[Update on 0812 on 9 June: The story has such legs that The Guardian ran a brief feature.]

Via Pharyngula…

Via Keith “Keef” Knight…

Previously…

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Garage sale dos and don’ts
Athens County faces abuse of power issues
Portion­ of state budget bill passes
High tech healing
Multicultural Festival is coming up June 20-22

Top Headlines Poll: Do you prefer to hold yard sales or attend them?

(For comparison’s sake, I’ve added a link to the The Anchor News to these posts.)

What’s going on here…

Previously…

The citizens of Marietta can rightfully be proud that their city was named by Smithsonian Magazine writer Susan Spano as No. 6 in her list of The 20 Best Small Towns to Visit in 201. That April, 2014 article was a positive reinforcement of the notion that economic and cultural revitalization is possible in a community that, like so many others in this region and across the nation, was hit hard by the triple-whammy of industrial outsourcing, automation, and the after-effects of the September, 2008 Wall Street collapse that created further massive reductions in the availability of living-wage jobs.

However, some of the luster of the Smithsonian article has now been dimmed by the appearance of a puerile and condescending bit of hackery by Forbes Magazine and National Review writer Howard Husock entitled A Connecticut Yankee in Appalachia that appeared in the Spring, 2014 issue of a lesser-known publication called The City Journal, which is the NYC-based propaganda-outlet of an alleged “non-profit think-tank” called “The Manhattan Institute”, that claims to promote “personal responsibility” and the “entrepreneurial spirit”. The Journal has a certain following among far right ideologues who still fervently believe in the sort of elitist, “trickle-down” nonsense that cost Mitt Romney the last presidential election.

In the article, Mr. Husock (who claims to be a “scholar” and is coincidentally also the Manhattan Institute’s “Vice-president for Policy Research”) depicts Marietta as a “Rust Belt city of 14,000” plagued by “inter-generational poverty” and “a host of social problems – family breakdown, dependency, drug-abuse, and educational indifference.” Attempting (unconvincingly) to appear familiar with the area, he claims that such “pathologies run as deep here as the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio on Front Street”, but reveals a bit of his own “pathology” by adding the words “notwithstanding the fact that the city is 97% white”. Digging himself in even deeper, he concludes that same paragraph by saying that “locals speak (sometimes softly as if it were politically-incorrect) of a pervasive culture of ‘Appalachian values’, reminiscent of the values and behaviors often thought to be confined to America’s black urban underclass.” … Besides using loaded words like “under-class”, Husock gives himself away further by including admiring references to the controversial writer, Charles Murray, whose 1995 book, “The Bell Curve” presented to a late-20th century world the Neo-Social-Darwinist view that inner-city black students perform poorly because of “inherent intellectual inferiority”. Husock cites other alleged conservative “gurus” like Edward Banfield (“The Unheavenly City”) and right-wing columnist Thomas Sowell to promote his underlying view that only healthy doses of unrestricted “free-market” capitalism (i.e. giving unlimited access and influence to the oil-gas industry?), “Victorian values” (which ones – slavery or imperialism?), fundamentalist religion (the notion that dinosaurs and cavemen cavorted together 6000 years ago?), and the “Protestant work-ethic” can save Marietta’s “unwashed masses” from the pit of Hell.

All this is pretty heady stuff for an article that pretends to be about the genuinely praiseworthy efforts of Connecticut native Alice Ely Chapman (who founded The Ely Chapman Educational Foundation after her arrival here in 1996) to provide Marietta’s young-people (from a variety of backgrounds) with after-school activities, worthwhile extra-curricular programs, and some positive encouragement they might not receive at home … Mrs. Chapman’s work is beyond reproach and a credit to our community.

But the “Connecticut Yankee” article is not so much about Mrs. Chapman or her good work as it is about promoting the economic theories and hard-core Calvinist views of Mr. Husock and (since it is quite apparent that the City Journal writer never came within 100 miles of Marietta) whichever of the anonymous Calvinistic locals who likely provided him with the depressing photos (one is a night shot of a West-side house scheduled for demolition last winter; the other a possibly photo-shopped picture of an alleged “single mom ” playing with her child in a sparsely-furnished room) and cherry-picked descriptions of local crime and economic conditions he used to put together his long-distance hatchet-job on our town … While space is too limited to go into detail, it will be sufficient to say that Husock goes on for a considerable length describing the worst possible aspects of our community – drugs, child-abuse, the lack of jobs, the proliferation of “payday lending” shops. For good measure, he throws in the usual right-wing polemical attacks against public-education (which he claims “encourages failure”) and public-assistance programs like HUD, WIC, HEAP, and SNAP (which he claims “erode the work ethic”) and FOX-fixated fabrications about people “irresponsibly using” government-provided cell-phones and “buying” cigarettes and drugs with food stamps … Husock’s bottom line (and that of his supporters) is that if you happen to be poor, you must have done something wrong to deserve it.

Do any of the problems described by Mr. Husock really exist in Marietta? Of course they do – just as they exist in other towns and cities from NYC to Pittsburgh to Podunk, Iowa. Is there really a significant drug problem here? Yes there is, and it might be alleviated if certain office-holders provided funds for more counselors and facilities to treat addicts. Do our public-schools need help? Yes they lack adequate funding, and they need support instead of the constant anti-educational harangue they get from local tea-partiers. Is there a scarcity of living-wage jobs in both Marietta and the surrounding area? Most certainly, and that problem might be fixed if more profit-making entities like Wal-Mart paid their workers in accordance with prevailing prices.

Yes Marietta needs jobs. It needs valid solutions to the problems of drug-addiction, child-abuse, and poverty, but one thing it certainly does NOT need is a highly-paid big-city pundit from a dubious “think tank” (especially one that enjoys the benefits of the current flawed tax code to designate itself as a “social-policy-organization”) telling us what is or is not “behaving responsibly”!

From Marietta resident and reader Fred O’Neill…

Mayor Frank Jackson apparently feels that the Cleveland Browns and billionaire Jimmy Haslam aren’t getting enough sweetheart deals from the poverty plagued city.

They need more city help. And Jackson’s the man to give it to them.

So he and Cleveland City Council, led by President Kevin Kelley, provided the Browns with another sweetener – cheap parking on city land near the lakefront stadium. The honey flows with these guys.

Only four members voted against the deal – Brian Cummins, Jeff Johnson, Ken Johnson and the ever-reliable Mike Polensek.

Here’s the deal, and we don’t use that word carelessly:

The city in the first year will charge the Browns $70,000 for 1,700 parking spaces for at least 10 games. The 1,700 spaces for ten games means 17,000 spaces available in all. At the $70,000 price, the Browns will be paying a bit more than $4 a spot. Nice price if you can get it.

And the Browns clearly get what they want from Mayor Jackson and Kelley.

It’s another deal suggesting it was written by Fred Nance, the lawyer who represented the city in its original sweet deal for the stadium. And then he went to work for the Browns. The Browns clearly won the negotiations, paying a measly $250,000 annual rent, never to increase a penny over 30 years.

You can bet that fans will be paying a lot more than $4 to park on dock space near the city-owned Browns Stadium.

In addition, the Browns can use the space – if lightning strikes – for playoff games. And five more special events, making the sugared-up agreement even better.

Can we wipe your ass, Jimmy?

The legislation passed Council with little opposition. It was sponsored by downtown Councilman Joe Cimperman, always helpful to moneyed interests. And they always helpful to him.

In the second year of this disgusting deal, the Browns get the first 450 spaces free, a charge that Jimmy likes and Frank apparently doesn’t mind.

The next 550 spaces are available in $5 for 10 games and all playoff games.

Well, isn’t that sweet.

Then 700 spaces will be available for 10 games and all playoffs at $7.50.

You can bet that the Browns will be charging $25 to $50 for these nearby lakefront spaces. Or anything more they can get.

The “justification” cited in the city’s executive summary to this legislation notes, “The proposed deal allows the Browns to meet their near term parking needs.” You can’t argue with that.

Anything to make it easier for Haslam to make money.

The city’s Department of Port Control, of course, mainly deals with the city’s airport but these spaces also come under its jurisdiction.

The department for 2014 lists 481 employees so you’d think it could operate this parking for the city. It should be profitable. Why give it away to the Browns?

I guess it’s because the city loves the losers so much.

Roldo Bartimole writes in JACKSON, KELLEY HELP BROWNS AGAIN.

Last week one of two weekly newspapers we receive here in North Royalton included a Publisher’s Notebook piece entitled Why not privatize the VA?

Why not indeed. In my mind, privatization is a code-word for I want to suck at the public teat. More tax dollars have gone to corporate welfare over the past 50 years than ever were dreamed about by the most rabid social welfare advocates.

Here’s what I said to Trogdon:

Good afternoon Bruce,

I just finished reading your 31 May Editorial (I’ve had a busy week) and wanted to respond to your call for input from veterans on the recent revelations concerning care at Veterans Administration facilities.

First, I am an 11-year veteran of our armed services (1974-1986) currently on 10-percent disability related to a service-connected injury. I have received nothing but the very best care from the Veterans Administration here in Cuyahoga County and cannot heap sufficient praise upon the doctors, nurses, support staff and volunteers at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center on the Wade Park campus and the Parma Multi-Specialty Outpatient Clinic.

Second, the system has problems. Many, however, I believe are related to the extraordinary number of wounded warriors flooding the system from 14 years of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In past wars, many of these men and women would never have come home, but because of leaps in battlefield care, service members who would never had made it even to an aid station 20 years ago are now saved and face, in too many cases, a life of needed care.

Constant improvement ought always to be the mindset in any organization, but I don’t think a wholesale restructuring is needed because I have yet to meet a disgruntled or concerned veteran at either of the two facilities I am familiar with. I do have second-hand information of a third facility regarding a WW II vet who was a friend of my father, who is himself a Korean-War era vet. When Jack became unable to drive himself, my dad would take him to the Columbus VA facility and again, Jack had nothing but good words to share about his experiences.

I would not favor privatizing the VA for one important reason: the profit motive skews performance. As a magazine editor I covered the automotive aftermarket for several years and one of the elements we occasionally discussed at industry functions was how, in the short run, providing mechanics with incentives by making part of the pay dependent upon commissions, drove customers away in the long run when they realized how much marginally needed or unnecessary work was being done.

The final element I would insert into the discussion is that much has been written of late about just who is holding back funding of care for veterans. I would suggest those wishing to better understand the issue investigate the Senate’s Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 and who were among the 41 Republican Senators (including our own Sen. Rob Portman) voting against bill.

I look forward to reading the results of your investigation.

Do all you can to make today a good day,

Jeff Hess
North Royalton

I encourage more veterans to stand up and tell the world the good the VA has done you.

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Remembering D-Day June 6, 1944
Greene St. slashing
7 arrests in meth ring raids in Lowell
Ohio bill mandates pre-K vaccines
Marietta Council praises Ortt

Top Headlines Poll: Who is the best TV dad?

(For comparison’s sake, I’ve added a link to the The Anchor News to these posts.)

What’s going on here…

Previously…

[Update @ 1932 — Mano Singham’s review in Greenwald and his critics is also good reading.]

[Update @ 1921 — Mano Singham offers a round up of how our world is different one year after 5 June 2013 in Changes since Snowden.]

It’s been one year.

Technology has been a liberating force in our lives. It allows us to create and share the experiences that make us human, effortlessly. But in secret, our very own government—one bound by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights—has reverse-engineered something beautiful into a tool of mass surveillance and oppression. The government right now can easily monitor whom you call, whom you associate with, what you read, what you buy, and where you go online and offline, and they do it to all of us, all the time.

Today, our most intimate private records are being indiscriminately seized in secret, without regard for whether we are actually suspected of wrongdoing. When these capabilities fall into the wrong hands, they can destroy the very freedoms that technology should be nurturing, not extinguishing. Surveillance, without regard to the rule of law or our basic human dignity, creates societies that fear free expression and dissent, the very values that make America strong.

In the long, dark shadow cast by the security state, a free society cannot thrive.

That’s why one year ago I brought evidence of these irresponsible activities to the public—to spark the very discussion the U.S. government didn’t want the American people to have. With every revelation, more and more light coursed through a National Security Agency that had grown too comfortable operating in the dark and without public consent. Soon incredible things began occurring that would have been unimaginable years ago. A federal judge in open court called an NSA mass surveillance program likely unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian.” Congress and President Obama have called for an end to the dragnet collection of the intimate details of our lives. Today legislation to begin rolling back the surveillance state is moving in Congress after more than a decade of impasse.

I am humbled by our collective successes so far. When the Guardian and The Washington Post began reporting on the NSA’s project to make privacy a thing of the past, I worried the risks I took to get the public the information it deserved would be met with collective indifference.

Edward Snowden writing in They Knew Our Secrets. One Year Later, We Know Theirs for the American Civil Liberties Union.

County Executive Ed FitzGerald may be excused for making a ridiculous proposal to spend the sin tax money. After all, he needs every free headline he can get as the money-squeezed Ohio gubernatorial candidate.

The tax – 25 years in effect – was passed recently for a 20-year extension.

But does his proposal have to be so empty and vapid?

His idea that the tax revenue should be distributed by how well each of the major league teams here do on the field is about as absurd as anyone could imagine. Simplistic thinking at best. Silly otherwise.

Most glaringly, he ignores this is public revenue from government he heads. Or did he forget? And Cuyahoga County taxpayers are still paying on Gateway bonds from 1990.

Shouldn’t he have at least thought that some of the public revenue go for a real public purpose? Especially a public purpose directly connected with the debt on these very facilities. In fact, in past years something called “excess sin tax” revenue HAS gone to help pay the $8-million or so the County pays annually largely from its general revenue. It still owes more than $60 million.

Not a mention of his responsibility to residents by Fitz. The ones who pay the bills.

Cuyahoga County residents have been treated shabbily by their leaders – and too often criminally. It’s our – the public’s – fault it continues. With the help, of course, of a docile, dumbed-down news media. Is there anyone in the media with a sharp tongue? Commensurate with the need for straight talk. Someone who could give hope of possible change. Not in my vision. Docile actually is too mild a description for our correspondents.

The so-called new Reform County Government has hardly given citizens anything to cheer about. Indeed, the County Council is nothing but disappointing (and wanting to become full-time before serving a single term.) This would be an unnecessary expense.

But what the hell. Who cares? Maybe in his spare time Johnny Manziel can run as a write-in candidate and dump Armand Budish and Jack Shron. Wouldn’t that excite our reporters? The Democrat Budish and Republican Shron are showing all the sleepy energy we don’t need for county Executive. Sleepy town.

It would make Ch. 3’s anchor teams more gleeful and giddy should Manziel be a candidate. C’mon Pickel give us another giggle. Who needs news without snickering?

Roldo Bartimole on JUST HOW BAD ARE OUR LOCAL LEGISLATORS?

Reader Fred O’Neill first alerted me to this story on Tuesday, 27 May. Here we are, nine days later and the Marietta Times, page one, above the fold, publishes ‘Offended,’ ‘disappointed’ Magazine article about Marietta gets big reaction (these days I suspect that two comments, from one reader, qualifies as a big reaction to a Marietta Times story) prompted, I have no doubt by Fred’s Op-Ed piece Article in N.Y. publication depicts ‘worst’ of Marietta published by the Times last Saturday, 31 May.

I wonder if Fred got a quote, or at least a mention, on the jump?

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Summer readers
Sinkhole at Marietta culvert
‘Offended,’ ‘disappointed’
Focus on abuse of the elderly
A constant in the Reno area

Top Headlines Poll: What’s your favorite time of the year to read a book? [What? No all of the above choice? JH]

(For comparison’s sake, I’ve added a link to the The Anchor News to these posts.)

What’s going on here…

Previously…

Gender is an endlessly complex subject. There are people who spend their entire lives attempting to understand and explain it. This is true even among those lucky languages speakers, I’ve been reminded, where “sex” and “gender” are separate words with intelligible histories that we can understand give them distinct meanings. [Note that here any points about language will be limited to English language terms, and not translations or cognates. We’ll have ourselves a sufficiently grand time struggling with one sex and gender in one language.]

And yet, despite thousands of lives devoted to understanding and explaining gender, sex, and their relationships to each other, very little new information has trickled down to those outside of the specialized disciplines that study them. This is at least in part because within and between these disciplines there is often confusion. “Gender bender” is a term thrown around science journalism, and sometimes by scientists to refer to chemical effects on protein expression in fish in colorado, as just one example. But to others, “gender bender” is a term specific to individual resistance to a cultural imposition of mores limiting the capacities, rights, responsibilities and roles based on nothing more than a person’s gender and assumptions that flow from a person’s gender about that person’s sex. Who has more “right” to the term and whether it has been misappropriated is tricky with such an idiom. The argument from etymology gives the nod to culture warriors, with the online etymology dictionary crediting the first use to a 1980 description of David Bowie. But as the same dictionary notes, gender itself was used to describe what we might now call sex for centuries, including the entire period of transition from traditions of “natural philosophy” or “natural history” to the newer tradition of biological science.

With different disciplines in conflict and with persistent public confusion rendering fine distinctions and points barely intelligible – if at all – in mass media, most folk are still struggling to catch up with the distinctions between sex and gender first articulated by second wave feminism. In fact, most feminists largely give up on such distinctions in communication outside academia, and sometimes even inside it. Abandoning the lessons and logic of past distinctions between sex and gender is probably overdetermined, but at least one cause is that English language cultures tend to relentlessly re-conflate sex and gender. In that environment, a feminist would have to be quite pushy indeed to force the concepts consistently apart, and we know all too well the consequences for feminists deemed pushy.

Where, then, should someone turn if interested in understanding sex, gender, their interplay, and the social dynamics thereof?

Inward.

In a rather unusual move for a blog (Thanks, PZ!) this space will be set aside for a workshop, of sorts. Over the next little while, starting late Saturday night PDT, I will comment here, approximately once every 24 hours, on aspects of sex and gender, then leave an exercise or two for those who wish to do them. Much of what is required is off-line thinking, and the results of some of these exercises I’ll encourage you to keep to yourselves.

Crip Dyke writing in An experimental online workshop on gender via Pharyngula…

Say goodbye to the Ohio Graduation Test.

The tests that Ohio freshmen have needed to pass in order to earn a high school diploma is going away, phasing out over the next few years. For new freshmen starting high school this fall, seven exams will take the OGT’s place.

Four of the new exams will be based on the new multi-state Common Core standards that Ohio is starting to use in all schools. All are in the final stages of development – many just finished having trials across the state or nation this spring – and the scores that students need to pass are not set yet.

But they are intended to raise standards well above the level of the OGT, which many considered minimal. How much harder the tests will be to pass, and how many students will have trouble passing them is yet to be seen.
Do you like the different pathways to a diploma? Tell us below.

The state legislature also approved two alternate pathways to a diploma today that students can choose, if they want to skip the seven new end-of-course exams.

One requires a high enough score on the ACT or SAT college admissions exams to not need remedial classes in college. The other provides a vocational path where students can earn a diploma if they earn a credential that allows them to start work in a trade.

See HERE for a summary of requirements provided by the Ohio Department of Education.

Here are the basics of the new requirements:

• The OGT – a collection of five exams in reading, writing, math, science and social studies – will continue to be offered for all current high school students. All must still pass the tests to graduate.

• The math and English tests will be based on the Common Core standards and developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers – the testing partnership Ohio joined along with 16 other states. The others are developed by the state.

• New high school freshmen will never take the OGT.

• New exams given at the end of courses will start this coming school year for algebra, geometry, physical science (not biology, a life science), American history, American government and English I and II.

• Students will need to have combined scores on those exams in order to graduate. That combined score has not been decided, but the state school board will likely set it this summer.

• Students taking Advance Placement or college classes in science, history or government can substitute exams related to those classes instead of the standard state ones.

Patrick O’Donnell writing in Ohio students must now pass Common Core exams or other tests to graduate, state legislature decides for this morning’s Plain Dealer.

The National [Nincompoops/Nutters/Nimrods/Nutty/Numbskulls/Nut-jobs JH] Rifle Association has disavowed its recent criticism of pro-gun demonstrations in Texas.

In an interview on Tuesday with the organization’s own news site, the head of the NRA’s lobbying arm blamed a staff member’s “personal opinion” for the content of an unsigned statement published Friday on the organization’s website, and he apologized for “any confusion” the statement may have caused.

“It’s a distraction,” Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, told NRA News. “There was some confusion, we apologize, again, for any confusion that that post caused.”

The statement in question reproached gun activists in Texas for their attempts to take high-powered semiautomatic rifles into fast food restaurants. It said the activists had “crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness,” and denounced their tactics as “weird” and even “scary.”

In response, the activists flipped out. The group most notably involved in the fast food demonstrations, Open Carry Texas, issued a statement demanding that the NRA retract its “disgusting and disrespectful comments.” That’s basically what they got from Cox on Tuesday. Cox said the NRA shares the activists’ goal of getting Texas’ restrictions on the open carry of handguns changed.

“Ultimately, what this comes down to is a tactics discussion,” Cox told NRA News host Cam Edwards. “Some people believe that the best way to effectuate that sort of policy change is in protest. And what they did in Texas is, some people decided to protest the absurdity of the ban on … open carry of handguns by carrying their long guns openly, and legally.

Eric Lach writing in NRA Apologizes For Calling Guns-In-Restaurants Crowd ‘Weird’ for Talking Points Memo.

I say give surplus M-16s (or maybe AK-47s) to anyone who feels threatened by this insanity.

Previously…