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Recommended Reading
or back to the reality of 21st century USA.
A Chilling Departure From the Capitol an editorial in the NYTimes:
Mr. [Ted] Stevens’s cunning warning was that all those extras would die on the vine unless Alaska drilling was approved. His cynical flimflammery was deservedly rebuffed as enough opponents stood firm against the oil drilling. And soon enough the word went round that things like flu vaccine and hurricane aid were not endangered after all.
Not so the extra fuel aid for low-income families. There was a heating supplement tied to the Alaska proposal, as Mr. Stevens promised. But there was also a separate $2 billion appropriated for the same purpose elsewhere in the legislation - unconnected to the Alaska floor machinations - that somehow was struck from the final bill as lawmakers rushed to recess. Malice? Who can say? Obviously the poor can’t afford a campaign donation PAC to catch Congress’s attention for an answer.
The government’s home heating supplement now stands at a half or less of what the poor will need if predictions of a harsh winter pan out and fuel bills increase 25 percent. Various studies have established that, in a pinch, the poor scrimp on food purchases in order to meet heating bills. Yet Congress’s stinginess is being compounded by the administration’s recent decision to reject a request from New York and several other states to increase food stamp outlays to the poor as fuel bills mount.
Lawmakers insist that the $2 billion supplement technically had to be cut - but may be restored yet again next month. Believe that and we have an oil derrick to sell you in Alaska.
Elderly Give Boost to Appalachian Reading Project By Alan Elsner from Reuters, here in the Washington Post online.
MOUSIE, Ky. — In a battle against entrenched poverty, where adult illiteracy, unemployment and drug addiction are rife, teachers in the Appalachian region have unleashed a new weapon: grandparents.
Under a program sponsored by Save the Children, schools in several counties of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, among the poorest in the nation, have recruited more than 80 grandparents to work in schools helping children learn how to read.
The grandparents — all but three are women and most are well into their seventies — spend several hours a day, working one-on-one with children who have difficulty reading.
“I want to see them do better than driving a coal truck,” said Alma Fraser, 71, in her eighth year as a volunteer. She puts in 7 1/2 hours four days a week at Jones Fork Elementary School in the village of Mousie, and is one of six grandparents working at the school.
“I want to see them wearing ties and white shirts. Be a lawyer, be a doctor, be a chemist, an engineer,” she said. “But you can’t do anything without an education anymore, and reading is the root of it.”
Post-9/11 Rush Mixed Politics With Security, Congressman Benefits From Homeland Security Spending by Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham in the Washington Post:
As a small start-up company in Massachusetts sought to become a major player in the business of homeland security, it hired a lobbyist and attended a fundraiser for one of the most powerful members of Congress.
The company was Reveal Imaging Technologies Inc. The congressman was Rep. Harold “Hal” Rogers (R-Ky.). The fundraiser, held Oct. 22, 2003, brought in $14,000 from Reveal and was the beginning of a mutually beneficial association.
Reveal had just received a government grant to develop smaller, cheaper explosives-detection machines to scan baggage at the nation’s airports. Rogers, who chairs the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, said he wanted the machines to improve security while saving taxpayers money.
In the end, Reveal received a federal contract from the Transportation Security Administration worth up to $463 million. Rogers achieved his goal of launching the next generation of machines. In the process, he received $122,111 in donations to his leadership political action committee from Reveal executives and associates — and a pledge from the company to move $15 million worth of work to Rogers’s poor Appalachian congressional district.
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