The Poor Suffer Media Neglect

On September 14, 2012 By southwerkIn Economic Justice

002th — Media Neglect makes it less likely the poor will live like other Americans. They are cast from the garden.

Media neglect results in the issue of poverty in America is never treated as an important issue even though 15% of all Americans suffer from it.

Take at look at this quote from the a study from FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Discussions of poverty in campaign coverage were so rare that PBS NewsHour had the highest percentage of its campaign stories addressing poverty—with a single story, 0.8 percent of its total. ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, NPR’s All Things Considered, and Newsweek ran no campaign stories substantively discussing poverty.

The New York Times included substantive information about poverty in just 0.2 percent of its campaign stories and opinion pieces—placing it third out of the eight outlets, behind PBS and CBS.

By contrast with other issues that have received wider attention in recent campaign coverage, “poverty” was mentioned at all, with or (most often) without substantive discussion, in just 3 percent of campaign stories (309 stories) in the eight outlets. This compares to “deficit” and “debt,” which were mentioned about six times as often, in 18 percent (1,848) of election stories.

Even throwing a wider net, to include stories that mentioned “poverty,” “low income,” “homeless,” “welfare” or “food stamps,” turned up just 945 pieces, 10 percent of total election stories—still well below the rate at which “debt” and “deficit” were mentioned.

News coverage focuses concern on issues covered. Media neglect results in important subjects failing to become subjects of concern.

Why isn’t the subject covered? Why is media neglect so prevalent on this problem. Is it not sexy, lurid or violent enough? Is this the result of editorial decisions made at the corporate level? This is a failure in journalism, an ethical failure. The lives of a sixth of Americans are of virtually no concern to the media. The vital issues of the day have to be covered for democracy to function. Media neglect harms our ability to have the knowledge to function as effective citizens.That is wrong.

Is poverty a serious issue? Look at this quote from the same study cited above.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 report (9/11), poverty in 2010 was at a 19-year high, affecting 46 million people, or 15.1 percent of the population. That’s up sharply from 11.3 percent in 2000, and 12.5 percent in 2007. And several groups feel the effects of poverty at a much higher rate than the national average. According to the 2011 census, more than one in five children (22 percent) live in poverty, as do more than a quarter of all blacks (27 percent) and Latinos (26 percent). A 2011 Brookings Institution study (9/13/11) predicted that as many as 10 million additional Americans will join the ranks of the poor by 2014.

The Census Bureau counts a single person under 65 as being in poverty if they make less than $11,702; for a family of four, the cut-off is $22,314 a year. These thresholds—calculated since the 1960s simply by multiplying estimated food costs by three—have been criticized for failing to account for the increased costs of necessities like housing, transportation and childcare, so the official poverty rates may grossly understate the number of families actually living in poverty. The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University (6/08), for example, estimates that “families typically need an income of at least twice the official poverty level ($42,400 for a family of four) to meet basic needs.”

A recent AP report (7/23/12) summarized the dire predictions of economists, academics and think tanks about poverty’s current trajectory: “The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.”

The economic status of 46 million people is important but these human beings are invisible. They have less media existence than a good car chase, a celebrity wardrobe malfunction or a funny cat video. The result is an impoverishment of political, commercial or religious dialogue. A critical matter is placed in the background of public discourse.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” or in this case, 15% of Americans, fellow citizens, human beings, and brothers and sisters before the eyes of God. The marketplace of ideas is where Americans have traditionally found solutions to our problems. Impoverish our dialogue. Limit our thinking. Keep this issue off the front burner, and the problem will have little chance of any positive outcome. It will linger like the poor on the margins of our society.

Democracy thrives on the application of reason and judgment. When a subject is neglected to this extent, the dominant themes will be those based on myth, opinion or lies. There can be no defense if there is no discussion. Facts and evidence are little used and thus, welfare Cadillac’s and women having children to qualify for more money dominate the discussion.

The media should take its responsibilities seriously and give Americans a chance to consider the plight of the poor amongst us.

James Pilant

Actress in “Innocence of Muslims” Says Director Lied to Her

On September 14, 2012 By southwerkIn International

Innocence of Muslims Actress Speaks “says film is nightmare” – YouTube

This film is very much like screaming fire in jam-packed movie house with one small door. This was designed to provoke violence. Whether or not it is protected speech under the first amendment is highly questionable. Remember, fighting words are an exception to free speech protections.

It would be a mistake to consider Moslems to be particularly violent compared to other racial and religious groups. We can offend dozens of religious groups around the world by destroying their symbols and literature, by alleging that their leaders and holy men are frauds and that their religion is based on nothing more than lies and deceit. Many of them can be expected to take to the streets under that kind of provocation.

What would happen Americans burned national flags or symbols, attacked their customs, and insulted their past? I suspect we could see some serious mob action, diplomatic problems and possibly military action.

And consider what would happen if such a film were made about head of the Christian religion and his followers in America. Would many people find charges of sexual misconduct offensive? What would worshippers do if confronted with a film alleging that Christianity is a bundle of lies and its followers deluded fools?

Patriotism and religion have always been sources of violence and conflict in spite of many great and reasonable men who have tried to seek peace and reconciliation.

What “Innocence of Muslims” does and is designed to do is to incite hatred for the United States and violence against its citizens, to disrupt the Moslem world and damage the reputation of their religion.

j_christopher_stevens — J. Christopher Stevens, a victim of the Libyan riot

There are a billion and half followers of Islam on the earth. Very few are interested in damaging American institutions or killing Americans. If so many as 1/10 of 1 percent were devoted to the destruction of America, that would be one million and five hundred thousand Anti Americans. There are 5.62 million Americans overseas. Don’t you think we would we suffer some injuries and death on a daily basis if that number of enemies chose to take any kind of action?

Let’s keep our views of violence in perspective and realize that words have consequences. You may have the right to speak your mind in this country (and that is questionable in this case) but should you do it?

If any amount of rational judgment had been a factor in this matter, it would never have happened.

James Pilant

The Ethics Sage Addresses Youthful Cybercrime – Hacking and Online Bullying

On September 12, 2012 By southwerkIn Opinion

Cyber ethics education – Ethics Sage

I feel strongly that cyber ethics education is a must. Students tend to react more positively to discussing right and wrong behavior when they are personally invested. After all, it is difficult to discuss with youngsters the ethics of some Congressional representative; they can’t relate; they have no frame of reference. However, using computers to steal information or bully others is front and center in their consciousness.

Dr. Marvin Berkowitz of St. Louis University conducted an analysis of the behavioral development factors that must be considered in searching for an optimal age range for instruction of cyber ethics. Dr. Berkowitz concluded that the 9-12 ages was a “very reasonable” age to target for a first time strategy of cyber ethics instruction. Several factors led to this conclusion. This age range is considered a “gateway” age and has been used by other groups to begin message delivery; e.g. substance abuse and sex education. Absent hard data on the age at which children actually begin to go on line, we can generally assume that by age 13 children have routine access to the Internet. The 9-12 ages is also the point in development where children begin to understand abstract values, for example, privacy rights, and can begin to evaluate the consequences of their actions. It is important to be able to think abstractly, particularly when working in a medium that is routinely described as “virtual.”

Cyber ethics education – Ethics Sage

I also feel strongly about this issue. Ethics training should begin in the schools as early as possible and the article is absolutely correct. Dealing with real current issues is completely superior to hypothetical scenarios.What is happening in your life now is almost always more important and more relevant then what might happen. Hacking and cyberbullying, also referred to as cybercrime, are gateway crimes. I believe they can lead to more serious crimes because they make unethical behavior more acceptable and more routine.

I believe that we strengthen our ethics and moral stance by our choices in our life experiences. You can choose to limit television viewing to programs that have strong themes of morality and justice. You can choose motions pictures based on whether or not the film conveys messages of kindness and healing as opposed to wanton killing and theft. You can choose to surround yourself with art, culture and literature choosing to become a fuller and better human being instead of relying on consumerism to make you content in the narrow sense.

Ethics is not just a class in college. It is a lifetime pursuit of the what Greeks called the “good life.” The earlier we begin ethical training and the more relevant it is, the better to begin that internal conversation that builds judgment and wisdom.

There is no doubt in my mind that this society at this time in history needs more judgment and wisdom. We are in the midst of an ethics crisis. The great financial institutions of this country have engaged in trickery and deceit on a massive scaled as well as engaging in the most reckless kind of speculation with other peoples’ money.

Concentrated around Washington and its environs, is a relatively small number of opinion leaders known as “very serious people” or the Washington Elite or the “villagers.” They believe that standardized tests solve educational problems, that cutting the benefits that feed the helpless and keep the elderly out of poverty have to be cut in a time of economic recession and high unemployment. They seem to have no idea how the great mass of Americans live and little curiosity about them. We live in the richest nation on earth and we are unable to maintain our infrastructure or feed the poor. This is immoral. Exalting greed is immoral. Evading taxes by moving money overseas is immoral and unpatriotic. Making corporations already profitable even richer by tax breaks is immoral.

We should start moral education early and if we do so, we see real effects with a little luck in our lifetimes. It is obvious that there has been failures in the moral teaching delivered to this generation.

Let us build a new consensus that “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it”

James Pilant

Liar and Slanderer, Joe Kernen

On September 11, 2012 By southwerkIn Opinion

CNBC Host Joe Kernen: Paul Krugman Is A Communist

“They quoted Paul Krugman and this other idiot, Dean Baker, who’s some guy, I don’t even know who he is, he always writes for The Huffington Post. Basically co-communists in a lot of different economic circles,” Kernen said on Monday. “You know, fact-checkers need fact-checking now. They’re so full of crap. These fact-checkers lie more than the people that they’re fact-checking.”

CNBC Host Joe Kernen: Paul Krugman Is A Communist

Kernan takes CNBC to a new low with his Joe McCarthy antics. I read both Krugman and Baker every day. Their fact checking is solid and even more solid is their status as American Capitalists and patriots. This vicious windbag needs firing. Where would a network find a person like Joe Kernen and believe these kinds of thoughts provide “significant” commentary? They more resemble the rantings of beer soaked bar patron muttering at the television.

It’s the same old thing. When the facts are with you, you cite the facts, when the facts are against you, you pound the table.

This is table pounding, and pathetic table pounding at that.

James Pilant

Popcorn Gets Federal Funding for Popcorn Promotion

On September 10, 2012 By southwerkIn Business Ethics

14-147 — Subsidy spending falls on the public.

Federal spending on popcorn promotion comes under fire | McClatchy

This year the Chicago-based Popcorn Board, created by an act of Congress in 1996, expects to spend nearly a half-million dollars on international promotion. It will target trade shows, school classrooms and primary household food buyers, typically women ages 18-54 with children at home.

The issue is part of the talks as Congress tries to write a new farm bill that would determine how much taxpayers will pay for agriculture commodities. And while popcorn is a small-ticket item compared with wheat, rice, sugar and other mega-crops, opponents say it’s wrong to subsidize the advertising costs of any private business operating outside the United States.

Federal spending on popcorn promotion comes under fire | McClatchy

The Free Market, much worshipped in the halls of Washington (and on the pages of the Washington Post) seems to be less important when the money is given out by our government. According to the Friedman Fundamentalists, an absolute reliance on choice will result eventually (the time table is vague) in a sort of market utopia. We’ll all be content and happy. It’s very similar to a religion without Sunday attendance.

There is certainly a role for the government in the economic life of the nation. Industry and finance need to be regulated. Let me give you an example from Think Progress from this morning –

Scotts Miracle-Gro, the company best known for its eponymous fertilizer, has been ordered to pay $12.5 million in civil and criminal fines for violating the Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticide laws, a judge ruled on Friday. The company plead guilty to “illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds, falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributing unregistered pesticides.”

That’s right. They were selling wild bird seed that was poisonous to the birds! Unethical – I’ll go with that. I have visions of all those elderly retirees unknowingly wacking their feathered friends by keeping bird seed out for them.

But should we subsidize industries, farms or finance?

That’s a more interesting question. However, there is no doubt that popcorn is a profitable industry. The price has gone up about 40 percent over the last decade and Americans consume on the average 52 quarts of popcorn a year. So, what are we getting for our money? Is it in the public interest to make profitable businesses more profitable? That looks surprisingly like a transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to a successful business.

I believe there are circumstances in which an industry should be subsidized by the government. I can find any of those circumstances in this case.

Let the subsidy end.

James Pilant

Saving Money by Warehousing Disabled Kids

On September 9, 2012 By southwerkIn Politics, Uncategorized

Federal officials slam Florida for warehousing disabled kids | McClatchy

Under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, people with disabilities or medical conditions must be housed and treated in community settings whenever possible, not in large isolated institutions as most states did in previous decades. Since the law was passed in 1990, advocates for disabled people and children have used it to shut down often squalid institutions and to move disabled and mentally ill people into their own homes or into group homes that are part of larger communities.

In recent years, however, Florida health administrators have relied upon nursing homes to house hundreds of children who could safely live at home with their parents – often at less expense to the state, advocates claim. In his letter, Perez said the state has cut millions from programs that support the parents of disabled youngsters, refused $40 million in federal dollars that would have enabled some children to stay or return home, encouraged nursing homes to house children by increasing their per diem rate – and even repealed state rules that limited the number of kids who could be housed in nursing homes with adults.

Such policies, the Justice Department says, are not only contrary to federal law, they hurt children: Housed in nursing homes that are ill-equipped to care for them, youngsters often are deprived of an education, are unable to see their own parents and siblings – many of whom live hundreds of miles away – have no ability to socialize with typically developing peers, and sometimes are forced to sit for hours in front of a television for lack of recreation or other activities.

In court pleadings, and in a statement Thursday to The Miami Herald, state health regulators say they are complying with all provisions of the landmark law. The state provides all services that are “medically necessary” to sick and disabled children – including skilled nursing care and home health aides – “up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Shelisha Coleman, a spokeswoman for the state Agency for Health Care Administration, or AHCA, which is a defendant in a 2012 lawsuit that makes the same claims as the Justice Department.

Federal officials slam Florida for warehousing disabled kids | McClatchy

What are the ethics here? The law set up a system to keep children with disabilities at home whenever possible. The state is doing something else. It’s warehousing disabled kids.

I have some experience in state politics. The nursing home industry is often a major campaign contributor to both parties. These kinds of clients bring in millions of dollars of profit. Further, if the children could have been taken care of at home then they form a lesser burden to the institutions than more severe cases – all the more reason to prefer them.

There’s big money here, not to mention the bureaucratic ease of simply processing the children into a system where monthly visits and supervision by state officials is unnecessary or routine.

I’m unimpressed and unhappy with how this is working out.

It’s cold blooded to take children who have a disability and put them in a nursing home without other children, without education and without hope. Not quite murder, but definitely not what the law provided for.

James Pilant

Feds slam Florida for warehousing disabled kids, threatens lawsuit

A You Tube Video on the Columbine Shooting

On September 7, 2012 By southwerkIn Teaching1 Comment

Columbine Shooting: The Final Report [Complete] – YouTube

I don’t own or claim to own this. I am using it for teaching.

Few shooting have gained such notoriety as the Columbine Shooting. The two killers were determined to set off pipe bombs and fire bombs to kill dozens, burn down the school and provoke a shoot out with police. That they failed in these larger plans is a fascinating story. I would like my students to pay attention to the way the documentary breaks their analysis down into a series of questions. Particularly pat attention to police tactics and be prepared to identify shortcomings in their reaction to the crime.

James Pilant

The Teachings of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle) Get Play in British Air Crash Investigation – Heathrow Crash Landing BA Flight 38

On September 7, 2012 By southwerkIn Opinion

Illustration of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brand NEW! 2011 – Air Crash Investigation – Heathrow Crash Landing – BA Flight 38 (FULL) – YouTube

I was tickled to see a quote from I believe The Hound of the Baskervilles: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. Sherlock Holmes, were he alive or in fact an actual human would have been very pleased.

James Pilant

Should We Embed Business Ethics Into All Business Curriculum? Chuck Gallagher Weighs In

On September 7, 2012 By southwerkIn White Collar Crime

Chuck Gallagher SecondChances-3D — Chuck Gallagher’s Book

Business Ethics as a Core Course in Business Schools? What a novel idea…or do you prefer an Orange Jumpsuit and Handcuffs? « Motivational Speaker – Chuck Gallagher Business Ethics and Choices Expert

What a novel idea is right… It seems that what is OBVIOUS sometimes is missed by the masses. Honesty, integrity, and ethics are – or should be – the core foundation for which we operate in life. Yet, as Luigi Zingales points out in his article: “Business School should count ethics as a core course” it appears that all to often those who are at the top of the business food chain seem to forget the core of business fundamentals.

…

So here’s the deal…if your business school isn’t committed to teaching practical ethics then you can’t expect graduates to apply ethics in practical day-to-day applications. What is practical ethics – perhaps it’s ethics applied in such a manner that it keeps you out of an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

I think this is a wonderful idea and it’s a painfully obvious concept. But it would be very difficult to implement. We would have to re-educate massive numbers of business faculty, more than a few of which are going to be doubtful of whether or not ethics has a place in business. There are always a certain number of those believing “It’s a dog eat dog world out there and you better get used to it.

But that one business class devoted to ethics is what’s holding what’s left of the line and not holding it very well. It’s a poetic and noble gesture much like turning an electric fan toward a hurricane to change its path. We in the world of business can do better and should.

James Pilant

Govloop Hits 60,000 Members – You should join!

On September 7, 2012 By southwerkIn Editorial

Wow – this week we hit a new milestone as Santiago Hernandez of Department of Justice in Corpus Christi, Texas became the 60,000th member on GovLoop. All I can say is – that’s awesome. You rock!

It’s amazing to see what was just a simple idea to share ideas in government has turned into the largest knowledge network for government with members across the U.S. and across the globe.

Govloop is a social network for public employees, federal, state and local. If you fall into that group (for instance, like me, faculty at a state institution) maybe you should consider joining. I like the network and I am rooting for its greater success.

We live in an age where electronic networking is becoming more and more important.

Build your connections. Build your influence. Build a better life.

James Pilant