REDEYE 5/22/13

Black and Latino workers hard-hit
Harvard Magazine, May 2013 — When the national unemployment average hit double figures  in October 2009 — for the first time in more than a quarter century — it was major news. But unemployment among black men had already been in the double digits for most of the last deveral decades. Unemployment rates also topped 10 percent among Latino men during the Great Recession — but not among white males.
Unemployment rates alone do not reveal the full extent of the job crisis affecting many low-income communities....We show the combined rates of unemployment among males by racial and ethnic group. (Involuntary part-time workers are those who would like to work a 40-hour-per-week job but have had their hours curtailed or are unable to find full-time employment.) As the data indicate, economic cycles — particularly the deep recessions the United States experienced recently and in the early 1980s — affected rates of employment and underemployment among black and Latino males much more severely than among their white counterparts.

Jackie Robinson ‘can’t salute flag’
NYT, 4/7 — In the film [‘42’] we don’t get to see the Dodgers play the Yankees in that [1947 world]] series. But listen to [Jackie] Robinson, in his 1972 autobiography, ‘‘I Never Had It Made,’’ as he writes about Game 1 at Yankee Stadium:
‘‘Today as I look back on that opening game of my first World Series, I must tell you that....I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.’’

Business neglect = big ‘accidents’
NYT, 4/29 — To the Editor:
The loss of life is tragic no matter how it happens, but we cannot chalk industrial catastrophes up to ‘‘accident....’’ Incidents like the factory explosion in West, Tex., are often preventable. Corporate negligence and poor government oversight drastically increase the risk that they will happen....
Over time, these incidents create far more death and misery than that caused by bombings, which...are extremely rare.
Bombs mobilize our fears, but the daily devastation wreaked by corporate negligence is also tragic, and it will become only more so if we allow it to remain hidden.

Economists call system hopeless
NYT, 4/24 — Last week the International Monetary Fund hosted a conference  of some of the world’s top macroeconomists to assess...the...crisis....
After five years of coping with the consequences of the disaster, there is still so much uncertainty about what polices are needed to prevent another financial shock from tipping the world economy into the abyss again a few years down the road.
‘‘We....really don’t have much of a clue.’’

Cops in schools: kids affected badly
NYT, 4/19 — ....A growing body of research suggests that...a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal....
In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1 percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent....
The presence of the officers did not drive down crime....Routine disciplinary problems began to be treated as criminal justice problems....
Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in schools....Young people who spend time in adult jails are likely to have problems with law enforcement later on. Moreover, federal data suggests a pattern of discrimination in the arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected than their white peers.


REDEYE 5/8/13

Bug shows cops seek male black youth
NYT, 3/22 — For years, the debate over the New York Police Department’s use of stop-and-frisk tactics has centered on whether officers engage in racial profiling. Now, a recording suggests that…a person’s skin color can be a deciding factor in who is stopped.
The recording…was of a…commanding officer….Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack….[who] said the way to suppress violent crime…was for officers to stop, question and, if necessary, frisk “the right people, at the right time, the right location.”
The officer who surreptitiously recorded the conversation…began pressing Inspector McCormack about who he meant by the “right people.” The conversation grew heated.
Civil rights lawyers have long maintained that the term “right people” is police code for young black and Hispanic men, who make up an overwhelming share of those stopped….
“The problem was…male blacks,” Inspector McCormack said. “And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, male blacks 14 to 21.”

Rosa Parks fought alongside reds
NYT, 3/31 — “People always say that I [refused to] give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired that I usually was at the end of a day.”
….Parks was politically active before and long after the Montgomery bus boycott, and her family was equally engaged. Her…husband, Raymond, participated in the Communist-led movement defending the Scottsboro boys….Parks also met the veteran organizer Ella Baker, who mentored her. Throughout her career, she never shied way from progressives, even those labeled Communist.

‘Cops in schools don’t help safety’
NYT, 4/12 — HOUSTON — As school districts across the country consider placing more police officers in schools, youth advocates and judges are raising alarm about what they have seen in the schools where officers are already stationed: a surge in criminal charges against children for misbehavior that many people believe is better handled in the principals office.
Since the early 1990s, thousands of districts, often with federal subsidies, have paid local police agencies to provide armed “school resource officers” for high school, middle schools and sometimes even elementary schools….
The White House has proposed an increase in police officers based in schools….
Yet the most striking impact of school police officers so far, critics say, has been a surge in arrests of misdemeanor charges for essentially nonviolent behavior…that sends children into the criminal courts.
“There is no evidence that placing officers in the schools improves safety,” aid Denise C. Gottfredson, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, who is an expert in school violence.

U.S. deportation often unconscionable
NYT, 4/8 — To the Editor:
“Immigrant Detainees and the Right to Counsel”…rightly highlights the injustice of mot providing those detained in civil immigrant proceedings with access to counsel. This particularly affects the most vulnerable, including sex trafficking victims….
Victims of domestic violence, sex trafficking and female genital mutilation face the possibility of severe harm and possible murder upon return to there home countries, whether or not they are detained while awaiting a hearing.
It is unconscionable that the United State deports 400,000 noncitizens a year without any guarantee of access to counsel and any way of knowing what harm awaits these noncitizens once they leave the Unites States.

‘Race’ + class = worst student lag
NYT, 4/13 — In 2009, the Program for International Student Assessment, which compares performance across advance industrialized countries, ranked American 15-year-olds 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math….One-third of entering college students need remedial education. Huge gaps by ‘race’ and class persist: the average black high school senior’s reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress continue to be at the level of the average white eighth grader’s….
As the education scholar Charles M. Payne had put it: “So much reform, so little change.”

REDEYE 4/24/13

Immigrants facing mental harm
NYT, 4/2 — On any given day, about 300 immigrants are held in solitary confinement at the 50 largest detention facilities that make up the sprawling patchwork of holding centers ….
Nearly half are isolated for 15 days or more, the point at which psychiatric experts say they are at risk for severe mental harm, with about 35 detainees kept for more than 75 days….
Two-thirds of the cases involve [minor] disciplinary infractions like…talking back to guards or getting into fights.

Unemployment a heart-attack risk
CardioSource: Journal Scan — The associations between…unemployment and the risks for [heart attacks] in U.S. adults were assessed in a…study of adults….
The median age of the study…was 62 years;…69.7% had one or more cumulative job losses, and 35.1% had spent time unemployed….
The authors concluded that unemployment status, multiple job losses and short periods without work are all significant factors for heart attacks….
Psychosocial stress has been…a risk factor for heart attacks, but it is difficult to separate stress/anxiety/depression from poor diet, smoking, hypertension, diabetes and a lack of exercise. This very large study demonstrated that single and cumulative job loss is [indeed] a factor for attacks.

Companies take revenge on docs’ exposés
NYT, 2/17 — The note sent by a doctor to several executives at Johnson & Johnson was blunt: an artificial hip sold by the company was so poorly designed that the company should slow its marketing until it understood why patients were getting hurt.
The doctor, who also worked as a consultant to Johnson & Johnson, wrote the note nearly two years before the company recalled the device in 2010. And it was far from the only early warning those executives got from doctors who were paid consultants. Still the company…plowed ahead, and those consultants never sounded a public alarm to other doctors who kept implanting the device….
…Lawyers have offered a portrait of executives who put profits ahead of patients, even scuttling a plan to fix the implants because it cost too much…..
…While experts say that doctors have an ethical obligation to warn their peers about bad drugs or medical devices, they often do not do so.
“Questioning the status quo in medicine is not easy….The standard in the medical community is not to report,” said…a cardiologist who, along with a colleague, warned other doctors in 2005 about a defective heart transplant.
There is a…reason doctors may choose to remain silent, experts say: their financial ties to a drug or device maker.
For years, such consulting payments have raised concerns about the impact of money on a doctor’s decision about which drugs to prescribe or how to interpret research findings….
“If someone is paying you or employing you, it is very difficult to blow the whistle….”
For a consultant, breaking those ties can carry a cost. For example, when Dr. Lawrence D. Dorr, an orthopedic specialist, warned fellow surgeons in an open letter in 2008 that a hip implant made by Zimmer Holdings was flawed, he became the subject of a whisper campaign that questioned his skills as a surgeon.
“The first thing that a company does [when accused] is put out a campaign that a surgeon does not know how to operate….”

Eurozone unemployment spreading
GW, 3/29 — Last Sunday…the terms of a bailout for Cyprus — the fifth in the Eurozone in less than three years — were finally agreed. Those who say the monetary union has been a success must have an interesting definition of failure….
The threat to the …crisis was clearly not over for those eurozone citizens affected by slow growth, rising unemployment and austerity programs. This meant most of them….

U.S. ‘right to counsel’ is a lie, puts kids in jail
NYT, 3/31 — A…landmark Supreme Court decision…gave poor defendants the right to counsel. It would be nice to celebrate….
Two recent books put a damper on the celebration, revealing just how random and impoverished justice can be, and how flimsy the right to counsel. In “Kids for Cash,” the investigative reporter William Ecenbarger tells the story behind a corruption scandal so brazen and cruel if defies imagination. Between 2003 and 2008, two Pennsylvania judges accepted millions of dollars in kickbacks from a private juvenile detention facility in exchange for sending children — girls and boys, some as young as 11 — to jail….
After the briefest of hearings — the average length was four minutes — kids were dispatched to detention centers in which the judges had a financial interest….
It was not a case of rogue judges acting alone. In a “festival of injustice,” prosecutors, public defenders, teachers and court employees saw it and did nothing…..
“Kids for Cash” and “The Injustice System” reveal the deep gap between cherished ideals and harsh reality in a country addicted to incarceration….

REDEYE 4/10/13

Haiti cholera worse, aid drying up
NYT, 3/18 — Doctors Without Borders said…that the cholera crisis in Haiti was getting worse, for the most unnecessary and appalling of reasons: a lack of money and basic medical supplies.
The disease has killed 8,000 people and sickened 649,000 since October 2010….Doctors Without Borders says people are dying now, needlessly, because attention and money are running out. Aid groups are leaving. Staff members at some treatment centers haven’t been paid for months, equipment is wearing out and sanitary precautions are being abandoned. The death rate has reached an intolerable high 4 percent in some places….And the rainy season is about to make things much more difficult.
The dreadful backdrop to this emergency is an abdication of responsibility by… particularly the United Nations. The U.N. said last month that it would not pay financial compensation for the epidemic’s victims, claiming immunity. This is despite the overwhelming evidence that the U.N. introduced the disease, which was unknown in Haiti until is suddenly appeared near a base where U.N. peacekeepers had let sewage spill into a river….
… [The U.N.’s] handling of cholera is looking like a fiasco….
In December, the U.N. said it would contribute $23.5 million to the new 10-year plan — about 1 percent of what is needed.

US  ‘land of opportunity’? A myth
NYT, 3/17 — Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic; while Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of incomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible….
…The upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity…
How do we explain this? Some of it has to do with persistent discrimination. Latinos and African-Americans still get paid less than whites, and women still get paid less than men, even though they recently surpassed men in the number of advanced degrees they obtain….
…[Note that] the achievement gap between rich and poor kids born in 2001 was 30 to 40 percent larger than it was for those born 25 years earlier….

Soon drones will control their own killing
NYT, 3/17 — If you find the use of remotely piloted warrior drones troubling, imagine that the decision to kill a [“]suspected [“] enemy is…made by a machine itself. Imagine that an aerial robot studies the landscape below, recognizes [“]hostile[“] activity…and then with no human in the loop, pulls the trigger.
Welcome to the future of warfare. While Americans are debating the president’s power to order assassination by drone, powerful momentum — scientific, military and commercial — us propelling…forward the day when…the same lethal authority [is ceded] to software.

Pain ‘unreal’ docs often tell women
(NYT, 3/17) — An estimated 25 percent of Americans experience chronic pain, and a disproportionate number of them are women….
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine published a report on the public health impact of chronic pain, called “Reliving Pain in America.” It found that not only did women appear to suffer more from pain, but that women’s report of pain were more likely to be dismissed.
This is a serious problem, because pain is subjective and self-reported, and diagnosis and treatment depend on the assumption that the person reporting symptoms is beyond doubt.
The oft-cited study, “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain in America” found that women were less likely to receive aggressive treatment when diagnosed, and were more likely to have their pain characterized as “emotional,” “psychogenic” and therefore “not real….”
...This can lead to treatment for mental health issues that might not even exist….

Companis take revenge on docs’ exposés

NYT, 2/17 — The note sent by a doctor to several executives at Johnson & Johnson was blunt: an artificial hip sold by the company was so poorly designed that the company should slow its marketing until it understood why patients were getting hurt.

The doctor, who also worked as a consultant to Johnson & Johnson, wrote the note nearly two years before the company recalled the device in 2010. And it was far from the only early warning those executive got from doctors who were paid consultants. Still the company…plowed ahead, and those consultants never sounded a public alarm to other doctors who kept implanting the device….

…Lawyers have offered a portrait of executives who put profits ahead of patients, even scuttling a plan to fix the implants because it cost too much…..
…While experts say that doctors have an ethical obligation to warn their peers about bad drugs or medical devices, they often do not do so.

“Questioning the status quo in medicine is not easy….” The standard in the medical community I not to report,” said…a cardiologist who, along with a colleague, warned other doctors in 2005 about a defective heart transplant.

There is a…reason doctors may choose to remain silent, experts say: their financial ties to a drug or device maker.

For years, such consulting payments have raised concerns about the impact of money on a doctor’s decision about which drugs to prescribe or how to interpret research findings….

“If someone is paying you or employing you, it is very difficult to blow the whistle….”

For a consultant, breaking those ties can carry a cost. For example, when Dr. Lawrence D. Dorr, an orthopedic specialist, warned fellow surgeons in an open letter in 2008 that a hip implant made by Zimmer Holdings was flawed, he became the subject of a whisper campaign that questioned his skills as a surgeon.

“The first thing that a company does [when accused] is put out a campaign that a surgeon does not know how to operate….”

REDEYE 3/27/13

Imperialism’s new killers: Drones
GW, 1/18 — The greatest threat to world peace is....from drones and their certain proliferation....Drones are now sweeping the global arms market. There are some 10,000 said to be in service, of which a thousand are armed and mostly American. Reports say they have killed more non-combatants than died in 9/11.
I have not read one independent study of the current drone wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan  and the horn of Africa that suggests these weapons serve any strategic purpose. Their ‘‘success’’ is expressed solely in body count, the number of so-called al-Qaeda-linked commanders killed. If body count were victory, the Germans would have won at Stalingrad and the Americans [in] Vietnam.
Neither the legality nor the ethics of drone attacks bear examination. Last year’s exhaustive report by lawyers from Stanford and New York universities concluded that they were in many cases illegal, killed civilians and were militarily counter-productive. Among the deaths were an estimated 176 children. Such slaughter would have an infantry unit court-martialed. Air forces enjoy such prestige that civilian deaths are excused as a price worth paying for not jeopardizing pilots’ lives....
How soon will it be before the United States finds itself ‘‘at war’’ with Iran and Syria, and sends over the drones? When it does, and the killing starts, it can hardly complain when the victims retaliate with suicide bombers....
Obama...and the U.S. are teaching the world that a pilotless aircraft is a self-justifying, self-exonerating, legal and effective weapon.
Bosses rob; Immigrants worst-hit
In January, Broward County...became the second in Florida to put into effect an ordinance to help workers recoup money they had earned but not been paid.
The ordinance passes despite strong opposition from business groups, which say it is...burdensome for business....
Such wage disputes are fast becoming an issue nationally....
The problem of unpaid wages is significant. Since 2009, the...Labor Department has collected more than $859 million in back wages for more than one million workers. But most cases go unreported, and worker advocates say that in some cities the practice is endemic.....
In Florida, the high number of immigrant workers complicates the issue. Because they tend to work in low-paid jobs and may lack English skills, know-how, money and legal status, immigrants are most vulnerable to being underpaid or not paid at all....
Business groups say they are committed to dismantling wage recover ordinances....
Worker advocates say that claims typically fall into a void....[Florida] has no wage and hour division. And while federal Labor Department officials have increased enforcement and staff, they are chronically overwhelmed.
Extra troubles for poorer workers
NYT, 2/28 — Mail has long been an issue in impoverished neighborhoods, where many people are homeless or transient and others live in apartment buildings or houses where the mailboxes have broken locks, or have to be shared with roommates and neighbors.
It serves as a daily reminder of the persistent barriers that separate poor people from everyone else, on a list that also includes access to bank accounts, cellphones and other basic services that are seldom given any thought by those with money and resources.
People who do not get mail say the absence of it can lead to bigger problems, like missing job interviews they never knew about, or being cut off from benefits because they failed to complete paperwork or keep appointments.
‘Race,’ class put workers in prison
Harvard Magazine, March — The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has nearly one-quarter of its prisoners.
Longer sentences for [non-violent] drug offenders and violent or repeat offenders, underlie this high rate. The United States currently had 41,000 inmates serving life sentences without parole...England has just 41....
Sixty percent of black male high school dropouts in the United States will go to prison before age 35....The American prison boom is as much a story about race and class...as it is about crime control....
Two factors greatly increase the odds of going to prison sometime during one’s life: being black or [Latino], and being poor.... ‘‘Small race and class differences in offending are amplifed at each stage of criminal processing, from arrest through conviction and sentencing,” Western writes. A criminal history accumulates that reflect not just criminal conduct, but the influence of race and poverty, and this in turn shapes later decisions about sentencing and parole release...[P]rison-policy scholars have observed that American criminal-justice policy is built on the rhetoric of personal responsibility — paying for one’s ‘bad’ decision — to the exclusion of asking why minority and low-income groups are so much more likely to make bad decisions, or how society fails them.