again what the authors of that study seem to have conveniently neglected is he formula developed by Paul Ehrlich and used by most serious students of environmental degradation namely that the environmental impact is very much determined by our chosen lifestyles.

Instead of discovering the detrimental impact of SUV’s, incandescent light bulbs, air travel, large homes, diets, fashion, war (just to name a few) and now obesity one at a time Paul Ehrlich admonished us more than forty years ago that what is needed in order to avoid the ecological and environmental abyss is a radical change in our life styles and not one item at a time. Will we recognize the significance of the moral imperative to act and act now or are we going to wait one more time until it is too late to act.

Tax-free Hedge Funds... But Only for the Big Schools Like Harvard

This is a very interesting article posted on the American Scene blog. It raises some important questions about the non-for-profit organizations, that, even though the don't give dividents to shareholders, they do provide excellent benefits to those involved. As we all know, many not-for-profit institutions are money makers. But, if we are to re-examine the taxation policies, we shouldn't just limit ourselves only to secular institutions.... (if you catch my drift)

Is Harvard Just a Tax-Free Hedge Fund?
According to the Wall Street Journal, Massachusetts legislators are studying a plan to levy a 2.5% annual tax on the portion of college endowments that exceed $1 billion. The high-wage union workforce with lifetime employment contracts and restrictive work rules tenured faculty is not amused.

Harvard’s official response is pretty funny:
Kevin Casey, a spokesman for Harvard, said the proposal would hurt Massachusetts and colleges because it would damage “stable bedrock institutions” that have helped shield the region from the worst of the economic slowdown.

But why isn’t this statement true of, say, Akamai, Biogen and Raytheon?
I’ve purposely picked companies with close ties to MIT and Harvard, because one could argue that universities create spin-offs that ultimately create corporate profits to be taxed. But large tech companies do the same; many successful companies are in the fourth or fifth generation of this process. Should Fairchild Semiconductor be free of paying corporate income tax because employees left to create Intel, or should this tax benefit revert to AT&T because a group of employees left Bell Labs to start Fairchild?

Which brings to mind another obvious question: why do endowed universities get tax breaks that other corporations don’t get in the first place?

Consider Harvard.
It claims to be in the business of serving humanity through the creation and dissemination of knowledge, but Biogen claims to “transform scientific discoveries into advances in human healthcare”. That sounds pretty good, too. If you think of Harvard as a corporation, it had an income statement in FY 2007 with about $2.2 billion of revenues (tuition, sponsored research contracts, and so on) and about $3.2 billion of expenses, and therefore had to move about $1 billion from the endowment to make up the difference in order to run at basically break-even. In other words, it’s a big institution, but hey, it doesn’t make any money and has to survive on the kindness of donors, even if these donations are channeled through an endowment.
But this isn’t quite the whole picture.

The overall Harvard corporation gets to make money through investment returns on its endowment (or, more precisely, the General Investment Account, which currently includes about $6 billion of investable assets in operational accounts in addition to the $34 billion endowment) that doesn’t get reported as revenue. Last year, Harvard made more than $7 billion of tax-free investment income.

So if you just think about how much cash went into the shoebox and how much came out of it, a more accurate accounting for Harvard for FY 2007 would, in rough numbers, be a lot more like the following:

Receipts = $2 billion of operating revenue + $7.3 billion of investment income + $0.6 billion of gifts to the endowment = ~$10 billion.
Operating costs = ~$3 billion.
Profit = $10 billion – $3 billion = ~$7 billion.

This explains why Harvard’s net assets increased about $7 billion in 2007, from about $35 billion to about $42 billion.Viewed purely in terms of economics, Harvard is really a $40 billion tax-free hedge fund with a very large marketing and PR arm called Harvard University that has the job of raising the investment capital and protecting the fund’s preferential tax treatment.
The trick is that this hedge fund can’t remit earnings to investors, and has to keep them in the company’s account, renaming these retained earnings as an “endowment”. So how do the insiders extract value from this business? One way is by giving themselves cushy jobs that pay a ton of dough. Those who manage Harvard’s money are well-paid.

The prior investment head, Jack Meyer, left after criticism of a compensation plan that paid some investment management professionals more than $35 million each in a single year. In spite of this, investment professionals often leave the Harvard Management Company because they can make yet more money as partners in private equity groups or hedge funds. Of course, the qualification of running Harvard’s pool of assets can be leveraged to get exactly such jobs – those who do this are called “Crimson Puppies” – while in the meantime enjoying a somewhat more relaxed work-life balance, and not having to do the hard work of actually raising the fund.

The worker bees in the marketing department (i.e., the faculty) are also quite well-paid. The average Harvard professor now has a salary of about $185,000 per year. Professors in the right disciplines, such as business, can reportedly double their salaries through outside consulting and other income sources. In 1980, the salary of a Harvard professor was about 5.5 times the average US per capita income; today, $185,000 is about 7 times the average national per capita income, and can often be leveraged into much higher actual annual compensation.

When tax-advantaged non-profits start to accumulate billions of dollars of cash through investment gains, and the insiders seem to be doing very well, it creates legitimate pressure for some legal changes. There is a broad range of alternatives: capital gains taxes on investment income, directly taxing the endowment, placing limitations on employee compensation, and forcing the distribution of a fixed percentage of the endowment are all obvious choices. Sanctimonious talk about “the mission of the university” is not likely to stop this; unfortunately, giving lots of money to Democratic politicians very well might.

Why do horses run?

The worlds' most dangerous man according to the NYT is Pete Singer the philosophyer at Princeton. He is the author of "Animal Liberation" the book that has had a tremendous impact on the way humans view animals. The easiest way to gauge the impact of this book is to remember that it was instrumental in the creation of PETA.

Pete Singer is essentially a utilitarian philosopher who argues that we have a moral obligation to reduce pain and increase happiness. This fundamental principle led him to oppose , in the strongest way, the idea that animals are to be raised in order to be slaughtered for human consumption. It is also important to make it very clear that , to the est of my knowledge, his argument for animal liberation does not rest on any intrinsic rights of the animals but instead is based on the fact that we do not have the right to make any living creature suffer if it is within our power to avoid that suffering. As a result Mr. Singer would sanction slaughtering animals if that can be accomplished without causing pain to the animal.

All of the above rushed through my mind during the Kentucky Derby last Saturday. I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about horses and why they run but it seems to me that horses are trained to run and endure pain for the sake of our entertainment? My very simple question then is the following: Do we have the right to subject any animal to pain and possibly death as long as we enjoy the spectacle? Maybe it is time to reevaluate the cruel use of animals in any capacity that is designed to entertain humans by forcing the animals to endure pain. Maybe it is time to declare horse racing an illegal activity just like cock fighting. Should animals perform for our pleasure? It is time to enlarge the circle of animal liberation as to encompass all human activities that impact animal welfare whether that be laboratories, slaughter houses, circus cages or horse races just to name a few.

editor's note: more information about horses:PBS/Nature

What the US Government Should Do: Take Care of its Own People First

By Amanda Tejada [POL 301D-Spring 2008]

The Business of a Superpower

I remember that day; the chaos, the suffering, and the fear that gave birth to admirable responses. They hit us where it hurt, in the capital of the world and killed thousands of people. Nevertheless, it was not all bad, I mean, not all the consequences. The terrible attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon established the beginning of new power relations between the government and the people.

The efforts to protect the ideals on which the nation was founded upon were disintegrated as the plans of government officials began to deviate from those American rights--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Moreover, citizens' calls for defending those rights were often met with disdain by White House officials, including the Supreme Court-appointed president. These officials who resisted to deliver reasonable answers on people's concerns regarding civil liberties. The war on terror became the war of terror, as Americans feared that their problems were overlooked by the Bush administration.

However, now that the country's next step lie in the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections, Americans are looking for political leaders to stop solving problems for other people outside the country and deliver policies that are more focused on domestic issues, such as hunger and poverty.

The US government has tried to reach out to dozens of countries, helping them alleviate poverty and hunger. However, the same government is neglecting to feed it own citizens. With the status as the world’s superpower, the United States holds the highest rank in childhood poverty amongst all members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)--with an estimated amount of twelve million American children [Scherrer, 2001].

In addition, there are roughly “35.5 million people [living] in households considered to be food-insecure” within our borders. Given this, it does not take a genius to realize that there is something wrong. American officials need to take action in their country before trying to feed everyone else.

However, the problem of hunger and poverty in the country is commonly dismissed in the midst of superpower business. In fact, there are some that argue against the importance of such issues, claiming that there are plans already addressing these matters and that there is no need to constantly create new policies. Yet, the problem with this view is that it fails to identify those policies supposedly dealing with this domestic crisis.

On the other hand, in order to raise awareness, the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, calls for all civil societies to provide comprehensive policy to deal with poverty and hunger. But, how can we develop a better understanding of the problem and form appropriate policies? Further, good policy to solve a problem often requires funds, but if there are no funds to make practical solutions possible,then what do we do?

For this, I think, it is important begin to at least implement the plans that already exist. The government needs to take the system of “Food Stamps, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs” and expand them. There are many Americans who have fallen through the safety net. Our government needs to find those people, or to make essential services available to them.

The federal government has set the poverty level at $19,350 for a family of four--which is not much. The average wealth has gone up but the median income has stagnated. There is a need for the better distribution of our resources.

Recognizing the importance of education for the improvement of the problem of poverty and hunger, one can not forget to ask political leaders to take a look at the plan set forth by the Millennium Development Goal (MDG). The eradication of “extreme Hunger and Poverty” is not about handing out money to the poor, rather it is about creating opportunities for improvement.

Today, 33.3 percent of the youth in the US are facing dramatic situations resulting from unemployment. Therefore, there needs to be a way create opportunities out of this unfortunate reality. The Presidential elections may bring great changes to the country; hopefully new policies to meet the needs of the American people. We need leaders that will address the issues of our concerns. The issues of poverty and hunger are very important and we should start solving this problem starting with out own poor first.

Tell me again: why don't we pay teachers well?

I read this article in the Times. I think it was also on Digg. I have heard no less than 3 co-workers discussing the same New York Times article about a charter school in New York. The basic premise of the newly approved charter school is that the best teachers turn out the most well educated students, and the way to attract the best teachers is to pay them well. “Well” meaning, well paid--in absolute terms--not relatively “well paid for teachers.” The starting salary is $125,000. The implications of this are far more significant than what is covered in the short article.

I say it is brilliant. Schools with the highest needs, which are usually in areas with the smallest tax base, are bleeding young, quality teachers. Teachers fresh out of school, inexperienced, head to these schools for a couple years and then look for a position in a higher paying district. Once they are equipped to best teach, they leave.

The profession of teaching struggles to attract smart, edgy career seekers because it is seen as a life of self-punishing service, in constant financial struggle. There is no way, regardless of talent and performance, for a teacher to make a salary that allows for a comfortable life in a major city. There is just no way to make a life in New York (or San Francisco or L.A. or Chicago, etc.) on $40,000. How could I ever buy a house on that? Granted, experienced teachers in my district make $70-80,000--which makes home-ownership more realistic. But going into teaching, while requiring a master’s degree, will never produce the salary that pursuing a career in i-banking, or engineering, or law will.

Teachers rely on a union to protect them from the district (government) and the administration. So by diminishing the administration, there is one less force attacking them. Then, in theory, if they are doing a good job (which is significantly easier with adequate compensation, for a variety of reasons, need I list them?) good teachers shouldn’t need the protection of a union. After all shouldn’t the students and parents protect them? And the bad teachers… well they will be fired. They will not be worth $125,000 a year to tax payers. But the good teachers can let their art in a classroom speak for itself.

There are more problems in the education system in this country than passengers on the Titanic. But paying teachers well is perhaps one step towards fixing at least one or two of the existing problems.

A Man Makes $4 Billion, as Much as All NYC Teachers. Should he be taxed less than them?

Yes, this is a capitalist country whereas people can risk, apply their efforts, and reap huge rewards. Unless, of course, you don't have access to opportunity. Unless, you are already at the top...

But, besides this, if we are all patriots and want to support this country called the United States of America, then the question is: how much everyone should chip into to pot? According to earnings and ability to pay? Is that fair? Whatever you think, this is not how it's done here.

This investor who gambled made $4 billion a year, just as much as all teachers in the NY City public schools made collectively! But, the super-rich have their capital gains taxed at 15% whereas teachers (and other workers) are taxed at twice or more this rate!

Here's an article by Alternet that makes the case. You may disagree with the author's conclusion and suggestions, but the facts remain the facts.

"The United States has the highest inequality rate in the developed world. 28 million Americans -- almost 1 in 10 -- are using food stamps. The average worker has seen virtually no real increase in wages since 1970.

Some hedge fund managers made over a billion dollars last year. Hedge fund manager John Paulson, who made a clever bet against subprime mortgages, made close to $4 billion.
How much is 4 billion dollars? If you work as a sales clerk in a retail store, you'd have to work 200,000 YEARS to make 4 billion dollars.

If you have a steady $50,000 a year job as a laborer and work for 50 years, in all that time you'd make as much as the hedge fund manager gets in one hour at the office."

The Politics of Tax & Spend and the Role of Government. Pay Your Taxes But Ask for Accountability too!

Ah, the tax-filing deadline is fast approaching. Have you done your taxes? You should file if you want to receive a "rebate" from our government, because this money (that we don't have but will borrow at great expense) will stimulate the slumping economy--or, that's the idea during this election year! Sure, why not. Our government wastes so much money anyway, what's a few hundred more billions of dollars? What most people don't get is that our political system is responsive to those who get access to it--the multitude who decide to organize and participate or those who buy influence through lobbying and personal connections.

As humans see the benefit of organizing themselves into a civil society--hopefully with a good social contract--the question arises of what the role of the government should be. I think it should be to protect and empower the commonwealth, that is, for the benefit of the greatest number of people possible. Yes, of course, I recognize the principle of protecting the minorities, however small they are, so you can not exploit the few for the benefit of the many either. This philosophical (and I maintain, practical) approach to the role of government is one of the important differences between the progressives and the conservatives today. But, in order for our government to do all the good things for us, it needs money, hence the ..dreadful taxes.

Have you noticed who has the strongest voice against taxes? Those who are better off. They usually get their way of tax breaks and lower taxation as a percentage and ability to pay. This week, NOW produced an excellent piece on the tax policies many states have embraced--policies that place most of the tax burden on those who can least afford it! See, for example, what NOW discovered in Alabama [click on the link to watch the NOW video] one of the most regressive states in the US, where a family of four with as low income as $12,600 has to pay taxes.

The connection to poverty & hunger is crystal clear. Next Friday, the farm bill expires and Congress is working on a new one. In light of our huge budget deficit, this farm bill is "the most lavish subsidies in American history" the Wall Street Journal has decried! The Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) has acknowledged that the insurance companies and the commodities industry are the two most powerful groups that carry great influence with both parties in Congress. Most of the farm subsidies go to rich farmers, big corporations-- a practice which is both wasteful and unethical. This is one of the many cases where we have to stop and think, and ultimately call it as it is.

The smaller government advocated by conservatives means a big enough government to maintain a trough that feeds the few, but small enough that cannot regulate, inspect, and ensure a more fair distribution of the public wealth! This is the bottom line. Oh, OK, there's an exception regarding the size of the government: those conservatives that want the government to be strong enough to shove down our throats a particular religious morality they advocate.Why is there so much hunger in the US today? Why do we increase the farm subsidies to the rich farmers [there's a fight to limit payments to farmers making up to a $1 mil. instead of the present $2.5 ceiling] but we don't increase food stamps to poor Americans? Most rural poor that get food stamps have little food after the 3rd week of the month. We're talking about working people here, who simply do not make enough to feed their families.

There's a great hunger in rural America, 35 million of out citizens, but this is not even an issue discussed in the current presidential race! Bill Moyers has another excellent piece on the farm bill this week. Cash Cows and Cowboy Starter Kits from EXPOSÉ illustrates, some of the subsidies in the current iteration of the bill don't go to the stereotypical small American farmer — or even to farmers at all. See how the farm bill gives billions to people who don't farm, or "drought aid" to people who didn't suffer any drought conditions! Or, how people got money from the space shuttle explosion over Texas for a bogus "livestock compensation"!!!

Poverty exists in the US and it's bigger than we want to admit or pay attention to.There's another class, the missing class, of the near-poor. Katherine S. Newman has a great book on this subject. This video explains more about those Americans who are also forgotten, who live on the margins of the mainstream economy, and on the edge of economic disaster. We can cut hunger in the US by half in one year by eliminating the waste in just one area: farm subsidies. But, we need leadership and political commitment. Oh, yes, we also need a politically educated public, and that Americans start behaving as they are in the economic scale not as they'd like to be or "see" themselves in the undetermined future.

We should have a serious discussion on the role of the government and to dispel some misconceptions about the infallibility of capitalism. The free marketplace is a great but imperfect mechanism and like a good car needs to maintained and occasionally steered in the right direction. We have to examine ways make it work for the commonwealth and not to privatize the profit while we socialize the risk. There is no rational or moral argument to continue doing what we've been doing on many levels of public policy. We should start with our intense focus on being very militaristic and the costs associated with such a strategy, and move on to allocation of resources and benefits in our commonwealth.

Bears, Bulls, and other Animals in our Forest

It's Spring break, but I'm already planning my next week's classes! See what some free time does to me... (looking for trouble). It's fun, coming up with stories and exam questions..

Class exam: Analyze the concept: socializing the risk and privatizing the profit. Include examples. You should also reference the ideological framework as to the role of the state (gov) in a modern capitalist system. Does the marketplace need the government to operate, or does the latter function as an impediment to the former?

Now, the following is a story I just made up but will use in class to ease the students back into rigorous learning, and, of course, to ..indoctrinate them.

Once upon a time, there was a small club of friends who dined and played (golf, bridge, etc) together no matter what happened in the world. They were considered wise men by their peers, and had advised other people to be aggressive in their investments--normally with other people's money!

They all made millions in salaries & bonuses, because they deserved it--and because a small group of their peers agreed that those who move lots of money around have lots of stress. Money always shows how much a person is appreciated was the dictum.

There are certain story tellers who convinced the majority of the village people that welfare--often called, the social safety net--for the working & indigent classes is a very bad thing. They also said that the government is a necessary evil and that, for our sake, it should be so small as to be drowned in a bathtub... Private companies, usually after huge over runs of the original estimate, would provide the bathtub and the taxpayers would gladly buy it.

On the other hand, assisting the hard-working and money-making businesses (ie, corporate welfare) was is a good thing they told us. The preferred to be mum, retreating in the quiet of the backrooms as they made their deals. After all, who needs all those statistics, numbers (oh, the horrors of ..math), and the legaleze--all very boring. Who could argue against this: American companies are patriotic and would never deliver inferior products, waste taxpayers money, put any American in danger, and charge us higher prices through no-bid contracts. The free market would never allow that, would it?

Those who have more money, wealth and power got even more money & legal benefits since apparently they deserve it. They owed their success to their own efforts alone, something like pulling their own bootstraps. Of course, they needed bigger tax breaks too! They had more expenses you know!... End of this little story.

So to better understand all this, I brushed up on Adam Smith recently. I had to discuss his ideas in class too--Moral Sentiment, and Wealth of Nations. I understand that profit is the engine of capitalism. Smith said something about competition and how it's good for the marketplace, but measures had to be taken to prevent predatory markets and companies. Ah, well. I'm sure the modern capitalists and those in power know that.

I also read, Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston, and watched him on Bill Moyers Journal. [here's a clip on YouTube]. I suggest you check those short videos. Very informative. Anyway, I'm wondering why those who demonize the (our) governmnet often turn to it for help & salvation when they screw up?

Do you have an answer?

Finish Tying the Knot in the “Enron Loophole”

By Katherine Wollny [POL 301D-Spring 2008]


My father’s past mumbling echoes in my mind as I think back to all the times I’ve asked him for a few bucks to grab a cup of coffee before school or work. As he’d fork over the cash, I would always hear the same story—how a cup of coffee used to be ten cents and it is outrageous that my extra large regular from Dunkin Donuts cost almost $2.25 (I wonder if the story would have been more exaggerated if I was a Starbucks latte lover instead). It was a ritual that came standard when asking to borrow money for almost anything. In recent years, the latest and greatest version has been about the price of gasoline and the cringing thought of giving me two twenty dollar bills and hoping that it would be enough to fill my itty-bitty thirteen gallon tank. I never thought the day would come so soon when I would share the same sick feeling with my father every time I pull up to the pump.

In 2001, being among the sixteen year olds who experienced a bad license picture for the first time, I clearly remember the gas price posted when pulling in the station after the landmark event: $1.26 per gallon. Luckily, the Gulf station down the road from my apartment, now seven years later, is one of the cheapest places to gas up in the county at $3.17. Twenty minutes south to the next town where my parents live, it’s a whopping $3.39. Just the fact the price is over three dollars amazes me—over two dollars for that matter. How did this happen?

It all started with one name we all know: Enron! In 2000, the Enron Loophole Act was passed with the original intent of deregulating energy futures trading facilitated by the now defunct “Enron Online.” This loophole has been taken advantage of, causing the energy commodity markets to be dubbed “dark” by the lack of oversight, and creating excessive speculation and energy price manipulation. The price for crude and heating oil, gasoline, natural gas, and propane effects every American in their day to day lives.

My parents are a perfect example. Both are retired and living on fixed income, which is significantly smaller now compared to when they first entered retirement five years ago. Now with the surge in heating oil prices, they have become considerably more conservative: so layer up because your hand will be cut off if you dare touch the thermostat. But seriously, the oil bill took up a large chunk of their monthly budget this winter and it shows by their new pattern of spending autonomously. I cant grocery shop in my mother’s pantry anymore because it is starting to look as pathetically bare as mine, filled with minimal generic brand necessities. It should never have come to this!

Why hasn’t anything been done to correct this major problem that has been an infection in our economy for so long? There are a handful of reasons, but here is what I think is the big answer: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), who would be responsible for regulating actions in the energy commodity markets has been severely crippled by a significant decrease in funding, resulting in insufficient resources necessary to do its job effectively. Even worse, the advisory committees assigned to the CFTC commissioners are conquered by financial players, who depend on the little oversight, and do not include the vital input of the majority—consumers and small businesses.

At least Congress has taken notice of these shenanigans in recent months. Last June, a bipartisan report came out of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations acknowledging price distortions in the energy futures market, being supported by “a broken regulatory system that has left our energy markets vulnerable to any trader with sufficient resources to alter energy prices for all market participants.”

Thank you, Senator Carl Levin, for bringing this to the Senate floor and introducing the Close the Enron Loophole Act in September. You started the ball rolling, so please continue it down the right path to quickly cover the entire hole. By next winter, I expect to be able to visit my parents in a toasty warm house.

The Blackwater Bomb: The Detrimental Effects of Private Military

By Kerriann Stout [POL 301D-Spring 2008]

The current White House administration has been widely utilizing private security companies. Currently many of the top officials in Iraq are protected, not by the United States military, but by Blackwater USA, a private security company. This is a result of a push towards military privatization by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. While in office Cheney had plans to weaken the pentagon’s power, and outsource some of their jobs to the private sector. With the market ripe for the taking, Blackwater owner Erik Prince stepped up to the job. Paul Bremer’s, former director of reconstruction in Iraq, arrival in Iraq in 2003 gave Rumsfeld the perfect reason to utilize Blackwater in the war. Blackwater was given a contract for all of Bremer’s security.

The White House and Department of Defense are bending, twisting, and sometimes outwardly breaking laws in order to accommodate Blackwater, all with complete disregard for public opinion. Their inability, or rather lack of desire, to regulate Blackwater remains dangerous because the Blackwater Contractors remain without liability for their actions. Bremer protected them under order 17, of his 100 orders made while in Iraq, providing them immunity from persecution. Essentially there are thousands of armed contractors in Iraq without any responsibility for their actions, and the Bush Administration finds this to be perfectly legal. A September 2007 shooting by Blackwater contractors who opened unprovoked fire on Iraqi citizens is further proof of the detrimental affects this type of military brings with it. The Blackwater men are being paid double and triple what the United States military makes, and is being held accountable for nothing.

Furthermore Blackwater is being given no bid “sweetheart contracts”. Given the country’s current economic problems it seems highly suspect that the government is handing out billion dollar contracts without putting them out to bid. Bidding out the contract would be far more economically sound, but Prince’s donations to the Republican Party seem to prevent this from happening.

Iraq is not the only place private security has been used by the United States. Blackwater’s involvement in Hurricane Katrina is suspicious at best. Where was the National Guard and Military? Even if it was necessary for extra help in the beginning why didn’t Blackwater leave after local law enforcers were able to control the situation? And the most important question is where was FEMA? The people of New Orleans had suffered a massive natural disaster and lacked everything needed to sustain life. These people were hungry, hungry people need food, not guns. Especially not guns attached to mercenaries. The fact that Blackwater was deployed on American soil begs the question just how much power does Erik Prince have over the current administration?

Looking to the future, Blackwater is currently courting NATO and the UN to get contracts that would allow them to go into Darfur. This speaks directly to the ineffectiveness of UN peacekeeping troops. It is yet another example of sending a private security company somewhere it does not belong. The growth of such a powerful private army could be extremely dangerous, with their loyalties not being national, but to one person.

In order to fix these problems the United States needs to scale back on the use of private contractors and take a look at revamping the Military in order to meet its needs. The cost now may be high, but the risk of allowing private contractors to be responsible for American safety is higher. Prince has already been giving too much control and as long as Blackwater remains in bed with the Republican Party, this situation will only continue to get worse.

Bush Vetoes Health Care Coverage to Protect the Poor (he claims)

By Rebecca DePaoli [POL 301D-Spring 2008]

This is an editorial intended for people reading a daily newspaper. It has a leftist bias; however, it is informative about a health care issue.

On October 18, 2007, the House of Representatives failed to override the President’s veto that denied health care to under-privileged children. Thirteen votes shy of the two-thirds majority vote needed to override a Presidential veto, the House proved to be ineffective in the fight for children’s health care. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created under the Clinton Administration for children whose parents earned too much to be eligible for Medicaid, yet who made too little to able to afford private insurance. Since its creation in 1997, SCHIP has been responsible for providing means to health care to approximately six million children in the United States.

In September of 2007, the United States Congress passed a bill that would expand SCHIP in order to cover four million more children by 2012. In order to finance this broadening, $35 billion would be needed in addition to SCHIP’s current cost projections of $25 billion, totaling $60 billion over the next five years. This extra funding would stem from a national cigarette tax increase of 61 cents per pack.

Even though this plan seems like a no brainer, President Bush vetoed the expansion in the name of “poor kids”. He argued that the new legislation will focus on middle class children, leaving poorer children behind. This is simply not true. First, poor children are not and never were covered by SCHIP, but by Medicaid and secondly, the expansion of SCHIP would only cover more children, not less. If the family qualifies for the coverage granted by SCHIP, they will receive it; it is not a zero sum game.

It is extremely unethical for the President to be playing politics with the lives of American children. Children need annual visits to physicians and dentists and the government should be pushing for preventative medicine rather than reactive. If children are able to have check ups, it will be less likely uninsured children will have to visit emergency rooms for illnesses, this will ultimately decrease private insurance premiums for other Americans.

President Bush also stated that the bill would cost too much. Yes, a President who is willing to spend $2 billion a week or around $520 billion over the next five years on an unsubstantiated war, is unwilling to protect his country’s own youth for a mere $60 billion in the same time period. This is a great way to show fiscal constraint.

Perhaps the boldest reason President Bush gave to rationalize his heartless veto was that he was protecting the country against socialized medicine. He believes that the private sector should control the health care system in America and why not, they have been doing a great job up until now. What is really driving our American health care system is greed, by the pharmaceutical and insurance companies. They care more about profits than they do about children whose parents simply cannot afford proper medical treatment. It’s capitalism at its worst.

Why then, do you ask did the House of Representatives not override the veto? The House Republicans stuck with their party line of fiscal conservatism and a free market economy. They were not able to see past their political agendas toward the helpless children begging for an answer.

From Vietnam to Iraq: A Repeat of History, A Repeat of Mistakes

By Ashley Studley. [Pol 301D-Spring 2008]

Up until 9/11/2001, I rarely paid any heed to politics or worldly issues. I was slightly aware of current events, but I was far more preoccupied with my adolescent self to be truly bothered by any larger matter. Once the events of September the Eleventh occurred, I was shaken awake. I was distraught, confused, and wanting justice within every part of my being.
When President George W. Bush announced that Iraq had a direct correlation to 9/11, I almost ate it up as quickly as it had been served. I assumed Saddam Hussein had always been a threat, to his people and our own, and I was about to jump on Bush’s bandwagon like so many have now regretted doing.

But my high school social studies teacher deterred me from doing so. As he introduced us to the major issues surrounding the War in Iraq, he reminded us of the issues that revolved around the Vietnam War. That war, which lasted 16 years-the longest in American history, was one which we should not have involved ourselves in, and is eerily similar to the circumstances regarding our effort in the Middle East.

I found an article written by then-student Charlie Dering, dated March 30, 1971 in Pace’s former school newspaper, Sunshine. The headline reads as “War Atrocities”, and in it Dering makes note of the unmistakable actions taken by American forces in Vietnam. If it wasn’t for minor distinctions here and there, it would be easy to believe that Dering was ranting about today’s conflict.

In 1959, the United States sent troops to Southern Vietnam to assist in the stabilizing of their government. This part of Vietnam was having difficulty separating itself from the Communist party which controlled Northern Vietnam. In an attempt to settle this conflict, millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed, along with thousands of Americans. The U.S. finally pulled out in 1975, having failed to resolve anything.

Similar to today, the President has claimed that our new mission is to build and promote democracy within Iraq. Since his weapons of mass destruction theory didn’t pan out as well as he’d hoped, the goal now is to stabilize their government-the one which we destroyed by invading the country in March of 2003. We were only supposed to occupy for two years at most, a time span which has more than doubled as it reaches its fifth year anniversary in just a month. According to the Washington Post, American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimate that the combined death toll has reached 655,000. It is sad that our President knowingly misled us into an un-winnable war, and it is even worse that we have allowed it to go on for so long.

Dering’s article touches upon the sanitization of the news, and how up until Seymour Hersh exposed the Mai Lai massacre in 1969, Americans were not being informed of the truths of the war. Dering makes note that foreign media outlets were far more truthful in facts and photos with their presentations of the war. The same applies to today’s media, which is constantly criticized for its failure to give an accurate look into the Middle East. All we are given from day to day is a death toll, one without names or faces. Is the media attempting to keep us as detached from these casualties as possible? Or is it simply the government controlling what we see and what we hear? Whatever the unjustified reasoning, the public deserves truth, no matter how ugly or how bad it makes the country appear.

The student ends his article by saying “An end to these atrocities can be realized only by an end to the war. Evidently our President doesn’t want that.” Upon reading this, I realized that our country has not learned from its previous mistakes. It’s almost as if Charlie Dering looked into the future 37 years ago, and knew that our country would make the same blinding errors and never learn from them. Sadly, I wonder how many lives it will take and how many history books will need printing in order to end and prevent such atrocities from ever occurring again.

The Pulitzer prize photo: Kim Phuc - Vietnam Napalm bombing, South Vietnam 1972

The Tragedy that is Darfur. When Will the US Intervene?

By Matthew Herlihy. The following is an editorial for the general public. [Pol 301D, Spring 2008].

The War in Darfur, also known as the Darfur Genocide, is a battle that has been ravaging the western region of Sudan since 2003. Yet, for some reason, the citizens of the United States have not learned as much on this genocide as I think is necessary. It has been the habit of our government to engage in global endeavors to police our globe, to control genocidal acts in essence, but, still, the United States has no involvement in the growing problem that is plaguing the African continent. Civil wars are not uncommon to the continent; however genocide, considered a heinous war crime, is is an evil that must be tamed.

One side of this armed conflict is the Janjaweed, a group formed mostly of Sudanese military. The Janjaweed is a group based around the religion of Islam and shuns those who do not believe in the Islamic ways. Since 2003 they have been fighting with several rebel groups, primarily the Sudan Liberation Movement among others, all comprised of non-Arab persons. Statistics vary vastly on the number of deaths that have occurred from 2003 to now, but the majority of experts, including the United Nations, estimate that “as many as 200,000 are dead”(Q&A: Sudan’s Darfur Conflict, BBC News), and quite possibly many more. The United Nations however does not mark this conflict as genocide, whereas the United States has classified it as such.

How could this happen, some people will ask; how is it possible that such a terrible war can fly so easily under the American radar? Well, the United States still remains a part of the United Nations and therefore acts in compliance with the U.N. in efforts to relieve the situation of some of the tension. The roots of the War in Darfur though lie in the government. Rebel forces, in addition to enormous overpopulation and what is called “desertification”, or more simply put, the loss of serviceable crop land, have claimed that the government was favoring Arab Africans over black Africans. This type of sentiment led to various rebel groups forming, all with different leaders and different agendas, but all with the same general intent of overthrowing the government.

So what is the issue really, this is nothing more then a civil war it would seem on the surface, but in reality, it is the civilians of this region that are hurt the most. According to a November 15, 2007 article on bbc.com women have reported being held captive by the Janjaweed and used as sex slaves, citing the proclamation by the U.N. that war crimes are being committed with regularity inside Darfur. This however, is just the beginning of the vast troubles for the Darfur natives.

Refugees are what many Darfur natives have become, with millions displaced. In the same BBC article the author states, “millions have fled their destroyed villages, with some two million people in camps near Darfur’s main towns.”(Q&A: Sudan’s Darfur Conflict, BBC News). These camps though are hotspots for Janjaweed as they patrol the outskirts, and natives state that upon venturing too far from town “the men are killed and the women are raped,”(Q&A: Sudan’s Darfur Conflict, BBC News). Darfur remains an extremely hostile territory and at the present time it is difficult for aide groups to lend a helping hand, further disadvantaging the refugees from a stable form of life.

Unfortunately there is not much that can be done to stop such a large group of people who do not desire peace. If peace were something that most of these rebel parties thirsted for this conflict would have expired long ago, but this is not the case. The blood thirst that has become Darfur will continue until one of several things happen. First and foremost, all parties involved need to have a working ceasefire and pick up peace talks that were held in Nigeria without much, if any success. Secondly, despite the denial of western help by the Sudan, it is the responsibility of the United States and more importantly the United Nations to act swiftly and decisively in order to isolate these rebel groups and control them, most likely though having to be done with an insurgence of U.N. troops.

The Darfur conflict is a gripping dilemma and one without a clear cut solution presently, but a situation that without an evident ending can only lead to long civil war and unrest for the civilians of Darfur. I wrote this article in order to educate at the most basic level those who remain unaware of the trials that these refugees face at all times. If it has become the job of the United States to act as the policeman to the world, there is not a better time to live up to this role than this one. The involvement of the United States in Darfur should be a case of when, not if, and it seems appropriately so.

Unspinning the News: What Kennedy's Endorsement of Obama Means

By Jacqueline Cogel. This piece is an editorial directed toward the general public, about Ted Kennedy’s support for Barack Obama, and how the media tried to spin what he said. [Pol 301D-Spring 2008].

This race to win the Democratic primaries and become the presidential candidate for the party has been a tennis match going back and forth all campaign. The big story is two unlikely candidates who one will get the chance to run for president, a black man or a woman. Both have the potential to make their mark in history when Election Day comes, and when something this dramatic happens in the political world here in America, the media is bound to add a little spice here and there to spark the drama.

Ted Kennedy, as well as many others in the Democratic Party, decided to endorse Barack Obama instead of family friend Hillary Clinton. Kennedy says he is drawn to his commanding presence and admires the way Obama motivates a new generation of Democrats. Kennedy has done nothing wrong but simply support a very qualified and powerful candidate in the Democratic Party. Well, even someone as smart as Kennedy could not have seen this coming his way.

Various media sources began attacking Kennedy claiming that his support of Obama over Clinton is a clear sign that he is against women’s rights. Their rationale was; well why else would he go against a family friend and support her competitor. Since they could not be happy with maybe Kennedy is just doing the right thing and supporting who he thinks is best qualified in his political party, the media had to try and find a way to attack him and see if any drama could start. These races in our society can never be just about the two candidates and who is more qualified than the other. But instead we take everything and anything that is said, and the media spins it to portray the person to however they feel they can. And if there is ever anything that can be made to look detrimental to their character, the media swoops in and attacks full force upon the candidate.

In essence, I feel that Obama is a better candidate than Clinton, and I am a woman myself saying that! He has a better stand on his issues, and I agree with Kennedy that he does motivate a new generation of democrats and I think he does this better than Clinton. If the media would spend more time researching other issues in the political world and stop trying to twist and turn words said, the American people would be more informed on more important issues rather than the he said she said garbage we are told about today.

BOTTOM LINE: Kennedy is not against women and their rights, but he does support Obama over Clinton!