AN insidious trend has developed over this past third of a century. A country that experienced shared growth after World War II began to tear apart, so much so that when the Great Recession hit in late 2007, one could no longer ignore the fissures that had come to define the American economic landscape. How did this “shining city on a hill” become the advanced country with the greatest level of inequality?
One stream of the extraordinary discussion set in motion by Thomas Piketty’s timely, important book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has settled on the idea that violent extremes of wealth and income are inherent to capitalism. In this scheme, we should view the decades after World War II — a period of rapidly falling inequality — as an aberration.
This is actually a superficial reading of Mr. Piketty’s work, which provides an institutional context for understanding the deepening of inequality over time. Unfortunately, that part of his analysis received somewhat less attention than the more fatalistic-seeming aspects. Continue reading Joseph E. Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | NYTimes→
Personhood is an anti-abortion movement that holds that life begins at conception, giving fertilized eggs all the rights of a human being. It might make it impossible to kidnap them for in-vitro fertilization. It could outlaw some forms of contraception.
Senator Rand Paul claims every fertilized egg is protected by the 14th Amendment. Many current Senate candidates are personhood supporters, including Cory Gardner, who is running a very close race in Colorado against Mark Udall. Continue reading Gail Collins: The Abortion Wars Rage On – NYTimes.com→
Annie Lowrey writes in the Times Magazine this week about the troubles of Clay County, Ky., which by several measures is the hardest place in America to live.
The Upshot came to this conclusion by looking at six data points for each county in the United States: education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity. We then averaged each county’s relative rank in these categories to create an overall ranking. Continue reading Where Are the Hardest Places to Live in the U.S. | NYTimes→
Various pundits, by now, have weighed in on today’s Supreme Court decision striking down Massachusetts’ buffer zone law for abortion clinics. To be sure, I don’t disagree that this decision will make it much harder for already vulnerable women to get the care they seek. To be sure, this is a blow to women. There is no doubt, were we talking about a buffer zone at clinics where men receive erectile dysfunction treatment, not only would buffer zones be just dandy, but walls would be mandated, for extra protection and privacy.
This unanimous decision implies that when there is a choice between women’s right to privacy or the right of a stranger to tell you about their beliefs, whether you are interested in hearing them or not, you have no right to choose to avoid it. Continue reading My Takeaway from SCOTUS’ Buffer Zones Decision→
Have you been following the news about Obamacare? The Affordable Care Act has receded from the front page, but information about how it’s going keeps coming in — and almost all the news is good. Indeed, health reform has been on a roll ever since March, when it became clear that enrollment would surpass expectations despite the teething problems of the federal website.
What’s interesting about this success story is that it has been accompanied at every step by cries of impending disaster. At this point, by my reckoning, the enemies of health reform are 0 for 6. That is, they made at least six distinct predictions about how Obamacare would fail — every one of which turned out to be wrong. Continue reading So Much for Obamacare Not Working – NYTimes→
There are Epilepsy patients for whom medications are not an option. For those patients, alternatives to pharmaceuticals include the Ketogenic Diet. A subset of those for whom the Ketogenic diet offers at least some measurable relief, the addition of a VNS implant can mean effective control of epileptic seizures.
How Did Brett Favre Help Thad Cochran in His Senate Race?
Mississippi has sent us a message. I believe it boils down to: We Want Our Stuff.
Big election night! As you no doubt have heard, Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican who specializes in sending billions of dollars in federal pork back into his state, defeated a Tea Party challenger who ran against government spending. Continue reading Gail Collins: Mississippi Goes for the Money | NYTimes→
Fifty years after Freedom Summer, Mississippi education remains separate and unequal
Myrtle School, Union County, 1956 (courtesy of Bill and Rita Bender)
Fifty years ago this month, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act outlawing segregation in all public facilities. The Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating public schools was already a decade old. Nevertheless, nearly all of Mississippi’s schools still operated under the pretense of “separate but equal.”
It was obvious to anyone who cared to look that Mississippi was more interested in separation than equality. White schools had the appearance of modernity, even if they often lacked the quality of more affluent states. Black schools, meanwhile, were often rustic and ramshackle. One-room schoolhouses had not yet gone extinct in some areas. The state spent 50 percent more on white education than black education, while districts supplemented white school funding with an average of four dollars for every dollar spent on black schools. Disparities in some districts reached 80 to one. Continue reading Fifty years after Freedom Summer, Mississippi education remains separate and unequal | Rethink Mississippi→
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