In 1989, Wisconsin passed Wisconsin Act 336 that established the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). Wisconsin was the first state to offer parents a choice of either staying at a public school or taking a voucher in order to pay for private education. The program had its participation capped at 15% of the population of Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). The legislation set up a voucher program for low income families at 175% the national poverty level or below to attend non-sectarian private schools. In the 2010-2011 school year, 20,996 students (based solely on 3rd Friday head count) were enrolled in 102 participating schools that were predominantly religious.
Studies have indicated that voucher programs do not achieve statistically better results than their public school competitors. According to the Department of Public Instruction, the WSAS results are worse than MPS's. At the same time, they are sapping needed money away from MPS. At best the research and current literature are inconclusive about consistent results. And data does not track students from the time they enroll to the time they leave.
Funding
Every year, funding for the next year is based on the 3rd Friday head count. Private schools collect their vouchers based on this count. Invariably, teachers in MPS prepared for the 4th, 5th, and 6th weeks of the school year because then there would be a sudden surge in enrollment. This practice takes place every year in every MPS school.
The students that arrive later in the year are welcomed to secular public classrooms that cost them no additional money. At the same time, if the student had been kicked out of a private voucher school, the school keeps the $6,700 that the MPCP had paid as part of the 3rd Friday count. The best data would trace the student from the beginning of the year until the end of the year regardless of mobility.
This funding structure leads to a plethora of problems for MPS. In my eight years as an elementary and middle school teacher at two different schools, it was rare to have a text book for each child. We made do; we learned to share. In order to ensure there was paper in the classroom, teachers asked parents to make donations, still teachers paid out of pocket for most supplies, even in the high-achieving, effectively run schools. As the population of voucher students rises each year this funding scenario grows worse for MPS.
The funding for many of the institutions that receive vouchers is also much higher because they charge tuition and have wealthy contributors. The type of investment that the billionaires in the religious right have made on private schools is the type of investment that should be made in every school for every child. Private voucher schools have intensified income inequality in education. Conservative fundamentalists are pushing the voucher agenda all over the country selling it as reform that works. In Milwaukee, the lobbying by religious groups swayed the debate and by 1998 private religious schools were added to the list of participating private schools. Now rather than tax dollars designated for public education, the money goes to religious education.
Parental Involvement
When Howard Fuller became a strong advocate for MPCP, he leaned hard on the idea that it was a way to get parents involved with their children's education. The main message to parents was and is that they should have a choice. One of the lead cheerleaders for MPCP in Wisconsin is Leah Vukmir. "The voucher program has caused dramatic improvement in the public schools," Vukmir explained. "As a result of choice and competition, there are more opportunities for students." The biggest problem with this idea is that the programs provide opportunities for a small percentage of the student population whose parent(s) were already highly involved in the child's life. In many cases these are students who would perform equally well had they attended their local neighborhood school. Thus, the voucher program removes high achieving students from public schools. As a result test scores at MPS schools drop and achievement overall drops because high achieving students often act as the role models at the school.
Special Education Needs (SEN)
Private institutions are under no mandate to provide individual education programs (IEP) for students with special needs (SEN). Because of this many students do not receive the services they would had they attended a public school. What does happen is that, for example, speech therapists by law are required to provide services. A student who is not registered at the MPS school where a speech therapist works, but is instead enrolled at a private institution, may still receive services from that speech therapist. When the therapist could be spending time with students that are actually enrolled in his/her school, the therapist m,ust attend to the needs of the private school student. Not only is this a disservice to the members of the public school, but it also means that taxpayers are paying for services in addition to the voucher.
As the voucher cap increases, the results will be that MPS will become the school district for all of the challenging kids that get kicked out of the private schools. Eventually the population in MPS will be entirely of those students who can't afford private schools, don't have parents who are involved in the decision making, or don't function well in the traditional educational setting.
Focus of Teaching
Additionally, the focus at schools is increasingly about competition. The competition is only comparable in data - test scores. So, everyone is preparing for testing, all year long. The authentic learning experience will no longer exist if education becomes driven by the capitalist notion that competition leads to improvement. This is an obvious obfuscation but regardless, in education competition leads nowhere. Students need to learn how to work together in order to solve problems rather than vying against each other. Cooperation and collaboration ought to become far more important skills than competition.
While all of the finagling over money and cap limits is taking place, sectarian schools are quietly taking tax dollars and teaching children biblical myths; some go so far as to to teach that the bible is the word of god, that the earth is 6,000 years old, and that evolution is not science-based but only a hypothetical theory. To many forward-minded people, the idea that our tax dollars are funding children to be proselytized would be hard to accept and unfathomable in a developed country, after all this is not Saudi Arabia. But the religious right have successfully focused the attention on the failing public school system not on the content or learning provided by the private religious schools.
The religious right have dominated the debate and are succeeding in forcing their agenda on parents, especially in urban districts. The cost of all of this is that public education is being damaged irrevocably. The gap in educational attainment between the poor and the wealthy is increasing and vouchers contribute to that crisis.
What do you think? Are religious fundamentalists damaging public education?
==============================================
Read more about it and decide for yourself:
http://dpi.wi.gov/sms/choice.html
http://dpi.wi.gov/oea/mpcp/results.html
http://www.newcoalition.org/Article.cfm?artId=18915
http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED462502.pdf
http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5512/as_milwaukees_economy_fails_how_can_public_schools_succeed/
http://www.scsba.org/voices/Milwaukee%20Voucher%20Program%20Info.pdf
http://www.progressive.org/rc032911.html
http://thirdcoastdigest.com/2011/05/walkers-expansion-of-school-choice-moves-forward/
Showing posts with label Freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freedom. Show all posts
21 April 2011
Voter apathy - why don't we care?
It was a cool late Friday night in early spring. A group of volunteers was busy labeling fliers for the final targeted literature drops before the Tuesday election. For the most part the volunteers and paid employees were enthusiastic about the race. The overall feeling was that voter turnout would be high and that fact would work in favor of their candidate. "I definitely think we have the momentum," explained the campaign coordinator, "You know the whole thing with Walker is giving us a huge boost." The fliers showed a picture of Jeff Stone standing seductively near a lecturing Scott Walker. It had a simple equation "Stone = Walker".
The first Tuesday of April was fast approaching and volunteers were clamoring to get organized. The polls were gearing up for what had the looks of possible record turnouts. On Wednesday, the headlines reported those record turnouts at the polls. "Tuesday's Supreme Court turnout in Wisconsin was off the charts", "Huge voter turnout in Spring election," etc.
33% of eligible voters got out the vote on April 5th. The ecstatic media proudly reported that 1 in 3 eligible voters showed up at a polling station to cast his/her ballot. While on the surface it may not seem to be a large percentage of eligible voters, bear in mind that the average turnout for a spring election is around 18-20%. “It was uncommon, it was an extraordinary event,” said Maurice Sheppard, a political science instructor at MATC.
How were so many voters primed to get to the polls? Wisconsin was in the midst of huge protests against a divisive Governor and republican run legislature that had already passed a controversial tort reform bill and had recently passed a bill stripping public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. On the ballot were candidates in a very heated Supreme court race fueled by outside groups linking David Prosser to the controversial Governor. It seemed that the arena was ripe for massive crowds, which in a way is what showed up. But massive is a relative concept.
In the winter of 2010, the congressional midterm elections triggered turnouts nearing 50% (48.51% to be more accurate). Again, the press and many pollsters praised the high turnouts for a non-presidential election. But "high", "huge", "massive", or any other adjectives are relative quantifiers.
While voter turnout raged in Wisconsin, in parts of Missouri Kristin Hoppa reported that voter turnout spiked at about 10%. Gary Colvin, supervisory Republican election judge at Ashland, said he expected more voters. He said at the last election, the church averaged about 100 voters an hour.
"We are averaging about 20 an hour," Mr. Colvin said about noon. "It's voter apathy.
In comparison with the US turnout, keeping our focus in the Americas, Anguilla held elections for 7 parliamentary seats in 2010; over 80% of eligible voters voted. In Bolivia, in 2009, 90% turned out to vote on a referendum on the size of the constitutional limit on individual private landholdings, to be included in the new constitution, if ratified. Suddenly the high turnout in the US elections becomes puny. And while many voices applauded the "high" percentage of votes cast, not many voices decried the actually quite abysmally low numbers.
In Canada, turnout has hovered around 60% for the last five elections and then dropped to 58% in 2008. The percentage drop has raised serious concerns regarding the perceived level of voter apathy and has caused the government to create a comprehensive website designed to encourage university students to vote in the upcoming federal election. (see itsyourvote.ca)
After comparing international voter turnouts, statistics rank the US as one of the lowest of industrial nations (see International Foundation for Electoral Systems). Whereas many in the US would not be surprised by these conclusions, it should be surprising that not much is being done to try to elevate the numbers of participants.
Voter apathy occurs when citizens believe their votes don't count, it won't matter anyway, nothing will change so there is no reason to vote. Why is there such a high level of voter apathy in the US and such little concern about raising the numbers of participants and relieving disbelief in our democratic process?
In 2008, Tony Dokoupil was interested in discovering why so few male voters turned out. The Case of the Vanishing Male Voter explores why male voters have been turning out in fewer numbers in elections recent to 2008. Dokoupil reported that since 1964, the percentage of men voting has dropped from 72% to 56%. The article claims that high female voter turnout and low male turnout helped to elect former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Reasons cited include the fact that men tend to be more isolated, a shift in which educated women outnumber educated men, and a higher rate of male criminals who are barred from voting. Of the 5.3 million convicted felons in the US, more than 80% are males.
The article illustrated reasons for lower male turnouts and higher frustration with voting policy. These conditions could lead to higher voter apathy. While higher incarceration rates accounts for smaller numbers of voters, is it directly related to voter apathy? Much like the stock market, voting apathy can be affected by seemingly insignificant factors. Losing a parent or spouse to the prison system can cause depression and condemnation of the entire system as being unfair.
In An Exploration of the Effects of Negative Political Advertising on Political Decision Making, Bruce E. Pinkleton, Nam-Hyun Um, and Erica Weintraub Austin conducted a study with 236 students who were exposed to different types of advertising. "Participants exposed to negative advertising found it less useful for political decision making and were more negative toward political campaigns than were participants exposed to positive advertising." Although the study showed a correlation between negative advertising and levels of disgust with political campaigning, the study did not conclude that negative advertising would lead directly to "citizen apathy."
So, what causes someone to consciously choose not to exercise his/her right to vote? Why do so many who can vote choose not to? It has been argued by many that people are only motivated by their own welfare and comfort. Chris Hayes has argued that greed, envy, and corruption shattered our financial system. Could this possibly be a cause of such rampant voter apathy as well?
When the tort reform bill passed in Wisconsin very few eyebrows were raised by liberals, progressives, or centrists or any Wisconsinites. When collective bargaining was put on the chopping block, protests erupted. The tort reform is far more reaching and may prove to be far more detrimental in the future to employees and citizens than the budget repair bill. The tort reform affects everyone but not immediately - cases will arise. The budget repair bill affects people immediately. As soon as people felt their interests threatened, people became motivated to act.
Is there a way to clearly align voter's interests with election results and voting whenever an election is held? What's mildly surprising is that there is not a lot written about voter apathy's causes. Maybe journalists and politicians don't care if more people are involved in the process; if so, this would more than likely be due to electoral bias and apathy. What's also interesting is that the US gets high numbers of voters for presidential elections but very low turnout for local elections - the local elections carry a greater impact on our daily lives but are not as sensationalized.
My hypothesis is that there is a connection between voter apathy and television. So much of the information spreading through the glowing box is designed to numb our senses, sell sensationalized bits of data, and make us feel like inadequate consumers unless we buy something. There must be some consequences to the abundance of entertainment we are exposed to. One repercussion is a general sense of apathy. News broadcasts inform us that polls reveal the race to be close or not close at all. Either way one vote, goes the reasoning, won't matter. In broad national elections, it's hard to pinpoint one vote. But, in local elections, one vote can determine the outcome. And most of us know this and can walk through this chain of reasoning, but television provides an easy excuse to recline and let our minds wander effortlessly. The idea of going to a polling station becomes an overwhelming burden.
There are also indications that Americans don't know enough about candidates to feel reasonably comfortable enough to vote. In the US television is the news source for most of the people. But news programming is not designed to provide informative, in-depth candidate coverage on the issues. PBS handles in-depth coverage better than any other channel but is still lacking. In the last gubernatorial election, many Wisconsinites felt they had no idea what each candidate stood for.
What do you think? Are you an apathetic citizen who chooses not to vote? Or do you have any suggestions on the causes of voter apathy? How can we get more citizens to vote or be more involved?
http://firestone.princeton.edu/politics/guides/intl_elect.html
Case of the Vanishing Male Voter Dokoupil, Tony, Newsweek; 10/27/2008, Vol. 152 Issue 17, p14-14, 3/5p, 2 Color Photographs, 1 Graph
An Exploration of the Effects of Negative Political Advertising on Political Decision Making, Bruce E. Pinkleton, Nam-Hyun Um, and Erica Weintraub Austin Journal of Advertising Spring 2002
http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm
http://stanfordreview.org/old_archives/Archive/Volume_XXXIII/Issue_3/News/news1.shtml
System Failure: It's Not Just the Media -- the Whole Political System Has Failed; David Miller
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec00/brokensystem.html
The first Tuesday of April was fast approaching and volunteers were clamoring to get organized. The polls were gearing up for what had the looks of possible record turnouts. On Wednesday, the headlines reported those record turnouts at the polls. "Tuesday's Supreme Court turnout in Wisconsin was off the charts", "Huge voter turnout in Spring election," etc.
33% of eligible voters got out the vote on April 5th. The ecstatic media proudly reported that 1 in 3 eligible voters showed up at a polling station to cast his/her ballot. While on the surface it may not seem to be a large percentage of eligible voters, bear in mind that the average turnout for a spring election is around 18-20%. “It was uncommon, it was an extraordinary event,” said Maurice Sheppard, a political science instructor at MATC.
How were so many voters primed to get to the polls? Wisconsin was in the midst of huge protests against a divisive Governor and republican run legislature that had already passed a controversial tort reform bill and had recently passed a bill stripping public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. On the ballot were candidates in a very heated Supreme court race fueled by outside groups linking David Prosser to the controversial Governor. It seemed that the arena was ripe for massive crowds, which in a way is what showed up. But massive is a relative concept.
In the winter of 2010, the congressional midterm elections triggered turnouts nearing 50% (48.51% to be more accurate). Again, the press and many pollsters praised the high turnouts for a non-presidential election. But "high", "huge", "massive", or any other adjectives are relative quantifiers.
While voter turnout raged in Wisconsin, in parts of Missouri Kristin Hoppa reported that voter turnout spiked at about 10%. Gary Colvin, supervisory Republican election judge at Ashland, said he expected more voters. He said at the last election, the church averaged about 100 voters an hour.
"We are averaging about 20 an hour," Mr. Colvin said about noon. "It's voter apathy.
In comparison with the US turnout, keeping our focus in the Americas, Anguilla held elections for 7 parliamentary seats in 2010; over 80% of eligible voters voted. In Bolivia, in 2009, 90% turned out to vote on a referendum on the size of the constitutional limit on individual private landholdings, to be included in the new constitution, if ratified. Suddenly the high turnout in the US elections becomes puny. And while many voices applauded the "high" percentage of votes cast, not many voices decried the actually quite abysmally low numbers.
In Canada, turnout has hovered around 60% for the last five elections and then dropped to 58% in 2008. The percentage drop has raised serious concerns regarding the perceived level of voter apathy and has caused the government to create a comprehensive website designed to encourage university students to vote in the upcoming federal election. (see itsyourvote.ca)
After comparing international voter turnouts, statistics rank the US as one of the lowest of industrial nations (see International Foundation for Electoral Systems). Whereas many in the US would not be surprised by these conclusions, it should be surprising that not much is being done to try to elevate the numbers of participants.
Voter apathy occurs when citizens believe their votes don't count, it won't matter anyway, nothing will change so there is no reason to vote. Why is there such a high level of voter apathy in the US and such little concern about raising the numbers of participants and relieving disbelief in our democratic process?
In 2008, Tony Dokoupil was interested in discovering why so few male voters turned out. The Case of the Vanishing Male Voter explores why male voters have been turning out in fewer numbers in elections recent to 2008. Dokoupil reported that since 1964, the percentage of men voting has dropped from 72% to 56%. The article claims that high female voter turnout and low male turnout helped to elect former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Reasons cited include the fact that men tend to be more isolated, a shift in which educated women outnumber educated men, and a higher rate of male criminals who are barred from voting. Of the 5.3 million convicted felons in the US, more than 80% are males.
The article illustrated reasons for lower male turnouts and higher frustration with voting policy. These conditions could lead to higher voter apathy. While higher incarceration rates accounts for smaller numbers of voters, is it directly related to voter apathy? Much like the stock market, voting apathy can be affected by seemingly insignificant factors. Losing a parent or spouse to the prison system can cause depression and condemnation of the entire system as being unfair.
In An Exploration of the Effects of Negative Political Advertising on Political Decision Making, Bruce E. Pinkleton, Nam-Hyun Um, and Erica Weintraub Austin conducted a study with 236 students who were exposed to different types of advertising. "Participants exposed to negative advertising found it less useful for political decision making and were more negative toward political campaigns than were participants exposed to positive advertising." Although the study showed a correlation between negative advertising and levels of disgust with political campaigning, the study did not conclude that negative advertising would lead directly to "citizen apathy."
So, what causes someone to consciously choose not to exercise his/her right to vote? Why do so many who can vote choose not to? It has been argued by many that people are only motivated by their own welfare and comfort. Chris Hayes has argued that greed, envy, and corruption shattered our financial system. Could this possibly be a cause of such rampant voter apathy as well?
When the tort reform bill passed in Wisconsin very few eyebrows were raised by liberals, progressives, or centrists or any Wisconsinites. When collective bargaining was put on the chopping block, protests erupted. The tort reform is far more reaching and may prove to be far more detrimental in the future to employees and citizens than the budget repair bill. The tort reform affects everyone but not immediately - cases will arise. The budget repair bill affects people immediately. As soon as people felt their interests threatened, people became motivated to act.
Is there a way to clearly align voter's interests with election results and voting whenever an election is held? What's mildly surprising is that there is not a lot written about voter apathy's causes. Maybe journalists and politicians don't care if more people are involved in the process; if so, this would more than likely be due to electoral bias and apathy. What's also interesting is that the US gets high numbers of voters for presidential elections but very low turnout for local elections - the local elections carry a greater impact on our daily lives but are not as sensationalized.
My hypothesis is that there is a connection between voter apathy and television. So much of the information spreading through the glowing box is designed to numb our senses, sell sensationalized bits of data, and make us feel like inadequate consumers unless we buy something. There must be some consequences to the abundance of entertainment we are exposed to. One repercussion is a general sense of apathy. News broadcasts inform us that polls reveal the race to be close or not close at all. Either way one vote, goes the reasoning, won't matter. In broad national elections, it's hard to pinpoint one vote. But, in local elections, one vote can determine the outcome. And most of us know this and can walk through this chain of reasoning, but television provides an easy excuse to recline and let our minds wander effortlessly. The idea of going to a polling station becomes an overwhelming burden.
There are also indications that Americans don't know enough about candidates to feel reasonably comfortable enough to vote. In the US television is the news source for most of the people. But news programming is not designed to provide informative, in-depth candidate coverage on the issues. PBS handles in-depth coverage better than any other channel but is still lacking. In the last gubernatorial election, many Wisconsinites felt they had no idea what each candidate stood for.
What do you think? Are you an apathetic citizen who chooses not to vote? Or do you have any suggestions on the causes of voter apathy? How can we get more citizens to vote or be more involved?
_________________________________________________
Read more about voter apathy and voter turnout:http://firestone.princeton.edu/politics/guides/intl_elect.html
Case of the Vanishing Male Voter Dokoupil, Tony, Newsweek; 10/27/2008, Vol. 152 Issue 17, p14-14, 3/5p, 2 Color Photographs, 1 Graph
An Exploration of the Effects of Negative Political Advertising on Political Decision Making, Bruce E. Pinkleton, Nam-Hyun Um, and Erica Weintraub Austin Journal of Advertising Spring 2002
http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm
http://stanfordreview.org/old_archives/Archive/Volume_XXXIII/Issue_3/News/news1.shtml
System Failure: It's Not Just the Media -- the Whole Political System Has Failed; David Miller
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec00/brokensystem.html
30 March 2011
America the Beautiful
It's easy to forget about how well off we live in the United States. Although our politics are increasingly divisive and partisan, our airwaves are filled with commercial propaganda, the wealthy have accumulated ostensibly ever amassing wads of cash, education, public transit and most other social programs besides medicaid are utterly under funded, our foreign policy dictates military action over diplomacy, and a host of other issues, we can write and say almost whatever we want about our presidents and our leaders.
The freedoms afforded to us in the Bill of Rights are incomparable.
In Belarus, Andrzej Poczobut, a reporter of Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) has been arrested for the heinous crime of insulting the Belorussian president.
On Monday Mr. Poczobut was summoned to the prosecutor’s office in the Hrodna region. He was issued an order of criminal proceedings against him for publishing articles in the newspaper and in his blog that violate Article 368 Part 1 of state law, "Insulting the President of Belarus."
In an interview with charter97.org, Mr. Poczobut wrote it is not clear so far, what was considered an insult of the Belarusian dictator; in the prosecutor’s office he was just told the titles of the articles allegedly containing “insults of and fabrications about Lukashenka”. Here are some quotes from the order on institution of criminal proceedings:
“In the period of 2010-2011 on the web at websites www.wyborcza.pl, belaruspartisan.org and poczobut.livejournal.com A. Poczobut posted texts created by him called “Time to tighten screws”, “Lukashenka has found a new target”, “Elections without choice in Belarus”, “Tell me “batska”, “That’s how Lukashenka ruled”, “Lukashenka: Yes, I’ve falsified the election”, “Freedom, Belarusian style. Confessed and released?”, “Pre-election populism a la Belarus”, “That’s how the Belarusian KGB intimidates” and a text without a title starting with “Thank you all…”, containing elements of public insult of the President of Belarus…”
According to the website, Poczobut says he understands that he is facing a prison term, but he is not going to flee the country.
“What are the reasons of opening the case N11025190007? I think there are a few of them,” the journalist states. “Firstly, personal reasons. My person provokes the warmest feelings from people in uniform. And secondly, international ones. It is a long time since the Union of Poles, where I am the chairman of the Main Council, was considered by “armed lackeys of Lukashenka” as potential hostages in bilateral Belarusian-Polish relations. Is Poland planning sanctions against our country? And we will smother Poles! This is so much the case, that such promises were made by diplomatic representatives of Belarus almost as plain-language messages. And thirdly, the reasons related to the web. Back on December 20 at his triumph press-conference on his new “elegant victory” Lukashenka promised “to bring discipline” to the web. My dear mister Lukashenka, my dear victim of the crime, I am ready to answer for my words and deeds to the fullest extent of the law. And I hope that the time will come when the former president of Belarus A. Lukashenka would have to answer for the developments in Belarus in the last 16 years to the fullest extent of the law.”
Where I spend much time criticizing the US, I have to say that as as long as bloggers, media hawks, comedians, and journalists can openly insult our politicians, we have more freedom than Belarus.
By the way, Sarah Palin is an idiot; Pres. Obama is not an idiot but he may not know what he is doing. There is a difference.
__________________________________________________________________
Now that all of the compliments have been handed out, let's take a look at the some numbers from the US Census Bureau's poverty thresholds. The poverty thresholds are the starting points for what is considered poverty level in the US. So, a single person earning $11,161.00 per year or less is living in poverty in our fine country.
To be single and considered to be living in poverty is the equivalent of about $30 a day for a single individual and $40 a day for a single parent with a child (the maximum levels to still be considered at poverty level). In comparison, Apple pays their employees in China who assemble the iPad, and iPod products about $73 a week or $9 a day.
And on this day in history in 1981, John Hinckley, Jr, with Travis Bickle as his inspiration, tried to assassinate then president of the US Ronald Reagan. Evidently Hinckley was totally mad. In a letter to Jodie Foster, Hinckley wrote, " I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I just cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I am doing all of this for your sake! By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love."
Over and out.
The freedoms afforded to us in the Bill of Rights are incomparable.
In Belarus, Andrzej Poczobut, a reporter of Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) has been arrested for the heinous crime of insulting the Belorussian president.
On Monday Mr. Poczobut was summoned to the prosecutor’s office in the Hrodna region. He was issued an order of criminal proceedings against him for publishing articles in the newspaper and in his blog that violate Article 368 Part 1 of state law, "Insulting the President of Belarus."
In an interview with charter97.org, Mr. Poczobut wrote it is not clear so far, what was considered an insult of the Belarusian dictator; in the prosecutor’s office he was just told the titles of the articles allegedly containing “insults of and fabrications about Lukashenka”. Here are some quotes from the order on institution of criminal proceedings:
“In the period of 2010-2011 on the web at websites www.wyborcza.pl, belaruspartisan.org and poczobut.livejournal.com A. Poczobut posted texts created by him called “Time to tighten screws”, “Lukashenka has found a new target”, “Elections without choice in Belarus”, “Tell me “batska”, “That’s how Lukashenka ruled”, “Lukashenka: Yes, I’ve falsified the election”, “Freedom, Belarusian style. Confessed and released?”, “Pre-election populism a la Belarus”, “That’s how the Belarusian KGB intimidates” and a text without a title starting with “Thank you all…”, containing elements of public insult of the President of Belarus…”
According to the website, Poczobut says he understands that he is facing a prison term, but he is not going to flee the country.
Where I spend much time criticizing the US, I have to say that as as long as bloggers, media hawks, comedians, and journalists can openly insult our politicians, we have more freedom than Belarus.
By the way, Sarah Palin is an idiot; Pres. Obama is not an idiot but he may not know what he is doing. There is a difference.
__________________________________________________________________
Now that all of the compliments have been handed out, let's take a look at the some numbers from the US Census Bureau's poverty thresholds. The poverty thresholds are the starting points for what is considered poverty level in the US. So, a single person earning $11,161.00 per year or less is living in poverty in our fine country.
2009 Poverty Thresholds, Selected Family Types | ||
Single Individual | Under 65 years | $ 11,161 |
65 years & older | $ 10,289 | |
Single Parent | One child | $ 14,787 |
Two children | $ 17,285 | |
Two Adults | No children | $ 14,366 |
One child | $ 17,268 | |
Two children | $ 21,756 | |
Three children | $ 25,603 | |
To be single and considered to be living in poverty is the equivalent of about $30 a day for a single individual and $40 a day for a single parent with a child (the maximum levels to still be considered at poverty level). In comparison, Apple pays their employees in China who assemble the iPad, and iPod products about $73 a week or $9 a day.
And on this day in history in 1981, John Hinckley, Jr, with Travis Bickle as his inspiration, tried to assassinate then president of the US Ronald Reagan. Evidently Hinckley was totally mad. In a letter to Jodie Foster, Hinckley wrote, " I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I just cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I am doing all of this for your sake! By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love."
Over and out.
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