January 14, 2014

NCAA and “student-athletes” I have an ongoing electronic conversation with a friend regarding the so-called student-athlete and the universities who are often less than candid about the athletes they seek to recruit. Recent CNN reports raised flags involving the University of North Carolina (UNC) and student-athletes who reportedly were challenged by reading material above the 3^rd - 4^th grade level, including reported death threats to the UNC administrator who researched the problem. See this link and others http://www.wral.com/cnn-report-examines-poor-reading-skills-of-former-unc-athletes/13283770/ and http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/us/ncaa-athletes-unc-response/

     Happily, I can report that at least one such student-athlete, who will forego his last year of scholarship eligibility, making himself eligible for the NFL draft, will do so with his undergraduate degree firmly in hand! And, it is NOT the far more news worthy “Johnny Rocket” from Texas A&M.

Poverty in America. There have been a plethora of poverty-related news stories this past week. Below is a link to a PBS story. Most commentators had agreed that the program's initial thrust did, in fact, dramatically lower the poverty rates for those then over 60. However, as noted in the stories cited below, the locus of poverty has shifted to other groups/areas. The interactive map has interesting figures showing the rate of poverty increases in the various states.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014/01/poverty-grows-on-maple-street-mapping-suburban-rates.html

     There are more and more comments on the two-levels in American society, the 1% and the rest. Many echo the comment by the late MLK, Jr. “[E]verywhere, “time is winding up,” in the words of one of our spirituals, “corruption in the land, people take a stand, time is winding up.”

Little Sisters of the Poor. Who would have guessed that Denver's Little Sisters would become embroiled in the latest flap involving Obamacare's contraception requirements. But, they filed suit contesting the law's requirements, Justice Sotomayor issued a restraining order, and now the “fat's in the fire.”

Hoping for changes in Washington? Here is George Will on the numbers in the coming mid-term election season. Change seems unlikely.

     In an October poll, 60 percent favored voting out of office every congressional incumbent. The poll was taken just 11 months after voters reelected 90 percent of House and 91 percent of Senate incumbents. Democrats are more likely to lose control of the Senate than gain control of the House. Ninety-three percent of Republican House members represent districts Mitt Romney carried, 96 percent of Democratic members represent districts Barack Obama carried. Since the mid-19th-century emergence of the current two-party competition, no party holding the presidency has ever won control of the House in a midterm election.

     The Republicans continue to be divided amongst themselves over their so-called purity plank: Are you really sufficiently anti-government, anti-tax to run for office as a Republican?

A “living wage” Pope Francis's recent comments regarding income inequality certainly stirred things up, with Rush Limbaugh accusing the Pope of spouting “pure Marxism.” According to the Social Security website, the Pope may have a point as regards America.

     [F]orty percent of the US work force earned less than $20,000, fifty-three percent earned less than $30,000, and seventy-three percent earned less than $50,000. The median wage or salary was $27,519. The amounts are in current dollars and they are compensation amounts subject to state and federal income taxes and to Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. In other words, the take home pay is less. To put these incomes into some perspective, the poverty threshold for a family of four in 2013 was $23,550. … It remains to be seen whether the chickens can be kept from coming home to roost for another year.

     Republican billionaire Kenneth Langone threatened that he and others might withhold their donations to church and charity if the Pope continued to publicly inveigh against the “...supposed excesses and cruelty of unleashed capitalism....[Lagone] has reason to worry that the Pope is in fact asking hard questions about people like himself. Indeed, he could serve as a living symbol of the gross and growing economic inequality that disfigures the American system and threatens democracy.” http://www.creators.com/opinion/joe-conason/rich-catholics-threaten-pope-francis---because-he-frightens-them.html

Unemployment benefits. High on the agenda of the 113^th “done-nothing- yet” Congress was the extension of unemployment benefits. The interactive map linked below shows state-by-state (and county-by-county in some instances) how many unemployed have lost benefits. (For some reason, data for NC was not published.) Economic recovery remains uneven. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/12/26/where-the-1-3-million-people-losing-unemployment-aid-this-week-live/?tid=sm_fb

Climate change and evolution. There was the recent media-rich news stories about the tourists and scientists trapped by ice off the coast of Antarctica, in the southern hemisphere's summer, of all times. Climate change disbelievers quickly seized upon and sought to use this incident to their advantage, forgetting that wind-driven arctic and antarctic sea ice are horses of a different color. 

     Shift focus just a bit and you will find that there remains a continually simmering, low key issue: a growing “gap” between Democrats and Republicans about the scientific viability of evolution. Care to guess “who's who” in this one? Apparently no one is listening when Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R, LA) observes that the GOP needs to “stop being the stupid party?”

College education: its relative value. An article in the Wall Street Journal looks at this question, noting that “[w]e now have more college graduates working in retail than soldiers in the U.S. Army, and more janitors with bachelor's degrees than chemists. In 1970, less than 1% of taxi drivers had college degrees. Four decades later, more than 15% do.” And have you called and then paid the bill for a relatively short two hour plumbing job? Makes a parent wonder: where is the nearest vocational high school.

The article continues.

     [D]ire financial straits from falling demand for their product will force two types of changes within the next five years.

First, colleges will have to constrain costs. Traditional residential college education will not die because the collegiate years are fun and offer an easy transition from adolescence to adulthood. But institutions must take a haircut. Excessive spending on administrative staffs, professorial tenure, and other expensive accouterments must be put on the chopping block.
Second, colleges must bow to new benchmarks assessing their worth. With the advent of electronic learning—including low-cost computer courses and online courses that can reach thousands of students around the world—there is more market competition than ever. New tests are being devised to assure employers that individual students are vocationally prepared, helping recruiters discern which institutions deliver superior academic training. Purdue University, for example, has joined with the Gallup Organization to create an index to survey alumni, providing universities and employers with detailed information, including earnings data.
     Calls to mind Bob Dylan's classic, “the times they are a-changin.” http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303933104579302951214561682

Oscars, Golden Globes, National Board of Review, et.al. 'Tis that season. For those of you who love great acting and coherent comments, here is a link to a New Yorker story about Meryl Streep's acceptance speech at the (sadly) untelevised NBR ceremony.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/01/meryl-streeps-feminist-tribute-to-emma-thompson.html