Friday, January 16, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland-couple-practicing-free-range-parenting-investigated-for-neglect/

Maryland couple practicing "free-range parenting" investigated for neglect
CBS NEWS
January 16, 2015

A hot debate is unfolding in a Washington D.C. suburb over how much freedom is safe for young children.

It all started when a 6 and a 10 year old were taking a walk on a busy street and got picked up by police. Their parents had signed off on their trek, and now they are in trouble with Child Protective Services, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.

Dvora Meitiv and her brother, Rafi, aren't always with their parents. The two are allowed to walk around the block, visit the library and play in local parks -- all on their own.
"We can walk anywhere in Silver Spring. And it's really fun," Rafi said.

Fun is what they were hoping to have in December when they asked their father to drop them off at a park a mile from home. It would have been their longest solo walk yet, but they only made it halfway.

"The police came and picked them up and brought them home," their father, Alex, said.
Alex Meitiv and his wife, Danielle, said at one point there were six officers at their house. They now are being investigated for child neglect.

"They determined if there's an imminent danger of harm to the children, they are authorized to come and take the children," Alex said.

"And ask questions later," his wife Danielle added.

State law in Maryland says, "A child under the age of 8 years old" cannot be left alone in a "building, enclosure, or motor vehicle" ... and they must be with "a reliable person who is at least 13."

But the Meitivs argue that giving their children freedom builds self-confidence and self-reliance.

It's called "free-range parenting," and it's how they are raising Dvora and Rafi.
"They need to take mini-risks in controlled situations like in the park down the street in order to grow into the confident adults that we want them to be," Danielle said.
The Meitivs said they teach their children to be safe.

"They know to look both ways when they cross the street, to always use the crosswalk, to hold hands," Danielle said. "They know not to go off with strangers, although they are allowed to talk to strangers and most strangers are people who would help them."
Those are lessons that seem to be sticking with 10-year-old Rafi.

"They told us all the ... like how to cross the street and how to be safe," he said.
And if you're wondering, Rafi has a strong opinion about the controversy.

"You might laugh at this but I was kind of annoyed because I've gone through it before, but, so it's kind of just not fair," Rafi said.

This is the second time the Meitivs have had this happen. They were first reported in October for letting their kids play alone at another park.

The Montgomery County Police Department and Child Protective Services said they must respond to any call that comes in and verify that there is no present danger.




“The two are allowed to walk around the block, visit the library and play in local parks -- all on their own. We can walk anywhere in Silver Spring. And it's really fun," Rafi said.... "The police came and picked them up and brought them home," their father, Alex, said. Alex Meitiv and his wife, Danielle, said at one point there were six officers at their house. They now are being investigated for child neglect. "They determined if there's an imminent danger of harm to the children, they are authorized to come and take the children," Alex said. "And ask questions later," his wife Danielle added.... "They need to take mini-risks in controlled situations like in the park down the street in order to grow into the confident adults that we want them to be," Danielle said. The Meitivs said they teach their children to be safe.... And if you're wondering, Rafi has a strong opinion about the controversy. "You might laugh at this but I was kind of annoyed because I've gone through it before, but, so it's kind of just not fair," Rafi said.”

The small city of 15,000 where I grew up was, of course, basically safer than large modern cities – fewer child molesters per city block, less traffic which was moving more slowly, some level of personal knowledge of who the neighbors were and their reputation. We were “free range” children back before the term was invented. We walked alone to school and on the mile or so to the small downtown area. We of course checked in at home after school, then were free to play with friends or in my case walk my dog. The house was located on the very edge of the city limits and our back yard fronted on “the woods” which extended to the first farm. It was relaxing, free from my mother's critical eye, a chancer to think over what hadhappened at school, and educational. I saw and identified many plants, animals and rocks. It was also a boost to my basic self-confidence, in that I encountered the world on my own and solved the few problems that came up. I think giving kids a certain amount of freedom builds self-knowledge and better mental health. That was only during the three hours between school and supper, of course, and I did tell my parents where I was going, so they knew where to look for me if a search became necessary.

The situation in large cities now is of course very different. Maybe the six year old is a little too young for that kind of thing. I still think what this Maryland couple is doing is basically good for their children and as safe as the neighborhood is. A street drug and high crime district would not be very safe, obviously, and if children are not taught to be careful and intelligent, they aren't safe a block from home. These parents did teach both their children to stay out of traffic, cross at marked crossings, and not go off with any stranger, especially if they hadn't been injured in an accident or gotten lost. I think kids also should be taught to evaluate the various strangers that they meet, rather than being warned “not to talk to them.” For instance, a woman alone is far less likely to abduct a child than is a man, especially if he is trying to get their attention. I do remember one time when a man who lived at the other end of the street was out there talking to the kids, and one child said he was giving away candy and wanted “a kiss.” He was a relatively wealthy man, but elderly so he was probably getting senile, but I knew him and I didn't accept any candy.

I do have empathy with these parents. Due to the greater consciousness of child abuse that we have today, the tendency of government courts and child welfare agencies to remove children from their homes is mounting. I think if a child comes to school with bruises or hungry or persistently dirty, the child welfare should step in, but just because parents are poor shouldn't be a reason to take the kids out of their home. They do usually love their parents and depend on them emotionally, and separating them can do real emotional damage.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-animal-deaths-on-the-rise-worldwide/

Mass animal deaths on the rise worldwide
By AMANDA SCHUPAK CBS NEWS
January 16, 2015

Thousands of birds fall from the sky. Millions of fish wash up on the shore. Honey bee populations decimated. Bats overtaken by a deadly fungus. Piglets die in droves from a mysterious disease.

It was tragic stories such as these that prompted a group of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, UC Berkeley and Yale to embark on a broad review of all the reports of large animal die-offs in the scientific literature since the middle of the last century. They turned up 727 such papers documenting "mass mortality events" (MME) of 2,407 global populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and marine invertebrates -- like the thousands of starfish that perished in North America in 2014.

Their analyses, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that not only are these events becoming more frequent, they're also increasing in magnitude, with the number of fatalities higher for birds, fish and marine invertebrates. Thirty-five events completely or nearly wiped out an entire population.
Over the last 70-plus years -- between 1940 and 2012, when the researchers ended their data collection -- there has been about one more MME per year.

"Going from one event to 70 each year is a substantial increase, especially given the increased magnitudes of MMEs for some of these organisms," said Adam Siepielski, University of San Diego assistant professor of biology and the study's co-lead author.
The cumulative death toll reaches into the billions.

The number one cause was disease, which was responsible for 26 percent of the mass killings, followed -- no big surprise -- by human activity, mostly traceable to environmental contamination. Toxic algal blooms, like the one that has plagued Lake Erie in recent years, have also emerged as a leading killer.

"Mass die-offs result from both natural and human-driven causes," said study coauthor Samuel Fey, a Yale researcher who studies how extreme temperatures can affect biological populations.

And even accounting for the possibility of reporting bias -- that is, an increase of attention that can potentially skew numbers to look artificially more impressive -- he and the team believe that their results are robust. That said, as much as anything, their findings show how important it is to get the reporting right.

"Determining whether or not the upswing in the occurrence of MMEs is a real phenomenon or simply a result of increased awareness remains a critical challenge that needs to be addressed," they wrote. "Such results, combined with lack of studies measuring MMEs using population-level data, highlights the need for an improved program for monitoring MMEs."

Kent Redford, a conservation consultant and former director of the Wildlife Conservation Society Institute who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"Rare and dramatic events capture the human attention and imagination," he told CBS News. "This paper makes the important case for the need to document the dramatic death of large numbers of animals. Understanding the factors that structure animal communities requires knowledge of how and why animals die and more importantly, understanding how and why human actions shape the 'unnatural' deaths of animals is a prerequisite to knowing how to ameliorate such deaths."

But while headline-grabbing stories -- like the deaths of a third of the nation's honey bees due to colony collapse disorder, or white-nose syndrome, which has killed 6 million bats in the U.S. since 2007 (neither was included in the PNAS paper) -- deserve close study and widespread alarm, they don't show the whole picture.

"We must not let the rare dramatic events distract us from focusing on the smaller but constant erosion of animal communities that is taking place worldwide as a result of human action," said Redford. "Over the long term, these less-interesting and less note-worthy mortality factors are undoubtedly more important to study and to stop."




“It was tragic stories such as these that prompted a group of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, UC Berkeley and Yale to embark on a broad review of all the reports of large animal die-offs in the scientific literature since the middle of the last century. They turned up 727 such papers documenting "mass mortality events"... Over the last 70-plus years -- between 1940 and 2012, when the researchers ended their data collection -- there has been about one more MME per year. "Going from one event to 70 each year is a substantial increase, especially given the increased magnitudes of MMEs for some of these organisms," said Adam Siepielski, University of San Diego assistant professor of biology and the study's co-lead author. The cumulative death toll reaches into the billions.... human activity, mostly traceable to environmental contamination. Toxic algal blooms, like the one that has plagued Lake Erie in recent years, have also emerged as a leading killer. "Mass die-offs result from both natural and human-driven causes," said study coauthor Samuel Fey, a Yale researcher who studies how extreme temperatures can affect biological populations.... "Rare and dramatic events capture the human attention and imagination," he told CBS News. "This paper makes the important case for the need to document the dramatic death of large numbers of animals. Understanding the factors that structure animal communities requires knowledge of how and why animals die and more importantly, understanding how and why human actions shape the 'unnatural' deaths of animals is a prerequisite to knowing how to ameliorate such deaths."... "Rare and dramatic events capture the human attention and imagination," he told CBS News. "This paper makes the important case for the need to document the dramatic death of large numbers of animals. Understanding the factors that structure animal communities requires knowledge of how and why animals die and more importantly, understanding how and why human actions shape the 'unnatural' deaths of animals is a prerequisite to knowing how to ameliorate such deaths."

Algal blooms are often attributed to runoff from farms – fertilizer causes massive growth of the plants. Global warming might cause a fungus to grow more frequently, as in the bats' “white nose” condition. Fish kills have been going on for years, but they too are usually considered the result of chemical pollution in the water. The death of more and more species is a tragedy to me. We are destroying the garden of Eden rather than “dressing” it. Most of this is due to large scale industrial activity including farming, and the emphasis on making more and more money by businesses over environmental issues. That is of course, why Republicans tend to block any move to make coal mining safer, stopping the “mountain top removal” method for instance, which pollutes the rivers and streams that flow down the mountain. The destruction of animal habitat is also one of the main problems causing deaths. The mysterious honey bee decimation hasn't yet been explained, but two insecticides called Imidacloprid and clothiandin, which are used by farmers are suspect. See the article below on the hive collapse problem.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-pesticides-killing-off-honey-bees/

What's killing the honey bees? Mystery may be solved
CBS NEWS
May 14, 2014

Pesticides appear to play a key role in killing off the honey bee population, according to a new study from Harvard University. The authors wrote that pesticides might lead to '"impairment of honey bee neurological functions, specifically memory, cognition, or behavior."

This finding supports previous studies that established a link between chemicals used on crops with colony collapse disorder (CCD). The bees are often exposed to the pesticides when chemically treated plants, such as corn, release pollen into the air. Bees do not pollinate corn, but the corn's pollen makes its way onto flower and other crops, where the bees are exposed.

CCD has been devastating the U.S. honey bee population since at least 2006. The mysterious disorder causes honey bees to disappear from their hives, and their bodies are rarely found. Experts have floated several theories for CCD, including disease, parasites, stress, and lack of access to food sources. Others have suggested that there is a combination of factors, including exposure to pesticides. Theories like interference from cell phone towers have even been considered and discounted.

This latest study, published May 9 in the Bulletin of Insectology, pinpoints two types of neonicotinoid pesticides as lethal agents. Imidacloprid and clothiandin have the greatest impact on healthy hives during winter months, the study concluded.
In drawing this conclusion, the researchers setup 18 hives in October 2012. The bees in 12 hives were fed high-fructose corn syrup or sugar laced with either imidacloprid or clothiandin. The other hives were fed untreated sugar or high-fructose corn syrup solutions.
By the next spring, half of the colonies of the insecticide-treated hives had disappeared. Those remaining in the hives were not healthy. The bees in one of the untreated colonies also died off, though evidence points to a parasite rather than CCD, because their bodies remained in the hive.

The authors wrote that the study results "reinforce the conclusion that sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids is likely the main culprit for the occurrence of CCD."
One piece of evidence that did not comply with previous findings is that long-term exposure to small doses of neonicotinoids did not compromise the bees' immune systems. The hives became infected just as often when there were no neonicotinoids present. This only means more research is needed, as "neonicotinoids are causing some other kind of biological mechanism in bees that in turn leads to CCD," according to the authors.
The debate over the validity of the science is often fueled by what the organization Friends of the Earth (FOE) calls "tobacco-style PR tactics" employed by pesticide companies. FOE suggests that the companies aim to "delay action and manufacture doubt about the science linking pesticides to the bee crisis" in order to protect commercial interests.

Later this week, the USDA will release its annual report on honey bee overwintering losses.






http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-peace-prospects-dim-as-6-troops-killed-near-donetsk-airport/

Bloodshed mounts in eastern Ukraine
CBS/AP
January 16, 2015

KIEV, Ukraine -- Prospects for Ukraine peace talks remained dim Friday as hostilities intensified between government forces and Russian-backed separatists in the east.

The escalation in fighting has centered on the key flashpoint, the airport of the rebel stronghold Donetsk, where rebel militia have renewed efforts to dislodge government troops. Separatists say they have almost total control over the civilian terminal, but Ukrainian troops say they still hold parts of the building.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian military, Andriy Lysenko, said six troops had been killed "as a result of combat activity and another 18 have been wounded in the past 24 hours," according to the Reuters news agency.

Representatives from Ukraine and Russia, separatist envoys and officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were tentatively set to hold talks Friday in Minsk, Belarus, on ensuring a cease-fire to be monitored by the OSCE.

Residential areas in Donetsk remain caught in the artillery crossfire. Separatist authorities in Donetsk said four people died in a fire Thursday after a warehouse was hit by a shell.

The U.N. estimates that more than 4,700 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April, and fighting has continued despite September's cease-fire deal that included a provision to pull back heavy weapons.

A demarcation line, also agreed in that deal signed in Minsk, has been routinely flouted.
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine accused the rebels of violating the boundary.

"The separatists have pushed their lines well beyond the territorial lines agreed upon in Minsk," Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said in an emailed statement.

Government officials and rebels have reported fighting along a front extending more than 350 kilometers (220 miles).

A fresh truce was announced in December, only to unravel last week and derail a planned meeting of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany in Kazakhstan this week.
Ukraine says separatist forces are accumulating along the front line.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said rebels have mobilized large numbers of armored vehicles in the past few days, with a particular concentration noted in Horlivka, a city east of Donetsk.

"In Horlivka, there is a three-kilometer long column of tanks heading in the direction of Ukrainian positions," he said.




“Representatives from Ukraine and Russia, separatist envoys and officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were tentatively set to hold talks Friday in Minsk, Belarus, on ensuring a cease-fire to be monitored by the OSCE.... A demarcation line, also agreed in that deal signed in Minsk, has been routinely flouted. The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine accused the rebels of violating the boundary. "The separatists have pushed their lines well beyond the territorial lines agreed upon in Minsk," Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said in an emailed statement.... A fresh truce was announced in December, only to unravel last week and derail a planned meeting of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany in Kazakhstan this week. Ukraine says separatist forces are accumulating along the front line. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said rebels have mobilized large numbers of armored vehicles in the past few days, with a particular concentration noted in Horlivka, a city east of Donetsk.”

This is discouraging, but not surprising. As in most civil wars, this is a conflict of hatred. Truces are announced, but the fighting never stops. Rebels are lining up on the demarcation line with armored vehicles, perhaps to invade the Western areas. Similarly, in the US, the South and the North still have ill feeling and distrust, which shows up in personal interactions, both parties saying disparaging things about the other. The South is holding its own in the fact that groups like the Tea Party have become entrenched there and are busily trying to set up new Jim Crow laws, while the North maintains its superiority in wealth and education. I thought the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s would solve these problems, but it hasn't. Hatred dies very slowly.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/15/376966406/a-new-study-reveals-much-about-how-parents-really-choose-schools

A New Study Reveals Much About How Parents Really Choose Schools
Anya Kamenetz
JANUARY 15, 2015

The charter school movement is built on the premise that increased competition among schools will sort the wheat from the chaff.

It seems self-evident that parents, empowered by choice, will vote with their feet for academically stronger schools. As the argument goes, the overall effect should be to improve equity as well: Lower-income parents won't have to send their kids to an under-resourced and underperforming school just because it is the closest one to them geographically.

But an intriguing new study from the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans suggests that parent choice doesn't always work that way. Parents, especially low-income parents, actually show strong preferences for other qualities like location and extracurriculars — preferences that can outweigh academics.

New Orleans offers a unique opportunity to study parent choice. As we've reported earlier, more than 9 out of 10 New Orleans children attend charter schools. Choice, in other words, is hardly optional there.

By analyzing student enrollment records going back before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the authors of this study were able to look at parents' "revealed preferences." That is, not what they say they are looking for in a school when interviewed by researchers, but the schools they actually pick. Here's what the research found:

Parents care about academics, but not as much as they say they do. "The role of academics seemed somewhat lower [than in other studies]," says Douglas Harris, lead author on the report. And because of the nature of the study, which shows where families actually enroll, "we're actually able to quantify that in ways that other studies couldn't."
Distance matters. A lot. Schools in New Orleans are ranked by letter grades, depending mostly on their scores on state tests. What the researchers found was that three-quarters of a mile in distance was equal to a letter grade in terms of family preferences. In other words, a C-grade school across the street was slightly preferable to a B-grade school just a mile away.

Extended hours matter. Parents of younger children preferred extended school hours and after-school programs.

Extracurriculars matter. Especially for high school students — and perhaps even more so in this city famous for its music and its love of the NFL's Saints. A C-grade school with a well-known football and band program could beat out a B-grade school without them. (Of note: In traditional public school systems, most high schools offer these extracurriculars; New Orleans has many smaller specialized schools that don't.)

Poorer families care more about other factors — and less about academics. The study split families up into thirds based on the median income in their census tract. What they found was that the lowest-income New Orleans families were even more likely to pick schools that were close by, that offered extended days, and that had football and band in high school — and, conversely, they had a weaker preference for schools based on test scores.

This last point is crucial because it suggests that a choice-based system all by itself won't necessarily increase equity. The most economically disadvantaged students may have parents who are making decisions differently from other families. These parents appear to be more interested in factors other than academic quality as the state defines it. Maybe they have access to different, or less, information. If this is true, choice could actually increase, rather than diminish, achievement gaps within a city.

The unique qualities of the New Orleans school system offered great data for the researchers to study, but also made it difficult to draw conclusions about other places.

This is a near-universal choice system: 86 percent of students attend a school other than the closest school. And, since 2012, families have chosen a school by completing a single, universal application called the OneApp.

The application asks families to rank eight schools in order of preference, and then uses an algorithm to place students in schools. In cities where a smaller percentage of students attend charters, families' preferences may vary. The Education Research Alliance is planning further research to find out how the New Orleans findings compare with other cities.

Harris does note that since Katrina, the lowest-income families have had better access to public schools that perform better on tests — because test scores across the city have gone up, and because there are more high-performing schools located in low-income neighborhoods. But, he says, what this study is suggesting is that, "You can't assume that parent preference alone is going to be a driver of academic quality in schools, and especially equity."




“Lower-income parents won't have to send their kids to an under-resourced and underperforming school just because it is the closest one to them geographically.... Parents, especially low-income parents, actually show strong preferences for other qualities like location and extracurriculars — preferences that can outweigh academics.... "The role of academics seemed somewhat lower [than in other studies]," says Douglas Harris, lead author on the report... Schools in New Orleans are ranked by letter grades, depending mostly on their scores on state tests. What the researchers found was that three-quarters of a mile in distance was equal to a letter grade in terms of family preferences. … Parents of younger children preferred extended school hours and after-school programs.... A C-grade school with a well-known football and band program could beat out a B-grade school without them. Of note: In traditional public school systems, most high schools offer these extracurriculars; New Orleans has many smaller specialized schools that don't.)... The study split families up into thirds based on the median income in their census tract. What they found was that the lowest-income New Orleans families were even more likely to pick schools that were close by, that offered extended days, and that had football and band in high school — and, conversely, they had a weaker preference for schools based on test scores. This last point is crucial because it suggests that a choice-based system all by itself won't necessarily increase equity.... Maybe they have access to different, or less, information. If this is true, choice could actually increase, rather than diminish, achievement gaps within a city.... In cities where a smaller percentage of students attend charters, families' preferences may vary. The Education Research Alliance is planning further research to find out how the New Orleans findings compare with other cities.... Harris does note that since Katrina, the lowest-income families have had better access to public schools that perform better on tests — because test scores across the city have gone up, and because there are more high-performing schools located in low-income neighborhoods.”

It's good news that test scores across New Orleans have gone up since Katrina, though it's not obvious from this article why that is. Did the scope of that disaster get the kids attention and make them more thoughtful about life? Likewise, there are more high performing schools now located in low income neighborhoods. That's a very good thing, and something that would make a good goal for cities around the nation, because it's clear to me why poor parents want a school that is close to them and which keeps kids in the school for extended hours. Both parents are working and there is no one at home to take care of a child who is due to arrive there as early as 3:00 PM.

Besides, extra curricular activities are not only appealing to kids who would otherwise have to run the streets and possibly get an early start at a shoplifting career without them. Most children of a certain age who is left with no parental supervision and “nothing to do” will soon find something to do that their parents won't like. Band and sports improve the brain and mental health as well as the body, so they shouldn't be cut out of the school offerings. Why are a so many New Orleans schools doing that? What “specialized” schools are they? The article points out that these choices being made by poor parents don't seem to follow the obvious logic. “...choice could actually increase, rather than diminish, achievement gaps within a city.” I think it might be better to have the school board and maybe the state government mandate that extracurriculars be included in all schools, and that schools that fall below a C in academics simply be closed or forced to give more extra help for those students who are underperforming. That would actually be the better solution, it seems to me. The whole point of having an "A" school is to improve every student within it.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/14/377191887/from-the-mouths-of-apes-babble-hints-at-origins-of-human-speech

From The Mouths Of Apes, Babble Hints At Origins of Human Speech
Jon hamilton
JANUARY 14, 2015

An orangutan named Tilda is providing scientists with fresh evidence that even early human ancestors had the ability to make speechlike vocalizations.

Tilda has learned to produce vocalizations with striking similarities to human speech, scientists report in the journal PLOS ONE. If you listen without knowing the source, "you might wonder whether or not it is a human," says Rob Shumaker, an author of the paper and vice president of the Indianapolis Zoo.

The finding could help answer a big question about our human ancestors' ability to produce speech before they developed a modern vocal tract and brain. If orangutans and other great apes can make speechlike sounds, it stands to reason that early humans could too, Shumaker says.

Tilda, who is about 50 now, was born in the wilds of Borneo, where orangutans make calls that often include sounds like kisses, squeaks and grunts. But she was captured young and has spent most of her life around people.

Eventually, Tilda learned to imitate people, says Adriano Lameira, the lead author of the paper and a founder of the Pongo Foundation, which studies orangutans and works to protect them.

Tilda waves her arms and shakes her head the way people do, Lameira says. She also reportedly smoked cigarettes before she got to the zoo (maybe by way of her prior life as an "entertainment animal," the scientists say). And Tilda whistles, something orangutans don't do in the wild.

It was the whistling that led researchers to discover Tilda's vocal skills. Lameira was part of a team studying orangutans that can whistle. But when they visited Tilda and began recording her behavior on video, she did something different.

"We were waiting for the whistles and suddenly she started to do these bizarre calls," Lameira says. It was unlike anything he'd ever heard from an orangutan, in the wild or in captivity. He says the rhythmic strings of consonants and vowels were like a cartoon approximation of a person speaking.

"She was producing these calls repeatedly and really quick," he says. "And this is also what we observe in humans while we are speaking to each other. We are, on average, producing five consonants and five vowels per second."

An analysis of Tilda's "faux speech" later showed she was matching that frequency precisely. "This was really what astonished us," Lameira says.

The finding goes against earlier thinking that great ape vocalizations are reflexive and very limited, Shumaker says. "What we have to do is discard this old idea that apes are simply incapable of doing anything remotely similar to human speech production," he says. "I think what we're finding is there's a lot more flexibility than we realized."

The research on orangutan whistling showed that great apes could learn to make new sounds, Shumaker says. And the study of Tilda suggests they also can learn new vocal patterns. Taken together, he says, the research hints that great apes could be a model for the development of speech in early humans.

It will take more animals with Tilda's abilities to confirm the hypothesis, Shumaker says. But, he adds, "I think as we start looking, we'll find out Tilda is not the only orangutan like this."




“Tilda has learned to produce vocalizations with striking similarities to human speech, scientists report in the journal PLOS ONE. If you listen without knowing the source, "you might wonder whether or not it is a human," says Rob Shumaker, an author of the paper and vice president of the Indianapolis Zoo. The finding could help answer a big question about our human ancestors' ability to produce speech before they developed a modern vocal tract and brain.... Tilda, who is about 50 now, was born in the wilds of Borneo, where orangutans make calls that often include sounds like kisses, squeaks and grunts.... It was the whistling that led researchers to discover Tilda's vocal skills. Lameira was part of a team studying orangutans that can whistle. But when they visited Tilda and began recording her behavior on video, she did something different. "We were waiting for the whistles and suddenly she started to do these bizarre calls," Lameira says. It was unlike anything he'd ever heard from an orangutan, in the wild or in captivity. He says the rhythmic strings of consonants and vowels were like a cartoon approximation of a person speaking.... "And this is also what we observe in humans while we are speaking to each other. We are, on average, producing five consonants and five vowels per second. And this is also what we observe in humans while we are speaking to each other. We are, on average, producing five consonants and five vowels per second." An analysis of Tilda's "faux speech" later showed she was matching that frequency precisely. "This was really what astonished us," Lameira says. The finding goes against earlier thinking that great ape vocalizations are reflexive and very limited, Shumaker says.”

Studies by psychologists of animal intelligence and abilities, as well as by paleontologists of the forebears of modern humans, have increased their estimation of them during the last 40 years since I've been reading about it. DNA experts now acknowledge, as well, that Homo Sapiens genes contain material from Neanderthals and from at least one other related hominid from the time period when they all met in Europe and the Middle East. I remember from one of my anthropology courses that the professor stressed several ways that humans were distinctly different from any ape. People in those days, even professors, were afraid of the taint of any primitive genes. “The human “opposable thumb” was one of their primary talking points. An ape, however, is quite capable of taking their thumb and forefinger and “opposing” them well enough together to pick up something small but tasty like a termite and popping it into their mouth.

The more I read as time went on the more I saw articles that narrowed that gap between modern humans and our ancestors. It used to be said that apes' mouth and throat weren't shaped correctly for talking, but now I read that an orangutan can utter “syllables” even if they are nonsense syllables, and can whistle, which I've never heard about before. And it's clear that Koko the gorilla and Kanzi the bonobo can use their fingers to form American Sign Language words, so the concept of speaking and words is inherent in them. In looking up “Kanzi” for the name spelling just now, I found a Youtube of his actually using some form of speech like Tilda (and several other orangutans.) Read the Wikipedia article on Kanzi's newest achievements. It isn't just Kanzi either, but his sister, who responded by touching a symbol for yogurt on a screen in response to Kanzi's uttering a sound in another room when given yogurt.

Kanzi and Koko both had an early involvement with words like a human child, with daily interactions including doing various things, some of which are more amazing than speech. I saw a video of Kanzi following verbal instructions from his caretaker. He was told to wrap up a piece of chicken in aluminum foil and put it on the grill, and almost instantaneously he accomplished the task, though he threw the chicken rather clumsily onto the fire, causing the ashes to fly up. He isn't a safe cook, necessarily, but he understands the concept. Read the Wikipedia article, especially the section “Examples of Kanzi's behavior.”


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi

Kanzi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kanzi (born October 28, 1980), also known by the lexigram  (from the character 太), is a male bonobo who has been featured in several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout her life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.[1][2][3]

Biography[edit]

Born to Lorel and Bosandjo at Yerkes field station at Emory University and moved to the Language Research Center at Georgia State University, Kanzi was stolen and adopted shortly after birth by a more dominant female, Matata. As an infant, Kanzi accompanied Matata to sessions where Matata was taught language through keyboard lexigrams, but showed little interest in the lessons.

It was a great surprise to researchers then when one day, while Matata was away, Kanzi began competently using the lexigrams, becoming not only the first observed ape to have learned aspects of language naturalistically rather than through direct training, but also the first observed bonobo to appear to use some elements of language at all.[2][3]Within a short time, Kanzi had mastered the ten words that researchers had been struggling to teach his adoptive mother, and he has since learned more than two hundred more. When he hears a spoken word (through headphones, to filter out nonverbal clues), he points to the correct lexigram.[2][3]

Examples of Kanzi's behavior[edit]

The following are highly suggestive anecdotes, not experimental demonstrations.
In an outing in the Georgia woods, Kanzi touched the symbols for "marshmallows" and "fire." Susan Savage-Rumbaugh said in an interview that, "Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick."[10] The Telegraph has published photos of Kanzi putting together a fire for food.[11]

Paul Raffaele, at Savage-Rumbaugh's request, performed a Haka for the Bonobos. This Maori war dance includes thigh-slapping, chest-thumping, and hollering. Almost all the bonobos present interpreted this as an aggressive display, and reacted with loud screams, tooth-baring, and pounding the walls and floor. All but Kanzi, who remained perfectly calm; he then communicated with Savage-Rumbaugh using bonobo vocalizations; Savage-Rumbaugh understood these vocalizations, and said to Raffaele, "he'd like you to do it again just for him, in a room out back, so the others won't get upset." Later, a private performance in another room was successfully, peacefully, and happily carried out.[10]

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has observed Kanzi in communication to his sister. In this experiment, Kanzi was kept in a separate room of the Great Ape Project and shown some yogurt. Kanzi made some vocalizations which his sister could hear; his sister, Panbanisha, who could not see the yogurt, then pointed to the lexigram for yogurt, suggesting those vocalizations may have meaning.[10]

Kanzi's accomplishments also include tool use and tool crafting. Kanzi is an accomplished stone tool maker and can flake Oldowan style cutting knives. He learned this skill from Dr. Nick Toth, who is an anthropologist with theStone Age Institute in Bloomington, Indiana. The stone knives Kanzi creates are very sharp and can cut animal hide and thick ropes. In the experiment, Kanzi was not only taught how to flake, he also developed his own method by throwing the cobbles onto hard surfaces to make a flake, as opposed to the hand-held percussion method that was taught to him. Kanzi's own method is what produced the majority of the 294 artifacts produced during the experiment. [12]

In one demonstration on the television show Champions of the Wild,[13] Kanzi was shown playing the arcade game Pac-Man and understanding how to beat it.
According to a 2014 report, Kanzi not only enjoys eating omelettes, but also cooking omelettes for himself. He asks for the ingredients using his lexigram.[14]
Language[edit]

Although Kanzi learned to communicate using a keyboard with lexigrams, Kanzi also picked up some American Sign Language from watching videos of Koko the gorilla, who communicates using sign language to her keeper Penny Patterson; Savage-Rumbaugh did not realize Kanzi could sign until he signed "You, Gorilla, Question" to anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes, who had previously worked closely with gorillas.

Kanzi cannot speak vocally in a manner that is comprehensible to most humans as bonobos have different vocal tracts from humans, which makes them incapable of reproducing most of the vocal sounds humans make. At the same time, it was noticed that every time Kanzi communicated with humans with specially designed graphic symbols, he also produced some vocalization. It was later found out that Kanzi was actually producing the articulate equivalent of the symbols he was indicating, or, in other words, he was "saying" (articulating) these words, although in a very high pitch and with distortions.[16]





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-pushes-for-paid-leave-for-workers/

Obama pushes for paid leave for workers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 15, 2015

WASHINGTON -- Renewing a push for paid leave for workers, President Barack Obama on Thursday will call on Congress, states and cities to pass measures to allow millions of workers to earn up to a week of paid sick time a year, the White House said. He'll also ask Congress for more than $2 billion in new spending to encourage states to create paid family and medical leave programs.

In addition, Obama will take steps to provide federal employees with up to six weeks of paid sick leave to care for a new child. And he'll propose that Congress pass legislation to give federal workers an additional six weeks of paid parental leave.

Details on how Obama would raise the $2 billion to help states will be released in the president's budget proposal next month, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Wednesday.
Obama wants Congress to pass legislation that has been sponsored since 2005 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., to allow workers to earn up to seven days, or 56 hours, of paid sick leave to care for themselves or a sick family member, obtain preventive care or deal with domestic violence. Under the Healthy Families Act, workers would earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours they work. Employers that already provide paid sick time would not have to change their policies as long as the time earned can be used for the same purposes.

Obama will also call on states and cities to adopt similar legislation; some already have, as the White House noted in a fact sheet.

More than 40 million U.S. private sector workers don't have any type of paid sick leave, Jarrett said, meaning they lose pay if they stay home when sick or to care for someone who is.

Jarrett said paid sick leave would help the U.S. become more competitive by helping to reduce worker turnover and contributing to worker productivity.

"This is not a partisan issue," she said. "This is a family issue and it's an economic issue."
Obama will also outline ways to broaden access to paid family and medical leave. Under the 1993 federal Family and Medical Leave Act, workers may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off without losing their job to care for a new child, recover from an illness or care for an ill family member. The White House says most families cannot afford such long stretches of time off without pay.

Three states - California, New Jersey and Rhode Island - offer paid family and medical leave. To encourage others to follow, Obama will propose $2.2 billion in new spending to reimburse up to five states for three years for the actual and administrative costs associated with implementing similar programs.

With regard to the federal workforce, Obama will propose legislation providing six weeks of paid administrative leave for the birth, adoption or foster placement of a child. Federal workers receive paid sick leave and vacation time, but no paid time off specifically for family or parental leave. Under the proposal, federal workers could use sick time to care for a healthy child after birth or adoption.
Obama also planned to direct federal agencies to advance six weeks of paid sick leave that federal workers could use as paid family leave, something agencies can do if they decide to, said Obama economic adviser Betsey Stevenson. Workers would be required to pay back the sick leave over time.
DeLauro and women's groups applauded the coming announcement.

"Workplaces need to respond to the reality of family life in the 21st century, and allowing employees to have seven sick days a year is a bare minimum," DeLauro said. "The fact that the United States is one of just a handful of countries that does not require paid family or sick leave is nothing short of shameful."

The chances that lawmakers will send DeLauro's bill to Obama in the next two years appear slim to none, given that the congresswoman first introduced the bill a decade ago.
But Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said the announcement amounts to the "boldest action" in support of family-friendly workplace polices in a generation.

"This is fantastic news for workers, families and our economy," she said.

The announcement follows up on a White House Summit on Working Families the president held last June in Washington, Jarrett said. It will also be the latest in a series of near-daily previews by Obama of initiatives geared toward the middle class and working families that he plans to highlight in next Tuesday's nationally televised State of the Union address.



“Renewing a push for paid leave for workers, President Barack Obama on Thursday will call on Congress, states and cities to pass measures to allow millions of workers to earn up to a week of paid sick time a year, the White House said. He'll also ask Congress for more than $2 billion in new spending to encourage states to create paid family and medical leave programs. In addition, Obama will take steps to provide federal employees with up to six weeks of paid sick leave to care for a new child. And he'll propose that Congress pass legislation to give federal workers an additional six weeks of paid parental leave.... Obama wants Congress to pass legislation that has been sponsored since 2005 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., to allow workers to earn up to seven days, or 56 hours, of paid sick leave to care for themselves or a sick family member, obtain preventive care or deal with domestic violence. Under the Healthy Families Act, workers would earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours they work. … More than 40 million U.S. private sector workers don't have any type of paid sick leave, Jarrett said, meaning they lose pay if they stay home when sick or to care for someone who is. Jarrett said paid sick leave would help the U.S. become more competitive by helping to reduce worker turnover and contributing to worker productivity.... "The fact that the United States is one of just a handful of countries that does not require paid family or sick leave is nothing short of shameful."... "This is fantastic news for workers, families and our economy," she said. The announcement follows up on a White House Summit on Working Families the president held last June in Washington, Jarrett said. It will also be the latest in a series of near-daily previews by Obama of initiatives geared toward the middle class and working families that he plans to highlight in next Tuesday's nationally televised State of the Union address.”

Hopefully state and local governments will pass laws to provide sick leave to all workers. Many small businesses, by which I mean those with under 50 employees, do not provide any sick leave, and may even fire a worker who gets sick or has to care for a family member. European workers generally have a much better benefits package than most Americans do. That wasn't too great a problem for me, because I don't get sick very often or for very long. My health has been very good. It's kind of shocking that Rep. Rosa DeLauro's proposed legislation has been waiting around since 2005 without being passed. Too often these bills exempt businesses with fewer than 50 employees from any mandates, however, so if something is passed it should include all businesses. If Republicans have to pass a bill that includes $2,000,000,000 expenditure to subsidize smaller businesses I doubt if they will do it. We'll see, though. This would really help the “working poor” families, and be a popular move with Democrats.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377230778/obama-pushes-fcc-to-expand-broadband-access

Broadband A 'Necessity,' Obama Says, As He Pushes FCC To Expand Access
Krishnadev Calamur
JANUARY 14, 2015

Photograph – President Obama speaks at Cedar Falls Utilities in Cedar Falls, Iowa, on Wednesday. He encouraged the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition for high-speed Internet service.

President Obama is expected to lay out plans today intended to make it easier for cities, towns and rural communities to offer their citizens fast and cheap broadband Internet.
The move would ask the Federal Communications Commission to address state laws that prevent cities from building their own municipal Internet services. But it's likely to anger major cable and Internet companies.

Obama announced his plans in Cedar Falls, Iowa, which is home to a 1 GB broadband network — 100 times faster than the national average.
"Today, high-speed broadband is not a luxury," he said at Cedar Falls Utilities. "It's a necessity."

He said greater access to faster Internet will make the U.S. more competitive globally.
"There are real-world consequences to this, and it makes us less economically competitive," the president said in a video released before his remarks today.
Obama's message is likely to resonate with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, who has been pushing for access to broadband because his state has rural communities with no access to the Internet.

"It's become a pattern that he goes to a state where there's a Republican governor that's doing something that he'd like to replicate on a national level," NPR's Mara Liasson tells our Newscast unit.

Nineteen states have laws that prevent their cities' from building their own broadband networks. Supporters of those laws say they protect taxpayers.
Obama's plans would include technical know-how and financial assistance to those towns, cities and rural communities that want to improve Internet service for their residents.

"I believe that a community has the right to make its own choice and to provide its own broadband if it wants to. ... And if there are state laws in place that prohibit or restrict these community-based efforts, all of us, including the FCC, which is responsible for regulating this area, should do everything we can to push back on those old laws," Obama said today in Cedar Falls.

The plan is likely to be opposed by companies such as Comcast and Verizon, which provide Internet services around the nation. Obama's support for net neutrality and an open Internet have already angered these firms because the president wants the Internet reclassified as a public utility.

Broadband for America, a group whose members include major Internet service providers, said while it strongly agrees Obama's plan to expand broadband access, the president "is risking the success we have witnessed by advocating for the reclassification of broadband as a Title II public utility — unprecedented government interference that would stifle private investment, hinder innovation and undermine the growth of the Internet."

Chattanooga, Tenn. — Chattanooga's publicly owned electric company has already built a municipal broadband network in the city. — and Wilson, N.C., have asked the FCC to intervene against state laws that limit publicly funded Internet.

"I believe that it is in the best interests of consumers and competition that the FCC exercises its power to preempt state laws that ban or restrict competition from community broadband," FCC Chairman Tom Wheelerwrote in a blog post last year. "Given the opportunity, we will do so."

But it's unclear if the agency has the legal authority to do that.
NPr's Joel Rose has previously reported on how some cities are taking high-speed Internet into their own hands.




“He encouraged the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition for high-speed Internet service. President Obama is expected to lay out plans today intended to make it easier for cities, towns and rural communities to offer their citizens fast and cheap broadband Internet. The move would ask the Federal Communications Commission to address state laws that prevent cities from building their own municipal Internet services. But it's likely to anger major cable and Internet companies.... Nineteen states have laws that prevent their cities' from building their own broadband networks. Supporters of those laws say they protect taxpayers. Obama's plans would include technical know-how and financial assistance to those towns, cities and rural communities that want to improve Internet service for their residents. "I believe that a community has the right to make its own choice and to provide its own broadband if it wants to. ... And if there are state laws in place that prohibit or restrict these community-based efforts, all of us, including the FCC, which is responsible for regulating this area, should do everything we can to push back on those old laws," Obama said today in Cedar Falls.... Chattanooga, Tenn. — Chattanooga's publicly owned electric company has already built a municipal broadband network in the city. — and Wilson, N.C., have asked the FCC to intervene against state laws that limit publicly funded Internet. "I believe that it is in the best interests of consumers and competition that the FCC exercises its power to preempt state laws that ban or restrict competition from community broadband," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote in a blog post last year. "Given the opportunity, we will do so." But it's unclear if the agency has the legal authority to do that. NPr's Joel Rose has previously reported on how some cities are taking high-speed Internet into their own hands.”

I do hope the FCC bans such state laws as the President suggested, but according to this article it may not have the power to do that. Some states and even cities have already taken steps to set up their own systems, however, so maybe more of that will occur. That would go a long way toward weakening the monopoly of Comcast and Verizon, et al. Huge companies always praise competition and “the marketplace” for producing improvements, but they really don't want to have any competition aimed at them. I will try to clip any articles on this subject that I see in the future.





http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/upshot/trying-to-solve-the-great-wage-slowdown.html?abt=0002&abg=1

Trying to Solve the Great Wage Slowdown
The Upshot
JAN. 15, 2015

After almost 15 years of a disappointing economy, it’s easy to get pessimistic. Incomes for the middle class and poor have now been stagnating over a two-term Republican presidency and well into a two-term Democratic one. The great wage slowdown of the 21st century has frustrated Americans, polls show, and raised serious questions about what kind of policies, if any, might change the situation.

Yet if you look around the world, you can find reasons for hope.
While wages and incomes have stagnated in the United States (as well as in Japan and large parts of Europe), they have not done so everywhere. In Canada, a broad measure of incomes has risen about 10 percent since 2000, even as it’s fallen here. In Australia, it’s up 30 percent.

These aren’t just any countries, either. They’re among those most similar to the United States: far-flung, once ruled by Britain, with a frontier culture and a commitment to capitalism. Though Australia and Canada obviously are not identical to the United States, it certainly seems worth asking what they’re doing differently.

On Thursday, an all-star commission of economists and policy experts from several countries is publishing a detailed analysis of the great wage slowdown. It is a defining challenge of our time, the report argues, before offering a meaty list of possible solutions.

“Today, the ability of free-market democracies to deliver widely shared increases in prosperity is in question as never before,” writes the group, which includes Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; the economist Lawrence Summers; and leaders from Britain, Canada and Sweden. “This is an economic problem that threatens to become a problem for the political systems of these nations — and for the idea of democracy itself.”

In a clear reference to China, the report notes that “apologists for anti-democratic regimes” have used the stagnation of living standards in the West as a cudgel to argue that capitalist democracies are broken. Those democracies and China are now racing for influence across much of the world, especially in Africa and Asia.

The report is meant to shape the political debate – both in this year’s British general election and the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. Already, Democrats and Republicans have signaled that the wage slowdown will be at the center of their campaigns. Hillary Clinton often says, “It feels harder and harder to get ahead,” while Jeb Bush, in a nod to upward mobility, has named his fund-raising operation “Right to Rise.”

The report certainly includes ideas that can appeal to conservatives, including more employee ownership and profit-sharing at companies and a more rigorous approach to infrastructure financing. But it’s hard not to see the report partly as the first draft of an agenda for a presumptive campaign by Mrs. Clinton.

The commission was created by the Center for American Progress, a Washington research group founded by Clinton allies a decade ago as a counterweight to influential conservative groups. The report also avoids a couple of topics that make many progressives uncomfortable (public-school accountability and the decline of two-parent families).

Politics aside, it is a deeply serious document – one of the best overviews of income stagnation and inequality that I’ve read. Its central message is that the great wage slowdown is not inevitable. Yes, some unstoppable economic forces, namely technological change and globalization, have played a role in the slowdown. But those forces have also brought great benefits to billions of people. And some high-income countries have done a better job capturing the benefits of the modern economy while avoiding its downsides.

“We should not be fatalistic,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a commission member. “There are things we can do. They may be hard things. But there being hard things you can do is very different from there being nothing to do.”

Two protagonists in this optimistic take are Australia and Canada. They too have suffered from slower economic growth in recent decades, and they too have rising income inequality. But the bottom 90 percent of earners are still faring better than the bottom 90 percent in the United States, the report shows. An Upshot analysis last year came to the same conclusion: America’s middle class, long the world’s richest, has fallen behind Canada’s.

What are Canada and Australia doing differently? For starters, they are doing a better job with mass education. They have near-universal preschool, and they both do more to get low-income students through college. In Australia, college is free at the point of entry. “Increasingly,” the report says, “a college education is similar to the high school education of the past — necessary for a prosperous life.”

The efforts to create a more skilled work force in Canada and Australia (as well as Sweden and some other countries) have led to better jobs – and stronger pretax income growth.

Beyond education, these other countries do more to intervene in the free market on behalf of the middle class and the poor.

“It was a reasonable reading of history for a substantial time that the principal determinant of what happened to middle-class families was the overall rate of growth for the economy,” Mr. Summers told me. “Today, a substantial part of our success or failure in raising middle-class living standards will have to do not only with overall economic performance but also with the distribution of income.”

Other countries, for instance, have more generous child care and family leave – and their share of women with jobs has surpassed the share in this country. Their tax policies demand relatively more of the affluent. Canada, in particular, appears to have stronger financial regulation.

One theme is that the countries where the middle class has fared better are countries where workers have more power. The share in labor unions is higher, much as unionized workers in this country make more than otherwise similar workers.

Some countries also have less formal “worker councils” that advise management – and can push back against some of the short-termism that afflicts corporate America. A fascinating tidbit in the report is that privately held American companies devote more of their resources to long-term investments than publicly traded companies.
The commission has proposed a long list of solutions, touching on many of the areas I’ve mentioned here. It also proposes a middle-class tax cut and fewer tax breaks for executive compensation.

Whatever you think about any one of these, I’d argue that the crucial point is the broader one: Middle-class stagnation is not preordained. No country has found a magic bullet, but many are doing some things better than the United States – and have the better results to show for it.

Three years ago, the economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson published an important book called “Why Nations Fail.” They argued that the defining features of national success were broadly shared prosperity and political participation. When countries are organized to deliver good, improving lives to the masses, they succeed. When they don’t, they decline.

The debate over how – and whether – to help the American middle class and poor certainly has its technocratic aspects, as any policy debate must. Ultimately, though, it’s a debate about the future of America’s global standing.

The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
A version of this article appears in print on January 15, 2015, on page A3 of the New York editionwith the headline: Looking Abroad for Solutions to the Great Wage Slowdown




“Incomes for the middle class and poor have now been stagnating over a two-term Republican presidency and well into a two-term Democratic one. The great wage slowdown of the 21st century has frustrated Americans, polls show, and raised serious questions about what kind of policies, if any, might change the situation.... In Canada, a broad measure of incomes has risen about 10 percent since 2000, even as it’s fallen here. In Australia, it’s up 30 percent. These aren’t just any countries, either. They’re among those most similar to the United States: far-flung, once ruled by Britain, with a frontier culture and a commitment to capitalism. … “Today, the ability of free-market democracies to deliver widely shared increases in prosperity is in question as never before,” writes the group, which includes Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; the economist Lawrence Summers; and leaders from Britain, Canada and Sweden. “This is an economic problem that threatens to become a problem for the political systems of these nations — and for the idea of democracy itself.”... The report is meant to shape the political debate – both in this year’s British general election and the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. Already, Democrats and Republicans have signaled that the wage slowdown will be at the center of their campaigns. Hillary Clinton often says, “It feels harder and harder to get ahead,” while Jeb Bush, in a nod to upward mobility, has named his fund-raising operation “Right to Rise.” The report certainly includes ideas that can appeal to conservatives, including more employee ownership and profit-sharing at companies and a more rigorous approach to infrastructure financing. But it’s hard not to see the report partly as the first draft of an agenda for a presumptive campaign by Mrs. Clinton.... The report also avoids a couple of topics that make many progressives uncomfortable (public-school accountability and the decline of two-parent families). ... America’s middle class, long the world’s richest, has fallen behind Canada’s. What are Canada and Australia doing differently? For starters, they are doing a better job with mass education. They have near-universal preschool, and they both do more to get low-income students through college. In Australia, college is free at the point of entry. “Increasingly,” the report says, “a college education is similar to the high school education of the past — necessary for a prosperous life.”... “Today, a substantial part of our success or failure in raising middle-class living standards will have to do not only with overall economic performance but also with the distribution of income.” Other countries, for instance, have more generous child care and family leave – and their share of women with jobs has surpassed the share in this country. Their tax policies demand relatively more of the affluent. Canada, in particular, appears to have stronger financial regulation. One theme is that the countries where the middle class has fared better are countries where workers have more power.... The commission has proposed a long list of solutions, touching on many of the areas I’ve mentioned here. It also proposes a middle-class tax cut and fewer tax breaks for executive compensation.”

“They argued that the defining features of national success were broadly shared prosperity and political participation. When countries are organized to deliver good, improving lives to the masses, they succeed. When they don’t, they decline.” It's good to know that Jeb Bush is looking at this report. Of course, he's not a Tea Party Republican. He has a pretty good chance of being elected over Mit Romney or Marco Rubio, I think, and from my experience with him when he was governor of Florida, I think he is simply smarter than some of those radical Republicans and than his brother, too. He may even be strong enough to win over Hillary Clinton. I think Democrats are going to be highly activated this next year, though, and therefore maybe we can 'get out the vote” on the presidency. I would love to see a Middle Class tax cut of sizable proportions, as George W Bush gave to the wealthy when Clinton handed him the budget surplus. I wonder if Clinton knew he would do nothing useful with it, like that?

The Middle Class tax cut and “fewer tax breaks” for the company executives, with their ten million dollar “golden parachutes” would be a big improvement in equalizing the buying power of the 90% a little bit. “Employee ownership and profit-sharing” in more businesses would be interesting, and hopefully really helpful in getting workers a higher income and good benefit packages. It's a shame that unions have all but disappeared in this country. I can remember my father disliking the unions for disrupting the situation on the job. One union member broke his car windshield when he crossed the picket line. He was a lumber inspector, and therefore considered managerial, though he didn't make any huge salary. The successes of unions in the 1950s actually helped raise all workers' pay, though, not just the members themselves, and their absence now is one reason why the federal minimum wage is still $7.25. Raising the federal minimum wage to, say, $10.00 would really improve the situation of the working poor and Middle Class, and therefore help our country avoid becoming an economic failure as described in this book. I dread the hard times that will come if we don't do something, and I hate to see our country – so proud and in many ways good – decline to the bottom rung of the democracies of the world.