Tag: United States

California/Politics & Causes/USA
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After Tax Day: A Tax Savings Tool

by Fran Johns

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, via her intermittent e-mail list, sends this little Tax Day gift message:

Congress and the President have worked together to enact an array of broad-based tax cuts for working and middle-class families and small business owners — ending an era of Republican tax breaks focused only on the wealthy. All totaled, the 111th Congress has enacted more than $800 billion in tax cuts, in the Recovery Act, health insurance reform, and other job-creating tax incentives for American business.

The Recovery Act, which has saved or created more than 2.5 million jobs through March 2010, includes 25 tax cuts you may be eligible for.

Followed by a fairly stern reminder that you’re on your own for filing the right forms and obeying the law, the Recovery Act folks offer a tool to start you on your way:

The Recovery Act Tax Savings Tool is intended to help taxpayers determine their potential eligibility for various tax benefits available under American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Go for it. A little recovery never hurt anybody.

Recovery Act Tax Savings Tool | The White House.

California/Environment/Health/Lifestyle/Money/Politics & Causes/USA
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Are mines as risky as potato salad?

by Fran Johns

Coal mines and potato salad? Not exactly equivalent danger. In my house, where the husband involved is first generation of his family not to have been in the mines (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and before that, Cornwall) we keep an eye on these things. The latest disaster brought to light (thanks, New York Times) an interesting reference that offers insight into the viewpoints of mine owners and managers who profess having safety a #1 priority.

The article references an Indiana Gazette‘s overview of the 35-year-old Mine Safety and Health Administration, which includes these paragraphs:

In 2007, the year after a series of fatal accidents that were attributed in part to the failures of seals designed to keep explosive methane gas from seeping between work areas in the mines, federal officials considered imposing a rule requiring mine owners to replace or retrofit all seals, to better protect the estimated 30,000 miners nationwide.

But at a hearing that year, Bill K. Caylor, then president of the Kentucky Coal Association, accused the government of reacting hysterically to the accidents.

“Did you know that 750 people die each year in the U.S. from eating bad or ruined potato salad?” he told federal regulators. “Do you think we could get some new laws put on the books to control these deaths?”

He urged regulators to ignore pleas from the widows of victims who were pressing them to mandate that new seals be installed in mines nationwide.

“The cost of installing the new approved seals will put a lot of smaller operators out of business,” he told regulators, urging them to require that the new seals only needed to be used when old ones were replaced.

When the final rule came out in 2008, the regulators sided with Caylor.

Not to paint all miners and the UMW as saints, or all mine owners and operators as hopeless bad guys, but that old Follow The Money adage seems to fit here. It often fits in climate change discussions whenever mountains and mining intersect, and it surely pops up a lot in safety stories. Yesterday’s Times article ends with these paragraphs:

Last Monday morning, a federal inspector visited the Upper Big Branch mine. He looked over its books, “discussed black lung and handed out stickers,” according to handwritten notes.

He made an “imminent danger” run in the mine, checked for dust collection and inspected the toilet, the notes say. He checked the conveyer belt and the roof, and took air readings in two locations that showed no methane.

The inspector then issued two citations, for an improperly insulated spliced electrical cable and for the lack of an updated map of escape routes in one section of the mine. Then he left.

That afternoon, the mine blew up.

California/Lifestyle/New York/USA
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Feds target texting drivers

by Fran Johns

Distracted drivers are on a trajectory to top drunk drivers in the major U.S. Stupid Road Hazard category, and may turn out to be even harder to combat. But efforts, at least, are being made.

The Department of Transportation on Thursday stepped up its campaign against distracted driving, announcing its first pilot program to study whether increased law enforcement would reduce distracted driving in two East Coast cities.

“Law enforcement will be out on the roads in Syracuse, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn., with one simple message,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “If a driver is caught with a cellphone in one hand, they’ll end up with a ticket in the other.”

The $600,000 program, modeled on previous safe-driving programs to curb drunk driving and improve seat belt usage, also involves a paid advertising campaign aimed at men and women up to age 49.

The campaign using radio, TV and print ads began April 1 and will continue until April 16 in the Hartford and Syracuse metropolitan areas.

The first wave of high-visibility enforcement began Thursday and will last nine days in Syracuse; in Hartford it will begin Saturday and run through April 16. Subsequent enforcement waves in both cities will take place throughout the year.

As a California driver, and frequent pedestrian, I can certify that vast numbers of drivers are still more concerned with talking or texting than with the threat of a ticket; whether or not enforcement and large fines can wrench folks away from the addiction to constant communication remains to be seen.

Connecticut and New York are among only eight U.S. states and territories, including California, to ban the use of all hand-held devices, including cellphones, while driving.

Twenty states and territories, including California, as well as Washington, D.C., have a ban on texting while driving, while six states have laws that prohibit local jurisdictions from enacting restrictions, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The federal government also introduced new regulations in January that would subject truck and bus drivers who text while driving commercial vehicles to civil or criminal penalties of up to $2,750.

The Transportation Department said results from the pilot study would serve as a model nationwide for employing high-visibility enforcement, education and outreach to reduce distracted-driving behaviors.

In 2008, 5,870 people were killed and an estimated 515,000 people were injured in police-reported crashes in which at least one form of driver distraction was reported, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

On behalf of those half-million victims, and the many of us who fear becoming a similar statistic just because somebody can’t hang up and drive, this space hereby sides with the Department of Transportation on this one.

Law enforcement keeping an eye out for distracted drivers – chicagotribune.com.

California/Entertainment/Environment/General interest/Lifestyle/Media/New York/USA
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Will fatherhood change Rev. Billy?

by Fran Johns

It’s true. The 50-something Reverend is a new father. Rev. Billy and his gorgeous wife  Savitri, today welcomed Lena Nightstar Talen into the world. If you Facebook friend him you can see her photos.

You may not have encountered Rev. Billy. He is, however, worth encountering. Minister of the Church of Stop Shopping, occasionally the Church of Stop the Bombing or most recently the Church of Life After Shopping, Reverend Billy got out of jail in time for his daughter’s arrival. He was incarcerated (something that happens with some regularity) for creating a mountain of toxic waste from Appalachia and dumping it in the NY lobby of JP Morgan Chase in protest against their financing of mountaintop mining.

Rev. Billy, a performance artist AKA Bill Talen, puts his energies where his beliefs are in ways most of us couldn’t imagine — and certainly couldn’t pull off. He ran unsuccessfully but with gusto for Mayor of New York in the last election. Long before the gun folks targeted Starbucks the Rev was targeting them for driving out the mom and pop stores. (That particular campaign, which included preaching a one-minute anti-Starbucks sermon in every Starbucks in Manhattan, got Starbucks’ attention, prompted a memo to their outlets and resulted in a book titled after that memo, What Should I Do If Reverend Billy Is In My Store.)

The Rev supports equality, gay rights and everyday folks; he laments consumerism, corporate culture, destruction of the environment and other popular evils. His laments, though, are considerably more activist than most. This is partly because he’s gifted and funny, and mostly because he truly believes that one should stand up for principles that matter. Check him out. You may not agree with his passions or his methods, but you won’t be bored.

About those passions, what Rev. Billy wants most is a better world for newcomers like Lena Nightstar. He’s entertaining, but he’s dead serious.

So no, I doubt that fatherhood will slow him down. Congratulations, Savitri & Bill.

California/General interest/Health/Politics & Causes/seniors/USA
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Quality health care at lower cost? It could happen

by Fran Johns

It seems a no-brainer: reward the doctors and hospitals that give the best care, latch on to programs and ideas that offer quality over quantity. But innovation in health care, even when it proves out, has always taken a very long time to work into the system.

In a ‘Talk of the Town’ piece appearing in the latest New Yorker magazine, writer Atul Gawande offers a thoughtful look at some of the hurdles ahead for the newly-passed health bill. They are primarily political: conservatives — even if they’re talking less and less about repeal — will run on pieces they plan to strip out, states will fight the insurance exchanges (such as those that make health coverage near universal in Senator Scott Brown‘s Massachusetts.) And other battle lines will be drawn.

But one primary problem with the dysfunction we are hoping to fix, Gawande points out, is that the current system “pays for quantity of care rather than the value of it.” He illustrates this with a case that makes you cheer, and then feel a little hopeless:

Recently, clinicians at Children’s Hospital Boston adopted a more systematic approach for managing inner-city children who suffer severe asthma attacks, by introducing a bundle of preventive measures. Insurance would cover just one: prescribing an inhaler. The hospital agreed to pay for the rest, which included nurses who would visit parents after discharge and make sure that they had their child’s medicine, knew how to administer it, and had a follow-up appointment with a pediatrician; home inspections for mold and pests; and vacuum cleaners for families without one (which is cheaper than medication). After a year, the hospital readmission rate for these patients dropped by more than eighty per cent, and costs plunged. But an empty hospital bed is a revenue loss, and asthma is Children’s Hospital’s leading source of admissions. Under the current system, this sensible program could threaten to bankrupt it. So far, neither the government nor the insurance companies have figured out a solution.

There is in the new bill, though, a ray of hope:

The most interesting, under-discussed, and potentially revolutionary aspect of the law is that it doesn’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, through a new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, it offers to free communities and local health systems from existing payment rules, and let them experiment with ways to deliver better care at lower costs. In large part, it entrusts the task of devising cost-saving health-care innovation to communities like Boise and Boston and Buffalo, rather than to the drug and device companies and the public and private insurers that have failed to do so. This is the way costs will come down—or not.

Imagine innovation being rewarded, communities being encouraged to find ways to improve quality of care at lower cost. That’s real reform, and it could just happen.

The next attacks on health-care reform : The New Yorker.

California/Lifestyle/Religion/USA/Women
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If you happen to be in Omaha

by Fran Johns

This is going on in Omaha? Omaha Nebraska? Indeed.

No one should really be surprised. My friend Ward Schumaker, a gifted artist and not exactly your run-of-the-mill conformist, comes from Omaha. He and the similarly-describable Vivienne were visiting family there once when they up and married, sending word of the event with a notation in tiny print at the bottom that read ‘Forgive us.’ I think his mother was in her eighties when she started an innovative Midnight Basketball program to help keep Omaha kids off the streets. Innovation happens in Omaha.

This morning a notice arrived in my Inbox about an open position for an intern with Project Interfaith in Omaha. Project Interfaith is, as explained below the job description, a non-profit organization dedicated to growing understanding, respect and relationships among people of all faiths, beliefs and cultures. You might want to apply.

Project Interfaith, started in 2004, is one of the younger such groups around the country with these goals. (I would be in big trouble if I failed to single out the San Francisco Interfaith Council, on whose board I serve.) There’s even an organization of organizations, the North American Interfaith Network which covers organizations and agencies in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.  Some of the others might be looking for interns too, but don’t go there if you want to get rich, other than in spirit.

Is this news, even in Omaha? Probably not. But it is worth noting, at a time when the need for understanding and respect among people of different beliefs and cultures is at an all-time high.

California/General interest/Health/Politics & Causes/seniors/USA/Women
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Palin, Pelosi & the politics of scorn

by Fran Johns

Much ado is being made over two lady politicos these days, Sarah Palin for her six-figure fees and Nancy Pelosi for her legislative expertise. Both are commendable — depending on how one chooses to commend — but unfortunately they are continuing to feed the politics of scorn. Which is unlikely to lead to bi-partisanship or collegiality any time soon. Maybe both are dead.

Palin’s usefulness to her party is a matter of dispute. According to two prominent speakers at a Wednesday breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor (as reported by Monitor writer Dave Cook), Palin’s rise is great good news for the Democrats.

“Look at this dynamic that is produced with Sarah Palin,” said Stanley Greenberg, chairman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. “You have John McCain having to have Sarah Palin to save him [in a primary election race]…”

In the aftermath of the passage of healthcare reform, the ongoing discussion is “Barack Obama against Sarah Palin on healthcare,” he said.

Mr. Greenberg, who served as President Clinton’s pollster, argued that “The face of the Republican Party to the country is not the ‘tea party,’ it is Sarah Palin.”

James Carville, President Clinton’s campaign manager and the other speaker at Wednesday’s breakfast, suggested a test to the assembled journalists. “Do me favor. Call five Democratic consultants and leave a message and say I am doing a story on Sarah Palin and call five Republicans, and see who returns the phone call. I think we all know the answer to that. The Democrats will be on the phone so fast.”

Much as some of us do not admire Sarah Palin, the sneer factor employed by her detractors can be oppressive. (Come on, if you’re an anti-Palin, think of the slurs you have slung her way.) She is, herself, a master of derision in a by-golly sort of fashion, and it is this that brings loud huzzahs from her audiences when she takes on the Democrats.

Not to be outdone, Speaker Pelosi (whom I appreciate and respect) was heaping scorn upon the Republicans in speeches to California audiences this week,

… saying they “have nothing to sell” to the American people except a crude caricature of her as the midterm elections approach.

Pelosi, D-San Francisco, was surrounded at the Phillip and Sala Burton Center by ardent advocates of health reform, who cheered when she was cheerful and roared when she was defiant. And she was proudly defiant.

“I couldn’t care less,” she said of GOP efforts to use her as campaign fundraising bait. “I should be thanking them. … It really helps me with my fundraising.”

The issues are real, and occasionally that is made clear:

“This is a bill about the middle class. This is a bill about small businesses. This is a bill about affordability,” Pelosi said.

Still, Pelosi warned Democrats that the fight isn’t over, saying Republicans “are unabashed in wanting to rid us of this … and one way they think they can do it is by making gross misrepresentations to senior citizens” with what she called a “campaign of fear.”

Appearing before a crowd dominated by seniors carrying signs of appreciation – “Thank you, madame speaker” – Pelosi was lauded by a parade of admirers, including Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, doctors and senior advocates who praised her tireless push for the measure.

Admittedly, Pelosi was in friendly territory this week, as Palin has been in recent days herself.

Palin last weekend put Pelosi and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the center of her campaign-style speech to Tea Partiers attending a rally in Searchlight, Nev., Reid’s hometown. “You’re fired,” she said of the two Democratic standard-bearers.

This may be the way politics works. But wouldn’t it be nice if occasionally, some way could be found for opposing sides at least to be civil in the interest of the common good.

Defiant Pelosi scorns Republicans.

California/General interest/Health/Lifestyle/seniors/USA/Women
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When Mom & Dad stay home — and need care

by Fran Johns

Years ago when my grandmother was dying — a process that seemed to consume her for a very long time — her children took turns having their semi-invalid mother live with them for a period of months. Grandmother was not an easy patient. She spent most of her days talking about how everyone she loved was dead — which used to make me wonder where my sisters, my long-suffering mother and I stood with her. But Grandmother’s decline was before technology complicated such events, and pretty much all that was needed was to put a borrowed bed somewhere, try to keep her comfortable and entertained and call the doctor if she needed anything. Most of her six children had at least one at-home family member who could handle Grandmother’s care for a few months without straining the family budget or everyone’s patience and good humor.

Caring for aging family members today is not so simple. Few families have a stay-at-home member able to juggle regular routine with patient care, such  care now often calls for high-tech equipment and/or high-cost drugs and interventions, and doctors don’t make house calls every other night.

In an informative and enlightening ‘Encore’ feature, Wall Street Journal writer Anne Tergesen follows the adventures of several families wherein siblings have become caregivers to aging parents.

Family cohesiveness is a tall order at any time of life. But as parents grow frail, brothers and sisters often encounter new obstacles to togetherness—at precisely the time they most need to rely on one another. Sibling rivalry can emerge or intensify as adult children vie, one last time, for a parent’s love or financial support. And even as parents grow dependent on children, the desire to cling to old, familiar roles can create a dysfunctional mess.

Today, with the economy and household finances in disrepair, such strains are more pronounced. According to a recent report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, about 43.5 million Americans look after someone 50 or older, 28% more than in 2004. In comparison with 2004, a smaller percentage—41% versus 46%—are hiring help. And more—70% versus 59%—are reaching out to unpaid help, such as family and friends.

Experts say it’s crucial that families figure out ways to work together, to work through their differences, for the common goal of caring for a parent. If they don’t, their parents will suffer—and so will they.

“Family caregivers are the backbone of the long-term-care system in this country,” says Francine Russo, author of a new book about how siblings can cope with aging parents, “They’re Your Parents, Too!” Siblings who work together, she adds, can help preserve not just one another’s health and sanity but also a “last link to their first family.”

There is, fortunately, a lot of support for family caregivers, through sources listed above, the Family Caregiver Alliance and other local or national groups. There are also helpful tips, many of which are outlined in Tergesen’s article: use new technologies, seek help, be flexible, keep lists, and laugh a lot.

The latter was what saved my family from collapse during Grandmother’s stays in our home. Grandmother would today be easily identified as clinically, chronically, severely depressed. My sister Mimi and I devised a game, after the first few days of jockeying for position as the one not to have to spend the afternoon with Grandmother. Whoever came up with the most hilarious joke to tell and see if we could make her laugh, or the most bizarre question (“Did Uncle James really go to jail, like we’ve heard?”) to prompt a family story, would win. I don’t know if this technique has real merit but it worked for us. We laughed a great deal, and Grandmother got to tell a LOT of previously untold family stories. Some of them were even true.

Siblings Overcome Conflicts to Care for Aging Parents – WSJ.com.

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