Basic Human Decency

It's my birthday today, but instead of buying me presents, how about helping ProMED, a non-profit organization that provides important disease and health information to over 155 countries? Here's some more information about what ProMED does: ProMED-mail - the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases - is an Internet-based reporting system dedicated to rapid global dissemination of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases and acute exposures to toxins that affect human health, including those in animals and in plants grown for food or animal feed. Electronic communications enable…
Leave it to conservatives to actually conduct the War on Christmas (Got Scrooge?). I give you National Review editor Kate O'Beirne on the problem of hunger (italics mine): O'BEIRNE: And then the title of our gathering is so crucial; "Less of Washington and More of Ourselves". The federal school lunch program and now breakfast program and I guess in Washington DC, dinner program are pretty close to being sacred cows... broad bipartisan support. And if we're going to ask more of ourselves, my question is what poor excuse for a parent can't rustle up a bowl of cereal and a banana? I just don't…
Or, at least, don't obey Massachusetts law and receive the healthcare they are entitled to. Esterline Technologies demonstrates that much of what passes for 'rational business decision making' is actually ideology combined with petty personal vendetta. From Yves Smith: This story illustrates how far some companies are willing to go to preserve their bottom lines and assert their right to operate in an unfettered manner, even when that includes breaking the law and violating contracts... Esterline is in the process of shuttering its Tauton manufacturing operation, Haskon Aerospace, which…
There's never a good time to be hungry--and, yes, people in the U.S. still experience actual hunger--but Thanksgiving is an especially cruel time. Since everything is closed today anyway, take a couple of minutes to send some help to your local foodbank. Every dollar helps--and they don't just need food, but also funding to pay for facilities. With one in seven Americans receiving food stamps, the need is acute and desperate. If you're in the Boston area, these people do good work. Thank you.
Yes, we have left no sense of decency. From Indiana, we find this story about parents of disabled children who can't receive state aid for their disabled children: Indiana's budget crunch has become so severe that some state workers have suggested leaving severely disabled people at homeless shelters if they can't be cared for at home, parents and advocates said. They said workers at Indiana's Bureau of Developmental Disabilities Services have told parents that's one option they have when families can no longer care for children at home and haven't received Medicaid waivers that pay for…
Once again, Obama has decided to inflict post-partisan depression on us. Here's our latest installment in "Looking Forward, Not Back" (italics mine): "Where any homeowner has been defrauded or denied the basic protections or rights they have under law, we will take actions to make sure the banks make them whole, and their rights will be protected and defended," Donovan said at a Washington press briefing. "First and foremost, we are committed to accountability, so that everyone in the mortgage process -- banks, mortgage servicers and other institutions -- is following the law. If they have…
So my first thought upon reading that a fraternity pledge ritual involved chanting in a public place "No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal" was "Frat boys are still assholes. Nice to see that some things remain constant." Then I read that this happened at Yale, and my next thought was, "I wonder which of these assholes, when he graduates, will be hired by J.P. Morgan." ("You're one of the anal rape guys? Congratulations, you're hired!") Then, upon further reflection (such as it is for the Mad Biologist), I stumbled across the following question: Why haven't they been suspended, or, preferably,…
Update: Thanks to everyone visiting. I worked really hard on this post too, and it's also kinda important and about kids too, so please stop by that one too. Dan Savage has exactly the right approach to dealing with the sanctimony of the theopolitical right. In response to an interview Savage gave about the "It Gets Better" campaign to combat anti-gay hatred directed at teenagers, a Christian who describes himself as "someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage" writes to Savage: If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you…
Last week, I showed pictures of what a food stamp budget actually buys. By way of Susie Madrak, we come across this article describing hunger in Philadelphia: Sherita Parks went shopping in a corner store in Frankford the other day with her too-thin daughter, Joe-anna, 2.... "I only wanted to spend a dollar today, so this is a lot," Parks said. "But she'll eat a slice of cheese for a meal." On the walk home, Joe-anna, who weighs 20 pounds but should be 26 or more, dawdled on the dirty sidewalks of Torresdale Avenue until Parks pulled her into the tidy, small house owned by Joe-anna's father…
Sometimes, as decrepit as our traditional media corporations are, they suffer from an outbreak of human decency. Kudos to the St. Petersburg Times for this obituary about a hit-and-run victim. Here's why they ran it: Shortly after the St. Petersburg Times announced Mr. Smith's death on its website, a reader posted a comment stating the following: A man who is working as a dishwasher at the Crab Shack at the age of 48 is surely better off dead. Web editors removed the comment, deeming it an offensive and insensitive insult to a dead man's friends and family. Though hardly unusual -- check…
I swear every time I go on vacation, there's an outbreak of stupidity. One symptom is a ridiculous plaint by law professor Todd Henderson, who whines about barely getting by on $450,000 per year. No, really, I'm not kidding. I suppose the rest of us should just eat a bullet or something (and bullets are cheap!). Thankfully, Michael O'Hare and Brad DeLong (aka 'Mr. Deling') tear down this staggering display of narcissism. I would only add that when one has $500,000 of student debt, you probably shouldn't buy a million dollar house. Or maybe, you'll have to forgo part of the $100,000…
If you're Jewish, you'll probably be reading this in a few hours, depending on your time zone. What really bugs me about the theopolitical right is their selective choosing of which parts of the Bible they will take 'literally' and which parts they ignore. They typically ignore this bit by my landsman Izzy, which is read every year on Yom Kippur: To be sure, they seek Me daily, Eager to learn My ways. Like a nation that does what is right, That has not abandoned the laws of its God, They ask Me for the right path, They are eager for the nearness of God: :Why, when we fasted, did You not see…
(from here) Last weekend, Glenn Beck and his Tea Party dupes decided to 'reclaim' Martin Luther King's legacy. In light of that, this speech King gave to striking sanitation workers in Memphis seems appropriate--and puts the lie to Beck's propaganda: My dear friends, my dear friend James Lawson, and all of these dedicated and distinguished ministers of the Gospel assembled here tonight, to all of the sanitation workers and their families, and to all of my brothers and sisters, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be in Memphis tonight, to see you here in such large and…
Marc Ambinder reports that Ken Mehlman has admitted to friends and family that he is gay (did anyone really not know?): "It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I…
In an otherwise excellent article about the Breitbart scandal/Sherrod non-scandal*, Eric Alterman writes the following: To be fair, Kurtz does come up with one legitimate example [of liberal excess]. He quotes MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, observing that Sherrod's reputation had been "assassinated by Fox News"--which is undeniable--but who also referred to and "that scum Breitbart." Olbermann is always the example that conservatives use, but even though he does go too far on occasion, his antics are in no way comparable to those of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. What's more, there are more accurate…
In his weekend roundup, driftglass reminds us that there was a time when our mainstream pop culture villified torture and praised those who attempted to resist it: And then Fox TV's Torture Porn Show, also known as 24, made torturing fashionable. Strength was to be had in torturing people, not in resisting it. At this point, it's tempting to bemoan our nation's sorry fate, but Thomas Levenson offers a good explanation of how we reached this dismal point (italics mine): ....this [bizarre and obscene definition of lynching] is an example of the kind of rhetorical deceit that would have made…
Someone tell me why we didn't nationalize BP assets in the U.S., fire the board of directors and other high-level managers, and then use the assets to fix all of the problems--including the unemployment caused by the spill. Because this sounds like the clarion calls of freedom and liberty to me (italics mine): In the first few days after BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters. Coastal…
I'm surprised that this revelation by Democratic Congressman David Obey hasn't received more attention. Basically, the House Democrats went to the wall for education and managed to get $10 billion to prevent teacher layoffs and an additional $5 billion for Pell Grants. To do so, they had to cut Obama's educational 'reform' program, Race to the Top, by about fifteen percent. This is the same so-called reform bill that screwed over Massachusetts' schools and that also weakened science education. What was the Obama administration's response? According to Obey (italics mine): The secretary…
Like Atrios, DeLong, and The Krugman, I'm old enough to remember when nine to ten percent unemployment was not only an economic disaster, but also viewed as an ethical and societal one. With that, I first bring you some ethics by way of the Slacktivist: I'm not an economist, but we've got five applicants for every single job opening. If you tell me that the best response to that situation is to lay off hundreds of thousands of teachers, I will not accept that this means that you're smarter and more expert than I am. I will instead conclude -- regardless of your prestige or position or years…
One of the problems with the rise of behavioral economics is that too often behavior is defined as irrational, the result of cognitive screwups. I've dealt with this issue before, but James Kwak convincingly argues that the BP oil disaster is not due to a cognitive failure to assess risk: I have no doubt that it is true that people have problems estimating the chances of certain rare events.* But to stop there is to whitewash the sins of the companies and the executives who created these crises. First, it doesn't do to say that ordinary people are irrational in making ordinary everyday…