February 23, 2016


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-american-dream-is-failing-some-college-grads/

The American Dream is failing some college grads
By AIMEE PICCHI MONEYWATCH
February 24, 2016, 5:30 AM


One of the tenets of the American Dream is that earning a college degree will provide a pathway for climbing out of poverty. It turns out that commonly held belief comes with a big caveat.

College graduates who come from poorer families largely miss out on the same type of earnings boost that their cohorts from wealthier backgrounds earn across their lifetimes. That's according to new research from the Brookings Institution's Brad Hershbein, who analyzed career earnings profiles for people tracked by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.

The research comes at crucial time in the nation's discussion about the benefits and costs of college, given President Obama's push to provide free community college on the grounds that a high school education isn't enough to succeed in the changing economy.

But Hershbein's research indicates that a college degree may not provide an effective weapon against income inequality. That's because his study found children from poorer backgrounds aren't catching up with wealthier peers even when they earn a college degree.

"If a college degree is not the great equalizer we hoped, strategies to increase social mobility by promoting post-secondary education will fall short," Hershbein wrote on Brooking's blog. "A more comprehensive approach may be needed."

To be sure, a college degree provides an earnings bump regardless of a graduate's family background. But rich graduates are earning far, far more than their poorer former classmates.

How much more? By mid-career, college grads who grew up in wealthier families are earning about 50 percent more than graduates who grew up in poorer homes, the research found. In dollars, that means grads from higher-income childhood homes are earning almost $100,000 by their late 40s, while grads who grew up poor are earning only about $50,000.

Poorer kids, according to Hershbein's definition, come from families that earn less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or the threshold for qualifying for reduced lunch programs in the country's schools. Many Americans would consider some of those children to be middle-class, given that it would include families of four making almost $45,000 per year. By comparison, a family of four is considered below the poverty level if they earn about $24,000.

While some might argue that poorer children might be better off learning a vocation than going to college, it's important to note that a college degree does, on average, help all grads regardless of family wealth earn more across their lifetimes.

Grads who grew up in families earning below 185 percent of the federal poverty level earned almost double what those in the same income group but with only a high school degree, Hershbein found. On the other hand, college grads from wealthier families earned 162 percent more than those with only high school degrees.

Why is it happening?

"There are a host of possibilities, from family resources during childhood and the place where one grew up, to the colleges that low-income students attend," Hershbein noted, adding that he and his colleagues are researching these questions at the moment.

Like previous research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the findings indicate that college may not be the magic bullet that helps all students, regardless of background, achieve equality in social mobility and earnings growth.



“But Hershbein's research indicates that a college degree may not provide an effective weapon against income inequality. That's because his study found children from poorer backgrounds aren't catching up with wealthier peers even when they earn a college degree. "If a college degree is not the great equalizer we hoped, strategies to increase social mobility by promoting post-secondary education will fall short," Hershbein wrote on Brooking's blog. "A more comprehensive approach may be needed." …. How much more? By mid-career, college grads who grew up in wealthier families are earning about 50 percent more than graduates who grew up in poorer homes, the research found. …. . Many Americans would consider some of those children to be middle-class, given that it would include families of four making almost $45,000 per year. By comparison, a family of four is considered below the poverty level if they earn about $24,000. While some might argue that poorer children might be better off learning a vocation than going to college, it's important to note that a college degree does, on average, help all grads regardless of family wealth earn more across their lifetimes. …. Like previous research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the findings indicate that college may not be the magic bullet that helps all students, regardless of background, achieve equality in social mobility and earnings growth.”


Living in a time of complexity rather than one of serene simplicity, changing just one aspect of ones’ life will never be “a magic bullet,” because there is no such thing in earthly reality. Winning the lotto big (over $3,000,000) won’t guarantee social admissibility in the highest ranks of American, British, or any other long established society. If you don’t believe that, just watch My Fair Lady or The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Both of those movies are dear to my heart. Not only were they “great art” in my view, but a basis for my personal philosophy.

We Democrats view social inequality based on money as being highly unfair, because money and social class are not the basis of our ideal society. Even we Dems, however, do tend to discriminate in subtle or not so subtle ways against people who don’t know the basic rules of personal etiquette. We will even, if we aren’t very careful, end up acting very conceited about the matter. If we’re good Christians or Ethical Humanists or whatever, we will forgive a lack of “social graces,” however, if the person in question is ethical and has a friendly attitude. The Upper Crust demands lots and lots of polish and enough money to afford the costs of high living. “Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all have Porsches. I must make amends.” It’s a shame that the lady who made that song famous died of a drug overdose. I really miss her talent and personal wisdom.

We live in a society where we must, and should, adjust to society as individuals in whatever ways we can. This is a very open society for the most part, though we are behind many of the European countries in that way. A college degree, or a net worth of $3,000,000 for that matter, won’t get an admission to la crème de la crème, however. That does not mean that we can’t be happy, healthy, intellectually well-developed, largely polite, and acceptable to a group like liberal minded college professors or artists. Why have candidates like Ben Carson and Sarah Palin been stopped suddenly in their tracks after one gaff? Not because they don’t have money, but because they don’t know some very basic educational prerequisites.

So, for Goodness Sake, get as high a college degree as you can manage, and then just get used to the idea that if you aren’t a plastic surgeon or a corporate lawyer, you probably won’t make $1,000,000 or more a year. There is an old saying that it takes three generations to make a gentleman, and that does mean three generations of individuals who make an ongoing attempt at personal self-improvement. People who think that a four-year college degree is all the “education” you’re going to need, aren’t aware of the difficulty of “making good” in society. A good student and citizen will continue to read books in order to learn more.

So, take what the fates give you – after you have worked as hard and well as you can -- and be happy and honest. Approach people with pleasantness and respect. That’s if you want to live in a civilized and peaceful society. A nation’s citizens create the society in which they live. Learn to “take joy” and accept yourself. If you want to learn how and why to do that, read Henry David Thoreau.



http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/02/23/467861988/when-britain-fought-against-the-tyranny-of-tea-breaks

When Britain Fought Against The Tyranny Of Tea Breaks
NINA MARTYRIS
Updated February 24, 201612:25 PM ET
Published February 23, 20166:16 PM ET

Photograph -- A tea lady brings round refreshments for British office workers in the 1970s. All over the U.K., the arrival of the tea ladies with trolleys loaded with a steaming tea urn and a tray of cakes or buns was the high point of the workday.
M. Fresco/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
THE SALT -- High Tea, Afternoon Tea, Elevenses: English Tea Times For Dummies
THE SALT -- Tea Tuesdays: How Tea + Sugar Reshaped The British Empire


News that British tea-drinking is on the decline is stirring a tempest in a teapot across the pond. But U.K. leaders might have welcomed such headlines in the 1970s, when the length of the tea break became a major point of political contention.

So recounts Charles Moore's acclaimed new biography, Margaret Thatcher, which describes the British prime minister's "titanic struggle" against the trade unions — a victory for which she was praised and reviled in equal measure.

During the '70s, as hundreds of labor strikes hobbled the British economy, public frustration with trade unions was summed up in two words: tea break.

Tea breaks, went the popular complaint, had brought the country to its knees.

Afternoon tea in the U.K. was and is a sacred institution that cuts across the class divide. But with the sharp rise in what were called "wildcat strikes" over the length of the tea break, the custom became a contentious symbol of trade union truculence.

Even Thatcher's bitter political rival, Jacques Delors, the then-president of the European Commission, admitted to Moore: "She demonstrated a sort of revolt against the old British system with their tea breaks. I had respect for that."

Americans who lived or worked in England remember being baffled by the rigor with which teatime was observed.

Afternoon Tea, 1886. Chromolithograph after Kate Greenaway. If you're looking for finger sandwiches, dainty desserts and formality, afternoon tea is your cup.

When writer and self-confessed "baseball fanatic" Jeff Archer spent his honeymoon in England in 1973, he ended up playing a friendly match for a local team in Croydon, a London borough. Since it was a freezing day, Archer kept his jacket on to keep his arm loose until it was his turn to pitch. "I stepped on the rubber for my windup," he recounted to me, "but there was no umpire. I looked at the backstop and saw him drinking tea with a mate. I'd never seen anything like this before in baseball. I hollered, 'Hey, Ump, let's get going. My arm's going to stiffen up.' He looked at me, and then began talking to his comrade. I ran to the bench and put on my jacket. About five minutes later, he finished his tea and went behind the plate. I took off my jacket and the game resumed."

Archer was no doubt unfamiliar with "Everything Stops for Tea," a song popular in Britain during the 1930s and '40s:

Oh, they may be playing football
And the crowd is yelling, "Kill the referee!"
But no matter what the score, when the clock strikes four
Everything stops for tea

Another American who got a tough taste of tea breaks was a thin, young director on the verge of a nervous breakdown: George Lucas.

In the summer of 1976, Lucas was shooting the first Star Wars in England's EMI-Elstree Studios, chosen for its enormous empty studio space. He had a hellish time, writes J.W. Rinzler in The Making Of Star Wars. The English crew had little respect either for Lucas or his peculiar film involving light sabers that kept breaking. And while Lucas admired the crew's technical skills, he was bewildered by their work habits. Work began at 8:30 a.m., stopped for an hourlong lunch and two tea breaks at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., and ended at 5:30 p.m. sharp, after which the crew promptly went to the pub. When it was break time, filming would stop dead, even if things happened to be mid-scene.

A Hindu servant serves tea to a European colonial woman in the early 20th century. The British habit of adding tea to sugar wasn't merely a matter of taste: It also helped steer the course of history.

This led to a very funny incident during the 1982 filming of Return of the Jedi, when Lucas returned to EMI. It involved actor Harrison Ford, a loudspeaker and Salacious B. Crumb — known to film fans as a lackey of the evil Jabba the Hutt.

Tim Rose, the puppeteer behind the Crumb character, recalls that during one tea break, the sound man left for tea but forgot to turn off Rose's microphone. Unaware of this, Rose, who was stationed below the set, with his arm stuck up though a hole in the floor to operate his puppet, said in Crumb's cackling voice, "The take went well, but this Harrison guy, is he going to talk during our laugh? Because it's really putting me off." As his words boomed over the speaker, everyone began to laugh — except for Ford, who stormed off and refused to return until "the asshole who said that was fired."

Rose wasn't fired, though Ford was told he was.

The tea break is inextricably intertwined with Britain's industrial history. Beginning in the 1780s, workers (including children) clocked grueling shifts alongside inexhaustible machinery — and drank sugary tea as a stimulant to keep going.


via GIPHY

"Cheap, convenient and energizing, tea seemed ideally suited to the short work breaks of 19th-century machine culture," says Tamara Ketabgian, a professor of English at Beloit College and author of The Lives of Machines. "Rather than weak beer, workers began to drink tea."

Ketabgian points out that the more paternalistic factory owners, who were interested in their workers' health, opened canteens and charged a discounted sum for tea and food.

Over the years, workers used the power of collective bargaining to wrest better working conditions — including tea breaks, paid holidays, medical care and fairer wages — from reluctant factory owners. Indeed, in Moore's biography, a Labour Party leader accuses Margaret Thatcher of having the vices of a Victorian mill owner.

But the Britain of the 1970s had been battered by one tea break strike too many. Public frustration was never better expressed than by the eternally enraged Basil Fawlty, from the era's beloved BBC comedy Fawlty Towers, about a hotel where things don't work. In one episode that captured the national mood, Basil rants against the workers of the nationally owned Leyland Motors:

"Another car strike. Marvelous, isn't it? The taxpayers pay them millions each year so they can go on strike. It's called socialism. I mean, if they don't like cars, why don't they get themselves another bloody job designing cathedrals or composing violin concertos? The British Leyland Concerto in four movements, all of 'em slow, with a four-hour tea-break in between."

But in the midst of dysfunction, there was a ray of hope.

As Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson write in The Age of Insecurity, which examines the economic history of postwar Britain, the only person who seemed capable of getting the hotel to work was Basil's "Gorgon of a wife," Sybil. "Like another woman coming to prominence in the 1970s," they write, "she was middle-aged, blonde, shrill, philistine and utterly ruthless."

Nina Martyris is a literary journalist based in Knoxville, Tenn.


“But U.K. leaders might have welcomed such headlines in the 1970s, when the length of the tea break became a major point of political contention. So recounts Charles Moore's acclaimed new biography, Margaret Thatcher, which describes the British prime minister's "titanic struggle" against the trade unions — a victory for which she was praised and reviled in equal measure. During the '70s, as hundreds of labor strikes hobbled the British economy, public frustration with trade unions was summed up in two words: tea break. …. But with the sharp rise in what were called "wildcat strikes" over the length of the tea break, the custom became a contentious symbol of trade union truculence. Even Thatcher's bitter political rival, Jacques Delors, the then-president of the European Commission, admitted to Moore: "She demonstrated a sort of revolt against the old British system with their tea breaks. I had respect for that." Americans who lived or worked in England remember being baffled by the rigor with which teatime was observed. …. He had a hellish time, writes J.W. Rinzler in The Making Of Star Wars. The English crew had little respect either for Lucas or his peculiar film involving light sabers that kept breaking. And while Lucas admired the crew's technical skills, he was bewildered by their work habits. Work began at 8:30 a.m., stopped for an hourlong lunch and two tea breaks at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., and ended at 5:30 p.m. sharp, after which the crew promptly went to the pub. …. "Cheap, convenient and energizing, tea seemed ideally suited to the short work breaks of 19th-century machine culture," says Tamara Ketabgian, a professor of English at Beloit College and author of The Lives of Machines. "Rather than weak beer, workers began to drink tea." Ketabgian points out that the more paternalistic factory owners, who were interested in their workers' health, opened canteens and charged a discounted sum for tea and food. …. "Another car strike. Marvelous, isn't it? The taxpayers pay them millions each year so they can go on strike. It's called socialism. I mean, if they don't like cars, why don't they get themselves another bloody job designing cathedrals or composing violin concertos? The British Leyland Concerto in four movements, all of 'em slow, with a four-hour tea-break in between." …. As Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson write in The Age of Insecurity, which examines the economic history of postwar Britain, the only person who seemed capable of getting the hotel to work was Basil's "Gorgon of a wife," Sybil. "Like another woman coming to prominence in the 1970s," they write, "she was middle-aged, blonde, shrill, philistine and utterly ruthless."


This article does remind me of the great BBC TV comedy “Are you being served?” In many if not all episodes, there is the backroom tea break, in which the actors show their stuff as comedians. It also reminds me, of course, of all the Jane Austen novels. Her novels, while having serious themes, were comic as well. My all-time favorite British TV comedy, however, was “Keeping Up Appearances.” The star of that one, Patricia Routledge, is equal to Lucille Ball in sheer lunacy and comic genius. As far as the British tea culture goes, it is harmless and does break up the robber baron “squeeze the workers dry” philosophy that still pervades here in the US, at least in segments of industry such as cotton mills.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Routledge

Patricia Routledge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katherine Patricia Routledge, CBE (born 17 February 1929), is an English actress and singer. She is known for her role as Hyacinth Bucket in the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances (1990–95), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance in 1992 and 1993. Her film appearances include To Sir, With Love (1967) and Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968).

Routledge made her professional stage debut at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1952 and her Broadway debut in How's the World Treating You in 1966. She won the 1968 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in Darling of the Day, and the 1988 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Candide.

On television, she came to prominence during the 1980s in monologues written by Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood; appearing in Bennett's A Woman of No Importance (1982), as Kitty in Victoria Wood As Seen On TV (1985–86), and being nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for Bennett's Talking Heads: A Lady of Letters (1988). She also starred as Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996–98).

Early life and education[edit]

Routledge was born in Tranmere, Birkenhead, Cheshire, to parents Catherine (née Perry) and Isaac Routledge.[1] Her father was a haberdasher[2] and during the Second World War, the family lived in the basement of his shop for weeks at a time.

She was educated at Mersey Park Primary School, Birkenhead High School,[3] now a state-funded Academy school, and the University of Liverpool.[4] At Liverpool she graduated with Honours in English Language and Literature[5][6] and was not on a path to pursue an acting career. She was, however, involved in the university's dramatic society, where she worked closely with the academic Edmund Colledge, who both directed and acted in several of the society's productions. It was Colledge who persuaded her to pursue an acting career.[7] After graduating from Liverpool, she trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and launched her acting career at the Liverpool Playhouse.[8]

Career[edit]

Theatre[edit]

Routledge has had a prolific career in theatre, particularly musical theatre, in the United Kingdom and the United States. She has been a long-standing member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), appearing in such acclaimed productions as the 1983 Richard III, which starred Antony Sher in the title role.[9][10] Her West End credits include Little Mary Sunshine,[11] Cowardy Custard,[12] Virtue in Danger,[13] Noises Off,[14] The Importance of Being Earnest,[15] and The Solid Gold Cadillac,[16] as well as a number of less successful vehicles. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in And a Nightingale Sang in 1979. A classically trained singer,[17] she has occasionally made forays into operetta including taking the title role in an acclaimed production of Jacques Offenbach's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein at the 1978 Camden Festival.

Routledge made her Broadway debut in Roger Milner's outrageous comedy, How's the World Treating You? in 1966, returning in the short-lived 1968 musical Darling of the Day,[18] for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, sharing the honour with Leslie Uggams of Hallelujah, Baby![19] Following this, Routledge had roles in several more unsuccessful Broadway productions including a musical called Love Match, in which she played Queen Victoria; the legendary 1976 Leonard Bernstein flop 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in which she portrayed every U.S. First Lady from Abigail Adams to Eleanor Roosevelt;[20] and a 1981 musical, Say Hello to Harvey – based on the Mary Coyle Chase play Harvey (1944) – which closed in Toronto before reaching New York.[21]

In 1980, Routledge played Ruth in the Joseph Papp production of The Pirates of Penzance, co-starring American actor Kevin Kline and pop vocalist Linda Ronstadt, at the Delacorte Theatre in New York City's Central Park, one of a series of Shakespeare in the Park summer events.[22][23] The show was a hit and transferred to Broadway the following January, with Estelle Parsons replacing Routledge. A DVD of the Central Park production, with Routledge, was released in October 2002. She also performed in Façade at New York's Carnegie Recital Hall.[24]

Routledge won a Laurence Olivier Award in 1988 for her portrayal of the Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein's Candide in the London cast of the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera production.[6] She also played the role of Nettie Fowler to great acclaim in the 1993 London production of Carousel.[25] In a 2006 Hampstead Theatre production of The Best of Friends, she portrayed Dame Laurentia McLachlan.[26] In 2008, she played Queen Mary in Royce Ryton's play Crown Matrimonial.[27] More recent work include the narrator in The Carnival of the Animals with the Nash Ensemble in 2010[28] the role of Myra Hess in the play Admission: One Shilling in 2011 and Lady Markby in An Ideal Husband at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2014.[29]

Film and television[edit]

Routledge's screen credits include To Sir, with Love (1967),[30] Pretty Polly (1967),[31] 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia (1968), The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968),[32] Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968),[33] If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) and Girl Stroke Boy (1971).

Routledge's early television appearances included a role in Steptoe and Son, in the episode "Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard" (1974), as a clairvoyant called Madame Fontana. She also appeared in Coronation Street,[34] and as a white witch in Doctor at Large (1971). Also in 1971, Routledge played Mrs. Jennings in the BBC mini-series production of Sense and Sensibility. However, she did not come to prominence on television until she featured in monologues written for her by Alan Bennett from 1978 (A Visit from Miss Protheroe), and later Victoria Wood in the 1980s. She first appeared in Alan Bennett's A Woman of No Importance in 1982, and then as the opinionated Kitty in Victoria Wood As Seen On TV in 1985. She performed two further monologues in Bennett's Talking Heads in 1987 and 1998. Routledge was nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for the monologue "A Lady of Letters".

In 1990, Routledge was cast as Hyacinth Bucket in the comedy series Keeping Up Appearances.[35] She portrayed a formerly working-class woman with social pretensions (insisting her surname be pronounced "bouquet") and delusions of grandeur (her oft-mentioned "candlelight suppers").[36] Routledge delighted in portraying Hyacinth, as she claimed she couldn't stand people like her in real life. In 1991, she won a British Comedy Award for her portrayal,[37] and she was later nominated for two BAFTA TV Awards in 1992 and 1993. The series ended at Routledge's request in 1995.

In 1995, Routledge accepted the lead in another long-running series, playing Hetty Wainthropp in the mystery drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, co-starring rising star Dominic Monaghan as her assistant and Derek Benfield as her husband. It first aired in January 1996, and ran until the autumn of 1998, with one special episode in 1999.

She has also played several real-life characters for television, including Barbara Pym, and, in a dramatised BBC Omnibus biographical documentary of 1994, Hildegard of Bingen.[38]

In 2001, Routledge starred in Anybody's Nightmare, a fact-based television drama in which she played a piano teacher who served four years in prison for murdering her elderly aunt, but was acquitted following a retrial.[39]

Radio and audio books[edit]

Routledge's extensive radio credits include several Alan Bennett plays and the BBC dramatisation of Carole Hayman's Ladies of Letters, in which she and Prunella Scales play retired women exchanging humorous correspondence over the course of several years.[40] A tenth series of Ladies of Letters premiered on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.[41]

Radio work prior to 1985 included Private Lives, Present Laughter, The Cherry Orchard, Romeo and Juliet, Alice in Wonderland and The Fountain Overflows.[24]

Having a distinctive voice, Routledge has also recorded and released a variety of audiobooks including unabridged readings of Wuthering Heights and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and abridged novelisations of the Hetty Wainthropp series.[42]

In 1966, she sang the role of Mad Margaret in Ruddigore, the title role in Iolanthe, and Melissa in Princess Ida, in a series of BBC radio Gilbert and Sullivan recordings. She took part in a studio broadcast of Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith (narrating excerpts from the work by Gogol) in 1989.[43] In 2006, she was featured in a programme of the "Stage and Screen" series on Radio 3.[44]

Records[edit]

Routledge featured as the Mother Abbess on an album version of The Sound of Music released in 1966 by MFP (Music for Pleasure; MFP1255).

She is among the actors on the original cast recording of Cowardy Custard (RCA LPs, 1973), singing "You Were There", "Mad About the Boy" and "I Went to a Marvellous Party".[45]

In 1975, RCA released a solo album Presenting Patricia Routledge Singing the Classics. She sang songs from among others Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter and Noël Coward. In 1996, it was released on CD by Camden Records.

Charity work[edit]
Routledge is an ambassador for age-positive charity Royal Voluntary Service, previously known as WRVS.

Personal life[edit]
Routledge has never married, has no children, and as of June 2008 resides in Chichester, West Sussex[46] and regularly worships at Chichester Cathedral.[6]

She was appointed OBE in 1993 and CBE in 2004.[5] As of July 2012, she was a patron of the Beatrix Potter Society.[47]

In 2008, Routledge received a Doctor of Letters degree from Lancaster University for her contribution to drama and theatre.[48]



http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/02/23/467687101/can-a-bath-of-milk-and-honey-replace-female-genital-mutilation

Can A Bath Of Milk And Honey Replace Female Genital Mutilation?
Updated February 24, 201612:06 PM ET
Published February 23, 20164:37 PM ET

Photograph -- As part of an alternative rite of passage, these Maasai girls wear beaded jewelry given to them by their mothers. Rebecca Sell
Photograph -- These girls are eager for the start of a coming-of-age ceremony. First they attend classes to learn about their bodies and their rights as women. Then comes the celebration. Rebecca Sell

At age 9, Nice Nailantei Leng'ete ran away from home so she wouldn't have her genitalia cut as part of a coming­-of-­age ceremony.

For her defiance, she was shunned by family and community.

That was 16 years ago. The ritual cutting away of part or all of the external female genitalia continues in force around the world. A new UNICEF report estimates that at least 200 million women alive today have undergone what's known as female genital mutilation (FGM).

Related NPR Stories

UNICEF Estimate Of Female Genital Mutilation Up By 70 Million Feb. 8, 2016

But now there's a concerted effort to convince communities that Nice Nailantei Leng'ete was right — and that there's a way to mark a girl's maturity without cutting. On Feb. 7, International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, Ban Ki­-moon, chief of the United Nations, called for "a better way" than the ritual cutting away of part or all of the external female genitalia. The U.N. has described the practice as "violent" and a violation of the rights of girls and women.

Still, resistance remains in some cultures and communities. This week, two American gynecologists published an article in the British Journal of Medical Ethics, proposing a "compromise solution" that would permit minimal female genital "nicks" that would "accommodate cultural beliefs while protecting the physical health of girls, but would proscribe those forms of FGA that are dangerous or that produce significant sexual or reproductive dysfunction."

Are such nicks "a better way"?

Dr. Githinji Gitahi doesn't believe so. He's a physician with a specialty in OB­-GYN and a leader in the group Amref Health Africa. "It's important to understand that FGM has no medical benefits and as such, to advocate for any form of it is to miss the point," he wrote in an e­mail. "FGM is a harmful practice which results in numerous medical complications including severe bleedings, infection, blockage of the urinary tract with renal complications and even death and later in life may result in inability to deliver normally."

In fact, some communities are embracing ceremonies that do away with all cutting.

The new traditions are taking hold in Maasai and Samburu communities in Kenya and Tanzania. After two or three days of preparatory sessions for the girls, the celebration culminates with communal singing and dancing and blessings by the village elders, who pour a mixture of milk and honey and water over the heads of the girls. Goats and cows are slaughtered for specially prepared stews or roasts. Traditional beer is brewed for the men to drink. The young women don multi­colored clothing and decorative beads that dangle from their heads and hang around their necks.

Such ceremonies have included from 200 to more than 1,000 girls, says, Peter N. Nguura, project manager, of Unite for Body Rights Project, AMREF Kenya Country Office, with several communities often coming together for the celebration. Usually, the elders also make a public declaration abandoning FGM, and the young men will similarly make public assurances that they will marry women who did not undergo FGM. That's important because any girl who refused to be cut was shamed and shunned, subjected to a life of isolation, without marriage or children.

And at the center of the celebration are the girls themselves. During the two to three days preceding the celebration, participating girls in the alternative rites of passage are secluded, in a school dormitory or village hut, where they learn about womanhood: lessons which now include sex education, information about STDs and violence against women, and presentations emphasizing the importance of continuing education for girls' and women's rights. The traditional cutters who had in the past performed the cut also are usually present, discussing their role in the past — and explaining the health reasons for abandoning the practice. "They will say, 'We did this because we believed in it, but now we want to encourage girls to go back to school,' " says Leng'ete.

Women like Leng'ete share their own stories at these ceremonies. Now 25, she became the only girl in her village in KENYA to complete her secondary education. As project manager of AMREF's Scaling Up Alternative Rites of Passage program, she spreads the word that there are alternative rites of passage.

But for such celebrations to succeed as an ongoing alternative to cutting, the entire community must be accepting, says Jacinta Muteshi­-Strachan, project director of the FGM/C (the "c" is for cutting) research program for the Population Council. That means chiefs and elders, fathers and mothers, even the traditional cutters. It can take six months or more of meetings before a community agrees to abandon FGM and accept alternative rites.

Rebecca Sell, a freelance photojournalist and associate professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, was present at an alternative rites of passage celebration in August 2013. It took place in Esititeti, Kenya, located near the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where the Africa Schools of Kenya was helping implement the program. At that time, only about 20 girls participated in the ceremony; now, she says, 200 to 300 girls, including those from neighboring communities, also take part. In one memorable moment, as in a graduation ceremony, the girls stood in line in their finery as their names were called out. Each received a certificate declaring they had completed the alternative rite of passage.

"From the mothers and older women I got to know, there was a lot of self-respect. They are pleased that the community is committing to [ending FGM]," says Sell. "They know that making the change is a big deal for them and their daughters. There is a lot of pride."



“At age 9, Nice Nailantei Leng'ete ran away from home so she wouldn't have her genitalia cut as part of a coming­-of-­age ceremony. For her defiance, she was shunned by family and community. …. On Feb. 7, International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, Ban Ki­-moon, chief of the United Nations, called for "a better way" than the ritual cutting away of part or all of the external female genitalia. The U.N. has described the practice as "violent" and a violation of the rights of girls and women. …. Are such nicks "a better way"? Dr. Githinji Gitahi doesn't believe so. He's a physician with a specialty in OB­-GYN and a leader in the group Amref Health Africa. "It's important to understand that FGM has no medical benefits and as such, to advocate for any form of it is to miss the point," he wrote in an e­mail. "FGM is a harmful practice which results in numerous medical complications including severe bleedings, infection, blockage of the urinary tract with renal complications and even death and later in life may result in inability to deliver normally." …. In fact, some communities are embracing ceremonies that do away with all cutting. The new traditions are taking hold in Maasai and Samburu communities in Kenya and Tanzania. After two or three days of preparatory sessions for the girls, the celebration culminates with communal singing and dancing and blessings by the village elders, who pour a mixture of milk and honey and water over the heads of the girls. Goats and cows are slaughtered for specially prepared stews or roasts. Traditional beer is brewed for the men to drink. The young women don multi­colored clothing and decorative beads that dangle from their heads and hang around their necks.”


Human society is indeed “conservative.” There are a few traditions such as this one that almost certainly go back deep into prehistory. The interesting fiction writer Jean Auel, whose books comprise the series covering the conflicts between Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthals -- The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage, The Shelters of Stone, and The Land of Painted Caves – which in one case includes an incident in which such a rite of passage is performed. Likewise, it was discussed in an anthropology course which I took at UNC. Among at least one tribe of American Indians, young men were similarly cut at their puberty/manhood ceremony. Some anthropologists tend to favor the idea of scientists absolutely refraining from changing a society, but I personally think that is not doing a favor to a group of people who still do things like that. If that amounts to “White Man’s Burden,” then so be it. Sometimes progress is more important than cultural purity.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-francisco-california-homeless-tent-city-health-hazard/

San Francisco takes action to clear homeless tent city
CBS/AP
February 24, 2016, 10:27 AM

Photograph -- City workers start clearing a homeless tent city in San Francisco Feb. 23, 2016. CBS SAN FRANCISCO


SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco health officials declared a tent city that has been growing along a city street a health hazard and gave homeless people living on the sidewalk 72 hours to clear the area.

The Department of Public Health said notices declaring the area along Division Street a public nuisance and encouraging homeless people to move to city shelters would be posted Tuesday.

"Unfortunately, conditions where multiple tents are congregated have become unsafe," said Barbara A. Garcia, the department's director of health. "People are living without access to running water, bathrooms, trash disposal or safe heating or cooking facilities."

An inspection found that people in tents along Division Street between South Van Ness Avenue and 11th Street are living among garbage, human feces, hypodermic needles, urine and other insanitary conditions, the department said.

If people don't vacate by Friday, the department will recommend the San Francisco Department of Public Works and the San Francisco Police Department remove all encampments from the area, it said.

Though they still have until the Friday deadline to relocate, Rico and several other residents of the area's tent cities were being told to move Tuesday, CBS San Francisco reports.

"The cop told us to move, and we told him, 'Where are we supposed to go?'" Rico told CBS San Francisco. "So he said basically if we don't leave, we're going to jail."

The city moved 25 homeless people into the city's newest homeless shelter at Pier 80, which can house up to 150 people.

"They actually forced us," JoJo, who is homeless, told CBS San Francisco. "I don't know if it is OK, but it was very rude."

Mayor Ed Lee said at least two other encampments in the city would be cleared in the coming weeks.

"We're going to encourage people first to get out of those situations and persuade them, and persuasion generally means a backup by people that will say can't be here," Lee told CBS San Francisco while touring the new shelter.

The health department said its homeless-outreach team has been urging campers to move to Pier 80 or other city shelters and will continue to do so through Friday.


“San Francisco health officials declared a tent city that has been growing along a city street a health hazard and gave homeless people living on the sidewalk 72 hours to clear the area. The Department of Public Health said notices declaring the area along Division Street a public nuisance and encouraging homeless people to move to city shelters would be posted Tuesday. "Unfortunately, conditions where multiple tents are congregated have become unsafe," said Barbara A. Garcia, the department's director of health. "People are living without access to running water, bathrooms, trash disposal or safe heating or cooking facilities." …. "We're going to encourage people first to get out of those situations and persuade them, and persuasion generally means a backup by people that will say can't be here," Lee told CBS San Francisco while touring the new shelter. The health department said its homeless-outreach team has been urging campers to move to Pier 80 or other city shelters and will continue to do so through Friday. “If people don't vacate by Friday, the department will recommend the San Francisco Department of Public Works and the San Francisco Police Department remove all encampments from the area, it said.”


I don’t disagree with this move, because the way some homeless people live is indeed unspeakably bad. If that is to be considered “a violation of their civil rights,” then we clearly need some further clarification of what our rights include. Laws that don’t do good, but evil, should be removed from the books. It goes along with the deinstitutionalization of permanent mental hospitals under Ronald Reagan. “The city moved 25 homeless people into the city's newest homeless shelter at Pier 80, which can house up to 150 people. "They actually forced us," JoJo, who is homeless, told CBS San Francisco. "I don't know if it is OK, but it was very rude."

Allowing a status quo of mass insanity is not the same as a FREE society, though the dire need for many, many shelters like Pier 80 is obvious. They need to include mental health care and drug treatment, rather than being merely a place where the homeless are allowed for just a few hours a day to come in off the streets to rest, bathe, eat and warm up. The commonly held view that the homeless just want to be in the street without regular meals or sanitary facilities, don’t want to get a job, are evading arrest for a crime, are unwilling even unto the point of death to give up drinking and drugging, is unfair to the insane individuals and the absolutely destitute who have been living there for years. The number of workers who can’t get any job at all – yes, even “digging ditches” – is staggering. An individual who has no income will eventually have no home.

As a society we have failed to address the homeless problem to a satisfactory degree for some 40 years now with the news being focused directly on them. That is really shameful. I’ll bet there have been “hobos” throughout the last hundred years and more. In fact, unless I’m mistaken, that is exactly what our folk hero “Johnny Appleseed” was. In the magnificent movie The Grapes Of Wrath, the Okies were homeless families who put their few belongings into an old truck and drove west to work in the farm fields, and that goes back to the 1920s. Daddy used to talk about “Hoovervilles,” which were villages of tar paper shacks filled with homeless families.

I remember once when I was four or five years old my father and I were downtown sitting in the car waiting for Mother to come out of a store, when a freight train passed with a real live hobo sitting in a car. Having heard the song “The Thing” by Phil Harris, I asked, “Daddy, is that a hubawho?” He corrected my wording, but told me that I was correct. For some fun, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2H6qC23RPY to hear that great old popular song. After that, go to the Internet and donate some money to Bernie Sanders.



http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/02/23/467836500/should-self-driving-cars-have-drivers-ready-to-take-over

Should Self-Driving Cars Have Drivers Ready To Take Over?
NPR STAFF
Updated February 24, 201610:32 AM ET
Published February 23, 20165:51 PM ET

Photograph -- A member of the media tests a Tesla Motors Model S car with an Autopilot system. Regulators and manufacturers are debating whether self-driving cars should have a licensed driver inside as a safety precaution. Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images ALL TECH CONSIDERED
Related: What's Next For Self-Driving Cars?


The day when you'll be chauffeured to work by your car may not be far off.

Right now, the legal groundwork is being laid to make way for the self-driving car around the nation. NPR's Robert Siegel is talking to several key players this week about the emerging world of self-driving cars.

In the latest conversation, he spoke with Brian Soublet, deputy director and chief legal counsel for the California Department of Motor Vehicles — an agency that robotic car advocates have accused of squelching innovation before it even gets on the road.

Google was told by the National Highway Traffic Administration earlier this month that the self-driving car system can be considered as a driver.

On the California DMV's questions about self-driving cars

We're concerned about how safe the vehicles are. Could the vehicles operate in all the various weather conditions that we're used to? Will the sensors be able to detect the changes in the road surfaces? What would happen if there was an emergency failure of the autonomous technology? What would the vehicle be able to do? Will they obey all of the traffic laws? Who would have liability exposure if there was an accident?

On the department's proposed regulation that self-driving cars have a licensed driver inside

That is at least initially what we put out and what we are calling a draft of our deployment regulations. ... By statute, we haven't had any testing of a completely driverless vehicle. Our approach was that there needed to be a driver in it. What we would contemplate in the future is some testing that would involve a vehicle with no driver in it.

If you think about it, the person is the backup to the automated systems, the concern being what happens if there is a failure of the technology? We don't want to see vehicles just stopping in the roadway. There has to be some contemplation of how the vehicle would be controlled so it doesn't become a danger to other motorists.

On the ethical questions of driverless cars

What is the vehicle going to do when it is faced with two bad choices? How is it going to make that decision? We don't necessarily have an answer for that. That is one of our troubling points when we deal with the manufacturers. How are you going to program the vehicle to make what we would consider to be the ethical choice? We often use the example of a shopping cart full of groceries versus the baby stroller with a child in it. How does the car know what to do in that scenario, especially if it's a no-win scenario, the car has got to hit one of them? How does the car know which is the right thing to hit?

On the vision for driverless cars

I think we're going to get there. One of the things that people need to realize is the average age of a vehicle on the streets right now is about 11 years old, so there is going to be a transitional phase when the highly automated vehicle is sharing the roadway with vehicles that aren't automated. I spoke to a junior high school class a couple of months ago and I told the students who were about 12, 13 years old that the first car that they'd probably buy with their own money is going to be a highly automated vehicle.

On Wednesday, Siegel will talk to Chris Urmson, lead engineer on Google's self-driving car project. Siegel previously spoke with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx about the legality of the technology.



“By statute, we haven't had any testing of a completely driverless vehicle. Our approach was that there needed to be a driver in it. What we would contemplate in the future is some testing that would involve a vehicle with no driver in it. If you think about it, the person is the backup to the automated systems, the concern being what happens if there is a failure of the technology? …. On the ethical questions of driverless cars -- What is the vehicle going to do when it is faced with two bad choices? How is it going to make that decision? We don't necessarily have an answer for that. That is one of our troubling points when we deal with the manufacturers. How are you going to program the vehicle to make what we would consider to be the ethical choice? …. I spoke to a junior high school class a couple of months ago and I told the students who were about 12, 13 years old that the first car that they'd probably buy with their own money is going to be a highly automated vehicle. On Wednesday, Siegel will talk to Chris Urmson, lead engineer on Google's self-driving car project. Siegel previously spoke with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx about the legality of the technology.”


“Google was told by the National Highway Traffic Administration earlier this month that the self-driving car system can be considered as a driver. On the California DMV's questions about self-driving cars -- We're concerned about how safe the vehicles are. Could the vehicles operate in all the various weather conditions that we're used to? Will the sensors be able to detect the changes in the road surfaces? What would happen if there was an emergency failure of the autonomous technology?” If this really means that our government is actually willing to consider an autonomous car “a driver,” I am shocked. The idea is foolish and in my opinion bizarre. Viewing a corporation as “a person,” is merely evil, but this is insane. Can President Obama have had anything to do with it? I personally don’t consider any machine (remember HAL?) to be capable of making crucial decisions like whether to hit a woman with a baby carriage or run off the road. This rush to production of such a machine is a business led decision that has been made, and not a moral one. We need to reread Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and after that the passage in the book of Genesis when Cain philosophically queries, “Am I my brother’s keeper.” To me the only answer is “Yes!”.