Friday, July 4, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Drowsy driving: an accelerating threat
CBS NEWS July 4, 2014

Roads across America will be packed this holiday weekend. AAA says an estimated 41 million people will travel more than 50 miles from home, and 85 percent of those travelers will be making the trip by car.

Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its annual report in time for the highly traveled holiday; warning against something that the CDC says is almost as deadly as drunk driving: drowsy driving, CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues reports.

Last month, according to court documents, truck driver Kevin Roper had gone more than 24 hours without sleep when he caused an accident on the New Jersey turnpike, killing one man and critically injuring three others, including comedian Tracy Morgan.

A CDC survey of 92,000 people across 10 states and Puerto Rico reveals 1 in 25 admitted to dozing off behind the wheel in the last 30 days. The biggest offenders were men aged 18 to 34.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are a result of driver fatigue each year.

"Fourth of July and holidays can be really problematic because we tend to disrupt our schedules, do some traveling and bring alcohol into the mix and you have a formula for disaster," said Carol Ash, director of sleep medicine at Meridian Health in New Jersey.

According to the CDC, of the more than 33,000 fatal crashes reported annually in the U.S., as many as 7,500 involve drowsy drivers. Drowsy driving rivals the more than 10,000 fatalities linked to alcohol-impaired driving.

But most experts believe drowsy driving incidents are under-reported because it's difficult to connect crashes to sleepiness.

"Once you have those warning signs, missing the exits, not being attentive as you drive, and head nodding, you are in a red alert situation," Ash said.

The CDC hopes releasing these stats will open people's eyes to the dangers of drowsy driving.





“A CDC survey of 92,000 people across 10 states and Puerto Rico reveals 1 in 25 admitted to dozing off behind the wheel in the last 30 days. The biggest offenders were men aged 18 to 34.... as many as 7,500 involve drowsy drivers. Drowsy driving rivals the more than 10,000 fatalities linked to alcohol-impaired driving....'Once you have those warning signs, missing the exits, not being attentive as you drive, and head nodding, you are in a red alert situation,' Ash said.”

I have experienced head nodding, inattentiveness and even missing exits during my 50 plus years of driving. A couple of decades ago there were news articles about something called “highway hypnosis,” which is a condition in which the mind wanders dangerously due to the visual monotony of big modern highways without curves, which is especially problematic at 70 mph. I have always had problems with insomnia and often was walking around during the day after 4 or 5 hours of sleep. If I'm on a trip and I get drowsy, I do pull over for a few minutes and if I can find a restaurant I get a cup or two of coffee. I also avoid driving on large high-paced highways like I-95. As a result I see more pretty scenery and avoid most of the huge trucks that are barreling along at 80 mph. It takes me more time to get to my destination, but that's okay. I enjoy the trip.

Also, significantly, I have changed my sleep patterns in the last two years, going to bed earlier and giving myself a relaxation period of a couple of hours before I actually turn off the lights, which makes it much easier for me to fall asleep and gives me more nighttime hours for actual sleep. I wake up early and have my breakfast, then get started on my blog. I used to have my nights and days totally mixed up, getting drowsy around 1:00 or 2:00 AM rather than 9:00 PM. I feel refreshed when I wake now and my mind is much more focused on whatever I'm trying to do. From a couple of news reports I've read I may actually live longer. It's a good decision.






Obama's immigration Independence Day
By MAJOR GARRETT CBS NEWS July 4, 2014

More than a dozen center-left and hard-left immigration groups sent representatives to what sounded like another uninspiring strategy session in the White House's Roosevelt Room with senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and Cecilia Munoz, head of the Domestic Policy Council.

It was early Monday afternoon, and none of the participants seated around the long rectangular table had any inkling President Obama was pissed. They would soon find out. Moreover, they would discover, to their surprise, that Obama was no longer pissed at them, but with them. This being a meeting of Democratic allies, of course, some of the groups eventually found a way to get Obama pissed off at them all over again--over the issue of unaccompanied minors at the border.

But first, the story of the day was that Obama became unplugged on immigration, took his temper off mute, shook up the underlying base politics of the next two elections, and turned up to boil his long-simmering feud with Republicans over the constitutional limits of executive power.

Jarrett and Munoz called the meeting to order and, according to participants, expectations were low and anxiety high. A quick look around the table revealed the still-smoldering wound Obama felt after being branded "deporter-in-chief." The authoress of the hottest barb ever directed at Obama by the Left, Janet Murguia of the National Council of La Raza, was conspicuously absent. No representative of La Raza was even invited.

It was hard for anyone to imagine new possibilities for the White House with this schism so apparent.

Those who were there--the Service Employees International Union; AFL-CIO; Center for American Progress; Leadership Council on Civil Rights; America's Voice; the National Immigration Law Center; United Farm Workers; Center for Community Change; and others--expected another dreary appeal from Jarrett and Munoz to give House Speaker John Boehner until the August recess to try to move some form of immigration legislation. The immigration groups were fed up with what they had long regarded as Obama's doughy diffidence and had no stomach for another "stay-the-course" soliloquy from Jarrett and Munoz.

What the immigration advocates couldn't help noticing were the two empty chairs at the center of the table on the Oval Office side of the Roosevelt Room, opposite the visitors' entrance.

Jarrett and Munoz sat on either side of the empty chairs and White House counsel Neil Eggleston was to Munoz's right. Jarrett and Munoz were in the opening stanza of their immigration update when Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walked in and sat down. They stayed for more than an hour, Obama doing most of the talking and never referring to notes. Biden chimed in only when, later on, the debate turned to the current border crisis over unaccompanied minors.

Obama told the group that Boehner had informed him on June 24 there would be no votes on immigration before the midterm election but that he believed there was a good chance a comprehensive bill could pass in the next Congress. The president also told the group that Boehner urged him not to press ahead with executive action because that would make legislating more difficult next year.

Obama told the group, according to those present, his response to Boehner was: "Sorry about that. I'm going to keep my promise and move forward with executive action soon."

In the room, there was something of a collective, electric gasp. The assembled immigration-rights groups had been leaning hard on Obama for months to use executive action to sidestep Congress and privately mocked what they regarded as Pollyanna hopes that House Republicans would budge. They had been burned before. Obama reversed himself in late March and slammed the brakes on Homeland Security Department studies of slowing deportations in the name of "humane" treatment, all in the name of giving House Republicans more time on immigration reform.

Ever since, immigration groups on the left despaired over Obama's credulous paralysis. Protests ensued.

Not any longer. Obama told the groups what they had been dying to hear--that he was going to condemn House Republicans for inaction and set the most expansive legal course permissible to beef up border security, slow deportations of noncriminal aliens, and provide legal status to millions of undocumented workers--all by himself.

"He went from hanging back to calling the question and retaking the initiative," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice. "I kept thinking, 'Where has this guy been?' He's going on offense. He was a different guy. He was unplugged. After months of him and his team being angry with advocates for putting pressure on him to take executive action, it became clear he was no longer going to use the prospect of legislation to deflect attention and pressure from him."

Obama made it clear he would press his executive powers to the limit. He gave quiet credence to recommendations from La Raza and other immigration groups that between 5 million to 6 million adult illegal immigrants could be spared deportation under a similar form of deferred adjudication he ordered for the so-called Dreamers in June 2012.

That executive action, essentially lifting the threat of prosecution and deportation for minor children brought into the country illegally, covers roughly 670,000 residents. Obama has now ordered the Homeland Security and Justice departments to find executive authorities that could enlarge that non-prosecutorial umbrella by a factor of 10. Senior officials also tell me Obama wants to see what he can do with executive power to provide temporary legal status to undocumented adults. And he will shift Immigration Control and Enforcement resources from the interior to the border to reduce deportations of those already here and to beef up defenses along the border.

"Things were getting ragged with some of the immigration groups," said Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress. "Many of us had long drawn the conclusion the House Republicans were not going to budge. After Obama spoke, the vibe was, 'Wow. This is a very clear, very serious pivot.' "

There ensued a brief debate about the underlying politics of executive action in the shadow of the midterm elections--whether it would motivate Latinos and progressives in larger numbers than tea-party-inspired GOP voters; would it cut for or against Senate Democrats in red states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, and Georgia; and how it would play in 2016.

"He didn't seem to give a sh*t," Sharry said. "It was clear he was going on offense and going to run to the question."

Within the White House, the sense is that Obama's coming moves on immigration will not help anywhere but Colorado and possibly Virginia. Advisers hope, perhaps unrealistically, there will be a red-state push. The 2016 calculus is completely different. Inside and outside the White House, the consensus is that GOP inaction on immigration reform will define the campaign and any attempts to draft legislation in the next Congress--with or without a GOP majority in the Senate and the House--will complicate political prospects for Republicans seeking the presidential nomination and for Senate Republicans up for reelection in blue states, people like Florida (Marco Rubio), Illinois (Mark Kirk), Iowa (Chuck Grassley), Ohio (Rob Portman), Wisconsin (Ron Johnson), and Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey).

But that's not the end of the immigration story, politically or otherwise. The fury over Obama's looming executive actions will come. And it will be loud. But the current crisis over unaccompanied minors at the southern border is also a prism for Obama's willingness to use the law to deport illegals--even children in desperate circumstances.

That issue also arose in the Roosevelt Room, and it drove a deep wedge between Obama and the immigration groups reunited moments before around the executive-action strategy.

According to those present, Obama was focused entirely on future executive actions when Gustavo Torres of CASA de Maryland asked about the unaccompanied minors and Obama's desire to expand his power to deport the children, returning them, in most cases, to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Obama said his goal was to provide humanitarian assistance, speed up the processing of the cases under the law, and ask Congress for up to $3 billion for housing and temporary courts to process and deport those without legal standing.

To many in the Roosevelt Room, this sounded technocratic and procedural and borderline inhumane. Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the Los Angeles office of the National Immigration Law Center, urged Obama to look at the human tragedy of children fleeing violence in their home countries and consider whether swift deportations would deny them due process.

Obama, according to those present, argued forcefully that the U.S. had to signal its intent to enforce the law through deportations and that failure to do so could lead more children to die en route to the southern border or take scandalous risks by traveling with smugglers or on the roofs of trains. He could not, in good conscience, give any remotely encouraging signal to children or their parents to risk their lives, as many had already done in coming to America's doorstep.

Angelica Salas, executive director of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, piped up and warned Obama that the driving energy to reach the United States could not be stopped. "Mr. President, when my family and I came to the country, I was 5 years old, and when we were caught crossing the border and were sent back, we didn't give up," Salas said. "We kept trying until we made it."

Obama, according to those present, would have none of it. Kids all over the world have it tough, he said. Even children in America who live in dangerous neighborhoods would like to live somewhere else, but he can't solve everyone's problems. He told the groups he had to enforce the law--even if that meant deporting hard cases with minors involved. Sometimes, there is an inherent injustice in where you are born, and no president can solve that, Obama said. But presidents must send the message that you can't just show up on the border, plead for asylum or refugee status, and hope to get it.

"Then anyone can come in, and it means that, effectively, we don't have any kind of system," Obama said. "We are a nation with borders that must be enforced."

The discussion ended amicably if unsatisfactorily. Obama thanked the advocates for their passion and said he understood their concerns about due process for unaccompanied minors but remained resolute about deportations.

"The issue is real, and the solutions are unattainable in the short term," said Fitz of American Progress. "Everyone understood that. The families of these children are making a dire decision, and the president didn't want that decision infused with the false hope that there was a golden ticket waiting for them on the border. "

In this regard, Obama has aligned himself with congressional Republicans, even though they acknowledge it only rhetorically. Obama will soon ask Congress for more power to deport the unaccompanied minors, rankling Democrats like Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez was displeased when briefed last week on Obama's enforcement plans. House Republicans may prove receptive to the money and the deportation authority when it comes time to write a continuing resolution.

Either way, Obama's now struck his own path on the larger issue of comprehensive immigration reform and unaccompanied minors on the border, pleasing no one completely in the process.

Obama's Independence Day came June 30, four days early. On this issue, it was, and will remain, a day to remember.





At a Monday morning meeting on immigration, some dozen left-leaning immigration groups were meeting with the President to work on policy. They were startled to find that he was uncharacteristically “pissed.”

“Obama became unplugged on immigration, took his temper off mute, shook up the underlying base politics of the next two elections, and turned up to boil his long-simmering feud with Republicans over the constitutional limits of executive power....And he will shift Immigration Control and Enforcement resources from the interior to the border to reduce deportations of those already here and to beef up defenses along the border.” Concerning the unaccompanied children, “Obama said his goal was to provide humanitarian assistance, speed up the processing of the cases under the law, and ask Congress for up to $3 billion for housing and temporary courts to process and deport those without legal standing.”

“Obama, according to those present, argued forcefully that the U.S. had to signal its intent to enforce the law through deportations and that failure to do so could lead more children to die en route to the southern border or take scandalous risks by traveling with smugglers or on the roofs of trains. He could not, in good conscience, give any remotely encouraging signal to children or their parents to risk their lives, as many had already done in coming to America's doorstep.”

As much as I empathize with those children, I think Obama does need to have more forces at the border and send them all right back to their home countries as soon as possible, because this country can't house and care for them all, and the more we allow them in the more they will come. Personally, I'm a big advocate of effective birth control so the population will not grow as precipitously as it has in those predominantly Catholic countries.

I can see why Obama was so angry. The Tea Partiers criticize him for being too liberal in his immigration policies and the truly left-leaning open border advocates are calling him “the deporter in chief.” It is as obvious to him, however, as it is to me, that 75,000 unaccompanied children is not acceptable. It was finally stated in a recent news article that this isn't a “movement” among the children in those countries, but the action of their parents who are purposely sending them north. To me it's unforgivable for a parent to risk his child's life in such a way – the picture of children riding on top of train cars shocked me -- and to try America's toleration so severely could eventually produce an international incident. We have few enough jobs and poverty-stricken mouths to feed as it is without that extra pressure. I would like to see more being done diplomatically between governments to stop the flow of children.






As Malia Obama celebrates Sweet 16, a look at White House teenagers
By JAKE MILLER, STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS
July 4, 2014

For much of the country, Independence Day is an excuse to celebrate the nation's birthday with barbecues and fireworks, but for President Obama and his family, July 4 holds a more private significance as Malia Obama's birthday.

This year, the president's older daughter turns 16. In the past, the first family celebrated her birthday by departing the hurly-burly of Washington for the relative quiet of Camp David. This year, of course, the White House won't say what is planned for Malia's birthday, adhering to the usual cone of silence around the activities of the Obamas' daughters, though a Pitbull concert is slated to take over the South Lawn of the executive mansion.

It's a struggle many presidents have faced before -- trying to preserve some semblance of privacy and normalcy for their children even as they occupy one of the least private, least normal jobs in the world. In fact, six of the last nine U.S. presidents had teenage daughters during at least part of their time in office. Julie Nixon, Richard Nixon's daughter, would have made a seventh, but she turned 20 just a few months before her father won the White House in 1968.

And let's face it: if being a teenager is difficult for everyone, being a teenager at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when one of your parents is the most powerful person alive undoubtedly carries with it some extra baggage.

Here's a look at some recent presidential children who lived out their adolescence in the public eye.

Malia and Sasha Obama

The president and first lady had some trepidation about moving to D.C., in part, because they worried about uprooting their daughters from Chicago and plunging them into an unfamiliar, often intense new city. And since they've arrived in D.C., the first family has tried to preserve as normal a life as possible for daughters Malia and Sasha.

"They really want normalcy, and the White House isn't normal," Michelle Obama told Jimmy Fallon in February.

But President Obama said in May that the experience has not been as hard on the girls as he and his wife feared, conceding, "The truth of the matter is, they have more freedom than maybe we might have anticipated." He's said he actually gets to spend more time with his family as president than he did as a candidate, when he was constantly on the road, and as a senator, when he was shutting back and forth from Chicago to D.C.

And parenting in the presidency certainly does have its perks. "I've got men with guns following them around all the time," Mr. Obama told Steve Harvey last yearwhen he was asked whether he worries about his daughters dating.

Malia and Sasha have also accompanied their parents on foreign and domestic trips, including trips with the first lady to Spain in 2010 and China in 2014, and a trip with both parents to South Africa in 2013.

But with all the unique issues the Obamas have faced, some things, like the terrifying thought of their children driving, would be familiar to anyone who's raised teenagers.

"Ladies and gentlemen in D.C., watch out!" first lady Michelle Obama joked in February about her eldest getting behind the wheel when she turns 16. "Malia Obama on the road -- kinda frightening."





This article continues on the CBS website if you would like to read about the other presidents who had teenage children. It was too long for me to include all of it. Michelle Obama said that she and the President have tried to give the girls as much “normalcy” as possible when living in a fishbowl under the sometimes heavy handed care of the Secret Service. This year they are providing a Pitbull concert for her on the White House lawn. When asked whether he was worried about Malia's dating, he said that he has men with guns following his kids around all the time.

According to the Huffington Post of 2/15/13, at the age of 14 Malia was dating. “During a stop in Georgia Thursday, where he pushed his education agenda, President Obama hinted that one of his daughters -- most likely the eldest, 14-year-old Malia -- is officially dating. 'I do have to warn the parents who are here, who still have young kids, they grow up to be, like five feet 10 inches. And even if they're still nice to you, they basically don't have a lot of time for you during the weekends,' he told the crowd. 'They have sleepovers and dates. So all that early investment just leaves them to go away,' he said.”

The girls are not being deprived of international trips, either. They have been to Spain, China and South Africa. Travel is a very helpful thing in improving a child's mind. The more things children see as they grow up, the more they will be able to understand when they are in school and trying to learn history, geography and sociology. Most of the people in the US don't have enough money to take an international trip, but if they just go to the nearest places of historical interest the kids will benefit from it.

First Lady Michelle jokingly warned “the ladies and gentlemen of DC” to watch out. Malia will soon have her driver's license. "'Malia Obama on the road -- kinda frightening.'" When I lived in DC everybody used to watch for the presidential motorcades which sometimes came through. This time, maybe it will be Malia.









A quarter of Americans live in poor neighborhoods – CBS
By CONSTANTINE VON HOFFMAN MONEYWATCH
July 4, 2014

On many counts, the U.S. economy has come a long way from the seemingly endless gloom of the Great Recession. The latest positive note came on Friday morning, when the U.S. Labor Department reported a far-more-robust-than-expected 288,000 new jobs were created in June. And while overall economic growth has been lackluster compared with other recent recovery periods, the U.S. is expected to rebound from its first-quarter reversal and kick back into forward when second-quarter GDP numbers are released.

But by another important measure, things are not at all going in the right financial direction: The number of Americans living in "poverty areas" has skyrocketed from 49.5 million, or 18.1 percent of the population, in 2000, to at least 77 million, or 25.7 percent, in 2010.

Over that period the number of employed people living in poverty areas -- defined as a census tract where more than 20 percent of the population live below the federal poverty level -- increased by 8 percent, more than twice the growth rate for unemployed people, according to a new report from the Census Bureau. The Census report compares data from 2000 to that of 2008-2012, but uses the midpoint of that period, 2010, as the basis for comparison.

Of the 7.2 million people who qualify as living below the poverty line and also participate in the labor force, that is, working or actively seeking work, 4.9 million were employed, while 2.3 million were unemployed. Between 2000 and 2010, number of poor employed people living in these areas increased by 12 percentage points.

The current poverty line for a family of four is an annual income of $23,000.

Poverty areas add to the burdens of the poor by almost always having worse schools, worse public services and higher crime rates. They also lack access to supermarkets and health care facilities, making them more expensive to live in because of the added cost of commuting to get these places or, in the case of groceries, buying them at convenience stores that charge higher prices.

According to the report, 30 percent of the population lived in areas of poverty in the District of Columbia and 14 states -- an increase from only four states and D.C. in 2000. States with the greatest increase included Tennessee, Oregon, Arkansas and North Carolina. Regionally, the South has the greatest share of its population living in poverty areas, while the Midwest saw the fastest rise in growth of concentrated poverty.

The increase occurred in cities, suburbs and rural areas. Of people living in poverty areas in 2010, 51.1 percent lived in central cities, 28.6 percent in suburbs and 20.4 percent outside metro areas. While minorities and households headed by single mothers are most likely to live in poverty areas, whites living in poor areas had the greatest proportional increase -- from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 20.3 percent in 2010.

The Census Bureau's 2012 American Community Survey, the most recent official counting of poverty currently available, shows an overall U.S. poverty rate of 14.9 percent, or 46.5 million people, statistically the same as the year before and 2.5 percentage points higher than in 2007.

However, the Census Bureau admits the number could be much larger. The official rate is calculated based on three times the minimum food diet in 1963 using today's prices. It doesn't take into account the difference in the cost of living in different areas. The amount you have to earn to qualify as living in poverty is the same in New York City, where everything is more expensive, as it is in Biloxi, Miss., for example.

The Census Bureau has also figured poverty based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which uses information about what people spend today on housing, food, clothing and utilities, and takes into consideration the different cost of housing in different areas. Using the SPM, the poverty threshold for renters in New York City is $30,000 a year for a family of four.

As of the latest SPM, from 2012, Census found 16 percent of Americans live in poverty versus the 14.9 percent found using the traditional method.





“The number of Americans living in 'poverty areas' has skyrocketed from 49.5 million, or 18.1 percent of the population, in 2000, to at least 77 million, or 25.7 percent, in 2010.” That is a large change in the wrong direction for just 10 years. We weren't doing very well during the Bush administration, but then the “Great Recession” hit. Never think that things can't get worse! “Over that period the number of employed people living in poverty areas -- defined as a census tract where more than 20 percent of the population live below the federal poverty level -- increased by 8 percent.” This is evidence that though they are employed they aren't making enough money to live comfortably. “Between 2000 and 2010, the number of poor employed people living in these areas increased by 12 percentage points.”

This report isn't just about poverty, but about poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Needless to say, the greatest problems may not be the cost of food, housing and medical care since the Federal and state governments supplement families in these ways if they qualify and apply for help. It is the poorer quality of schooling and the higher crime rates, causing mental distress and physical danger that are the worst thing for me about such an area. Because their habits are costly, alcoholics and drug addicts will tend to congregate there as well. The cost of housing does usually go down some in such locations, so it draws more and more poor people in spite of the living conditions. A landlord in a slum can't charge as much for rent as in a safer neighborhood, so he tends to let the housing deteriorate instead, needing paint, broken windows, rats. According to this article, food is often higher in those neighborhoods due to the need to shop at small local convenience stores, and transportation to anywhere outside, such as your job, a better store or the doctor, is also an additional expense. Many such people don't have cars, so they must use buses or taxis to get around.

The rates of poverty are rising all across the country. “According to the report, 30 percent of the population lived in areas of poverty in the District of Columbia and 14 states -- an increase from only four states and D.C. in 2000. States with the greatest increase included Tennessee, Oregon, Arkansas and North Carolina. Regionally, the South has the greatest share of its population living in poverty areas, while the Midwest saw the fastest rise in growth of concentrated poverty.... While minorities and households headed by single mothers are most likely to live in poverty areas, whites living in poor areas had the greatest proportional increase -- from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 20.3 percent in 2010.” Interestingly, many of those poor whites, if they are men, will vote for a conservative candidate due to the “social issues” such as civil rights matters of all kinds, gun laws, abortion, or patriotic fervor.

The federal poverty rate is not calculated on all living expenses, but only on food. “However, the Census Bureau admits the number could be much larger. The official rate is calculated based on three times the minimum food diet in 1963 using today's prices. It doesn't take into account the difference in the cost of living in different areas.” The Census Bureau has also calculated poverty rates using the “Supplemental Poverty Measure, which uses information about what people spend today on housing, food, clothing and utilities, and takes into consideration the different cost of housing in different areas.” Needless to say, more people fall into the poverty category by this method. Lawmakers should use this method in deciding whether to increase the income level at which people can qualify for assistance, rather than the 1963 comparison based on food alone. Of course, if Republicans are in power they probably won't.

I think the basic problems are the unemployment rate, which has been high for at least 10 years and the low wages paid. My pay as a non-professional female office and library worker didn't go up much from 1995 to last year when I retired on Social Security. It was pretty good in 1995, but by 2013 it was skimpy. Luckily I didn't have a child to support. My cost of living has always been lower than some because I have almost always had a female roommate to share rent. I like that way of living – it provides just the right amount of companionship without deep emotional entanglements that marriage involves, and two women living together provide a greater degree of safety for each other than a woman living singly has. I have always been able to go to a few movies or an inexpensive restaurant each month, and my health has been mainly good, so I was fairly happy. I never wanted jewelry or expensive clothing.

I, personally, do fall well below the poverty line but my Social Security comes in faithfully each month and I have drawn up a tight budget. Many people have a much more difficult time, though, since most women do have at least one baby and a chronic illness like diabetes could be devastating. I am thankful for what I have and try to give a few dollars each month to charities, NPR, the DNC and my church. That's a very few dollars, of course, but it's all I can do. Beyond that I try to be kind to people of all colors and types and keep my mind interested in the world's problems. Poor people don't have to be bad people.






Damming The Mekong River: Economic Boon Or Environmental Mistake? – NPR
by MICHAEL SULLIVAN
July 04, 2014

Nearly everyone fishes for a living on Laos' Don Sadam Island, near the site of the controversial Don Sahang dam. Locals and environmentalists alike are worried about the dam's effects on fish migration.

It's 9 a.m. and the Mekong River at this hour is still peaceful: just a few fishermen casting nets into a large pool below the area called Si Phan Don, or "4,000 islands."

It's a popular tourist destination in Laos, where Southeast Asia's most storied river splits into nearly a dozen channels before coming together again below the islands of Si Phan Don, for the journey to Cambodia, Vietnam and the South China Sea. Cambodia is on my left, Laos to the right.

Suddenly, my guide points and says, "There!"

Dead ahead, no more than 30 yards away, are two or maybe three Irrawaddy dolphin — native to the Mekong and Myanmar's Irrawaddy river — which gives them their name. And environmentalists worry they may be gone soon if Laos proceeds with its plans to construct the Don Sahong Dam about a mile or so upriver.

"The Don Sahong dam is a big threat to the pool underneath the dam site," says Amy Trandem, Southeast Asia project director for International Rivers, an advocacy group. "By changing the hydrology and fisheries and sediment, the dam will have a large impact on dolphins, which are very sensitive to change. And most likely, they'll disappear for good."

Hyperbole? The driver points my boat up the Hou Salong channel, and 20 minutes later, we arrive at the dam site. It's a fast-moving section of water, maybe 50 yards wide and bounded by dense jungle on either side.

My first thought is: What's the big deal? Why does damming just one channel of the river here scare so many people?

It turns out that this channel is the only one that works — for fish.

"The Hou Sahong channel is right now the only channel that fish are able to migrate up and downstream on a year-round basis," says Trandem. "Other channels all have obstacles — waterfalls or man-made structures catching fish."

Trandem worries not only about the fish, but the people who catch them. And so do they. Almost everyone here fishes for a living, and while the dam might bring temporary construction jobs, what happens afterward?

A local whose family has fished here for generations — and who doesn't want to be named — isn't optimistic.

"We export the fish in this area every season, so if the hydropower dam comes, all the people (who fish for a living will have) no more jobs," he says. "No more fishing after dam."

He says almost everyone who lives in the villages around here say the same thing — or would, if they were allowed to speak openly. But Laos is a one-party communist state where dissent isn't tolerated. What would happen if you did speak out against the dam, I ask him. He makes a slashing gesture across his throat.

"We have no against," he says. "If they do a thing, then we follow them. ... We cannot say no."

Peter Hawkins is the environmental manager for the Don Sahong project and one of the few involved willing to speak publicly about it. He says the concerns of locals and environmentalists are valid. But he also says they've been dealt with.

"I'm confident that the mitigation measures we can employ here will allow fish to pass the barrier we're going to create. From studies we've done, the impacts people are saying the project will cause, change in flow, quality, sediment distribution, fish food, none of those things are going to arise from this project."

The risks the dolphins downstream face are real, Hawkins says, but he says that's because of bad fishing practices, tourism and poor management. As for migratory fish that use the Hou Salong channel, Hawkins says, the fish passageways his company, Megafirst, are building around the site should take care of the problem. And if they don't?

"We have the opportunity, if we do not have 100 percent success rate in terms of passage, we can continue to improve those bypasses. There are other channels we could modify," Hawkins says. "So we see this as a work in progress."

A few hundred miles upstream, there's another work in progress, which environmentalists fear even more: the Xayaburi Dam. Unlike the Don Sahang, this dam — which the government says is about 30 percent completed — will block the entire river.

Jian-hua Meng, a hydropower and dams specialist with the World Wildlife Fund, says the Xayaburi Dam is being built without any real knowledge of the downstream effects.

"We do see that Laos has every right to develop on its own pathway and should not be controlled by outside people them telling what to do and what not to do," Meng says. "But maybe in terms of the Mekong main stem, they have been listening to the wrong advisers."

Building dams isn't the same as building shopping centers or airports, Meng says. Water, he says, punishes every mistake you make — especially when it comes to fish migration. Fish passages, fish lifts, sluicegates have all been proven effective elsewhere, he says, but not on the Mekong — the world's most productive fishery.

"The effectiveness of such fish passage mechansims is quite OK, let's say, quite well proven for European or North American rivers, where we have small number of species that are well known," Meng says. "But in the Mekong, we don't have five fish species which we have to take care of, we have 70, maybe even more, and we have no clue about them. So building something for them to migrate up and down with, that's just guessing at the moment."

Trandem of International River says fisheries experts estimate that at least 43 species of fish are likely to go extinct because of the impact of the dam, including the Mekong giant catfish, the world's largest. Sedimentation — the silt the river carries downstream to Cambodia and Vietnam — is another problem. The Xayaburi will have major food security implications as well, Trandem says.

"By blocking sediment, we know that where there's a lot of agricultural productivity and rice growing, these areas are going to suffer a lot because they're no longer getting the same nutrients," she says. "And so this will have a significant impact, especially in the Cambodian flood plains but also in Vietnam's 'rice bowl,' which is really the center of rice production for region."

Vietnam and Cambodia aren't happy about either dam. They want work on both projects suspended while further study is conducted about the long-term effects they may have. Laos has ignored them until a few weeks ago, when it said it would "consult" with its neighbors on the Don Sahong. But it made no promises to stop work on either.

Several more dams are planned for the Mekong as well, as cash-strapped Laos tries to make good on its pledge to make the country the "battery of Southeast Asia."





"'The Hou Sahong channel is right now the only channel that fish are able to migrate up and downstream on a year-round basis,' says Trandem. 'Other channels all have obstacles — waterfalls or man-made structures catching fish.'" So who has decided to have this dam, then? Environmentalists and local fisherman hate it. “'We export the fish in this area every season, so if the hydropower dam comes, all the people (who fish for a living will have) no more jobs,' he says. 'No more fishing after dam.'" “But Laos is a one-party communist state where dissent isn't tolerated. What would happen if you did speak out against the dam, I ask him. He makes a slashing gesture across his throat.”

Peter Hawkins of the dam project says, “'I'm confident that the mitigation measures we can employ here will allow fish to pass the barrier we're going to create. From studies we've done, the impacts people are saying the project will cause, change in flow, quality, sediment distribution, fish food, none of those things are going to arise from this project.... We have the opportunity, if we do not have 100 percent success rate in terms of passage, we can continue to improve those bypasses. There are other channels we could modify," Hawkins says. "So we see this as a work in progress.'"

The Xayaburi Dam, upstream, has not been as thoroughly studied and according to Jian-hua Meng, of the World Wildlife Fund some 70 species of fish may be endangered. That dam will block not merely one branch, but the entire river, preventing the release of sediments which agricultural efforts downstream depend upon. A fisheries expert estimated that as many as 43 species of fish may be caused to go extinct. Both Vietnam and Cambodia have complained about the dams, and the Laos government has said that it will “consult” with them about the projects. Laos, however, wants to make the Mekong “the battery of Southeast Asia.” Its financial woes are spurring these projects, so it isn't likely to give in. It's one more environmental disaster in the making.







Chinese Leader's Seoul Visit Seen As Snub To North Korea – NPR
by SCOTT NEUMAN
July 03, 2014

In a sign that China and South Korea are moving closer together, possibly at North Korea's expense, Beijing and Seoul have said they are close to a free-trade deal and issued a joint statement that they firmly oppose nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

The announcement on Thursday comes amid North Korean missile tests and a visit to South Korea by Chinese leader Xi Jinping that carries with it an implied snub to Pyongyang: It's his first visit to the Korean Peninsula and the first that a Chinese head of state has stopped in the South before visiting the North.

What's more, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who succeeded his father in 2011, is still waiting for an invitation to Beijing, while South Korean President Park Geun-hye already visited China last year.

Historically, Beijing has been North Korea's one and only ally in the region, but while China looks unlikely to abandon Kim, it has made its dissatisfaction with the regime increasingly apparent.

At the same time, trade between China and South Korea, which normalized their relations more than two decades ago, is now 40 times greater than Sino-North Korean trade.

The Guardian says that Xi's latest visit to Seoul "is a powerful expression of his displeasure with North Korea's direction under Kim Jong-un, but despite Beijing's symbolic chastening of Pyongyang and stories that China has cut its export of oil to North Korea, China still places maintenance of North Korea's stability as a top priority."
The BBC writes:

"South Korea and Beijing differ on how to stop the North's nuclear programme. Seoul would like Beijing to do more to pressure Pyongyang, but Beijing has prioritised stability and encouraged all parties to return to talks without pre-conditions.

"Despite their long-standing differences, Mr Xi and Ms Park do appear to be forming a close relationship — announcing new maritime boundary negotiations, a direct currency exchange, and regional economic cooperation, says the BBC's Lucy Williamson.

"Mr Xi was accompanied by 250 business executives including Jack Ma, the founder of the Alibaba e-commerce firm, and Robin Li, chairman of search engine Baidu.

"The is the fifth summit between the two since both took office."





“Beijing and Seoul have said they are close to a free-trade deal and issued a joint statement that they firmly oppose nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.” This sounds like good news for world peace, though I hope it doesn't increase Chinese competition with the US. In the area Also at the same time, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited South Korea before going to the north first, which is considered a snub of Kim. In addition, South Korea's leader was invited to visit Beijing last year, and Kim Jong Un is still waiting for his visit.

“At the same time, trade between China and South Korea, which normalized their relations more than two decades ago, is now 40 times greater than Sino-North Korean trade.” Beijing and Seoul have also formed a closer economic relationship including currency and new maritime boundary negotiations. There have been five economic summits between them. This is all good. The North Korean leader is one of the worst national leaders in the world, it seems to me. Maybe Beijing's snubs and pressures will cause him to amend some of his actions.