APRIL 1, 2018


THIS MAN WAS BROUGHT TO THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE HE WAS HAVING A MENTAL EPISODE, WHICH WAS KNOWN TO THE HOSPITAL, BUT THEY DIDN’T TREAT HIM RIGHT AWAY. INSTEAD THEY PUT HIM OUT INTO THE WAITING ROOM AMONG THE GENERAL PATIENT POPULATION AND DID NOTHING TO OBSERVE OR RESTRAIN HIM. WE NEED A CATEGORY FOR INSTITUTIONAL STUPIDITY.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/muslim-woman-attacked-dearborn-detroit-video-released-beaumont-hospital-2018-04-01/
By JUSTIN CARISSIMO CBS NEWS April 1, 2018, 4:06 PM
Video shows man attacking Muslim woman at Detroit hospital

Video – Disheveled white man attacks a quiet Islamic woman from behind, hitting the back of her head with his fist.

An attorney for a 19-year-old Muslim woman who was punched from behind while visiting a Michigan hospital last month says the hospital staff should have done something to prevent the attack. Security footage appears to show suspect John Deliz, 57, striking the young woman, who was wearing a hijab.

The alleged assault took place at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn on Feb. 10.

"Certainly, after watching the video, and hearing my client's version of events, the circumstantial evidence would lead one to conclude that the attack was religiously motivated," attorney Majed Moughni told CBS News on Sunday. "There were five people in the lobby and my client was the only one who wore the hijab."

But Moughni said the suspect admitted in court that he had escaped from a group home and he had not been taking his medications. Deliz said he had been diagnosed with bipolar and schizophrenia, according to Moughni.

"The hospital was aware of his condition as he was brought because he needed mental treatment. Instead of treating him, they discharged him into the ER waiting room," Moughni explained. "Instead of giving him mental treatment, they put him back in the patient pool, thereby giving way to his attack."

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Video of the alleged assault has been released. WJBK-TV

The Detroit News reports the victim, who has not been identified, is seeking nearly $25,000 in damages from the hospital following the incident.

"She will never see life the same way she did before this incident," Moughni said of his client. "She is mentally and emotionally distressed. Afraid to go in public and always looking behind her back. She will never be the same again."

In a statement to Detroit News, the hospital said security personnel immediately responded to the incident and that they take security seriously.

Deliz remains in custody and his next court appearance is scheduled in May.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



ARCHAEOLOGY IS NOT ONLY FASCINATING, BUT WORTHWHILE, AT LEAST TO SCHOLARS. IF I WERE TO WIN A MILLION ON THE LOTTERY, AND IF MY HEALTH WERE GOOD ENOUGH, I WOULD SPEND A GREAT DEAL OF TIME TRAVELING TO PLACES LIKE THIS. STANDING ON SUCH A SPOT IS A TRIP THROUGH TIME. THE MORE OR LESS FRIENDLY COMPETITION HERE BETWEEN THREE SCIENTISTS TRYING TO DECIPHER SCROLLS FROM A GREAT LIBRARY OF ANCIENT BOOKS IS ALSO INTERESTING.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/herculaneum-scrolls-can-technology-unravel-the-secrets-sealed-by-mt-vesuvius-2000-years-ago/
Can technology unravel the secrets sealed by Mt. Vesuvius 2,000 years ago?
Scholars believe the damaged scrolls of Herculaneum could contain lost works of Greek philosophy, Roman poetry, or early Christian writings
CORRESPONDENT Bill Whitaker
Apr 01, 2018

You've heard of Pompeii, the ancient Roman city destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. Less well known is the neighboring city of Herculaneum, also buried by the volcano. When the city was re-discovered in the 1700s, excavators found what could be the richest repository of ancient Western wisdom: a library filled with papyrus scrolls. Scholars think there could be unknown Greek and Latin masterpieces, possibly early Christian writings, even the first references to Jesus. The problem is, the volcanic heat left the scrolls so charred and brittle, no one has been able to open them without breaking them into pieces. We heard three scholars might finally have found a way to unravel the mystery of the scrolls. So we traveled to Italy to see what we could uncover about the scrolls of Herculaneum.

The Italian city of Ercolano sits along the Bay of Naples on the western slope of Mt. Vesuvius. The city bustles with the chaos of Italian traffic and the easy flow of Italian life. It's not a wealthy place, but beneath these narrow streets lies buried treasure, the ancient Roman seaside town of Herculaneum entombed along with Pompeii in A.D. 79. The modern city is built on top of the ancient city.

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Herculaneum and Vesuvius CBS NEWS

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: There's no archeological site in the world that matches this.

We went to Herculaneum with Andrew Wallace Hadrill, founding director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project. He showed us around the excavation site in all its ghostly grandeur.

Bill Whitaker: What do you think is going on here? Were they trying to escape? Were they hiding?

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: In my view, they're not trying to get away by sea, they're simply trying to take shelter under these vaults.

Vesuvius blasted the town with successive, massive surges of heat and ash for 24 hours.

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: Those surges, they kill all human life and all other forms of life. And then, wave after wave, they begin to build up these layers of ash, that compacts into rock.

Bill Whitaker: Until we have this?

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: Yeah.

Bill Whitaker: Eighty feet of--

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: Eighty feet of solid rock.

Bill Whitaker: That ended up preserving this place so well?

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: Yeah, the paradox is that catastrophic destruction is also exceptionally good preservation.

Preserving Herculaneum like a fossil in amber – everything frozen in time, forgotten for nearly 17 centuries until, legend has it, a farmer digging a well struck the past.

Andrew Wallace Hadrill: They've built a really big public building here.

Hadrill told us Herculaneum was like the Malibu of the Roman Empire – oasis for the elite. Early excavators discovered this once opulent villa. Today it looks like a cave.

whitaker-and-hadrill-in-from-of-the-80-ft-wall.jpg

Photograph -- In A.D. 79 it looked like this. The Getty Villa in Malibu, California is a re-creation of the summer retreat thought to belong to the family of Julius Caesar.

Tunneling around in the ancient villa in Italy, early treasure hunters dug out statues and riches enough to fill a grand room in the Naples Museum. But the greatest treasures don't look valuable at all. These are the papyrus scrolls of Herculaneum, 1,800 ancient books written on sheets of plant fiber, flash seared by the volcanic heat, found in the only remaining intact library from the ancient world.

Bill Whitaker: So where was the library?

Massimo Osanna: The library was there.

The precarious villa excavation site is off limits to the public. But Massimo Osanna, former administrator of Herculaneum and Pompeii, took us deep inside.

Bill Whitaker: The library itself has not been excavated like this?

Massimo Osanna: No.

He said there could be hundreds more scrolls yet to be unearthed.

Bill Whitaker: Back in here, in the library?

Massimo Osanna: It's a possibility. Maybe Aristotle. Who knows?

Bill Whitaker: Aristotle?

Massimo Osanna: Yeah.

Bill Whitaker: Euripides?

Massimo Osanna: Yeah.

Bill Whitaker: Virgil?

Massimo Osanna: For example.

Scholars have been trying desperately to open the scrolls since they were discovered.

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Brent Seales CBS NEWS

Brent Seales: The history of the unwrapping of the Herculaneum Scrolls is littered with failures. Everyone who had tried to open the scrolls had left behind a hideous trail of fragmentary result.

Brent Seales, a brash computer scientist from the New World – the University of Kentucky to be precise – had what he thought was a brilliant idea to solve the 2,000-year-old mystery: use modern medical imaging technology.

Brent Seales: People were going to the doctor every day. And they were doing a CT scan or an MRI. And they were seeing inside their body completely non-invasively. If you can do that to a human in the doctor's office, why couldn't we see inside a scroll? That was the thinking.

Bill Whitaker: Didn't think it was that farfetched?

Brent Seales: No.

In the arcane world where academics spend their entire careers poring over fragments of ancient texts, Brent Seales is a superstar. He made his name digitally restoring damaged medieval manuscripts with software he'd designed. A colleague told him about the scrolls of Herculaneum, most housed at the library of Naples, a few others in France and England. He considered them the ultimate challenge.

Brent Seales: The people are gone. The cultures are gone. The places are gone. And yet, like a time capsule, you have this item that tells a story.

Bill Whitaker: All locked away in that thing that looks like a little lump of charcoal.

Brent Seales: They're all locked away.

He knew imaging technology could only reveal a jumble of letters like this. To actually read the scrolls he'd have to unroll them – much like this medieval French scroll at the Morgan Library in Manhattan – but he'd have to do this virtually. After years of trial and error, he and his students thought they'd cracked the code, with algorithms and software. He was cocky enough to announce at Oxford to an international conference of scholars who study ancient papyrus – that he could do what no one else had done.

Brent Seales: I swung for the fence. I gave them a talk where I said, "I think we can read everything inside the Herculaneum Scrolls without opening them."

Bill Whitaker: Did you think the papyrologists would come running to you with their scrolls and say, "Here. Here. Take a look at these?"

Brent Seales: I smile now because that is exactly what I thought.

Bill Whitaker: Didn't happen.

Brent Seales: No.

Bill Whitaker: So how hard is it to get your hands on these scrolls?

Brent Seales: I would say somewhere in the vicinity of near impossible.

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One of the scrolls CBS NEWS

That's because they're so rare and so fragile curators are reluctant to let anyone handle them – including a superstar like Brent Seales. They wouldn't relent even after he published a paper theorizing a better way to peer inside the scrolls – with this: a synchrotron, a super powerful X-ray generated by electrons racing around this ring at almost the speed of light. There are only about 50 in the world. This one is in Britain. The X-ray is this green beam, 100-billion times stronger than any hospital X-ray. Maybe it's coincidence, but shortly after Seales published his pioneering paper, two Italian scholars stepped forward and claimed they'd had the same idea to use a synchrotron. Vito Mocella, a physicist from Naples, says he first learned about the scrolls as a child.

Vito Mocella: I cannot remember exactly the age, but nine, 10.

And Graziano Ranocchia a papyrologist – he studies ancient Roman papyrus. He pores over bits of Herculaneum scrolls at the Naples Library. Most are fragments of Greek philosophy.

Graziano Ranocchia: I am coming here and working on these papyri every day.

Call it academic competition, call it ego, but American Brent Seales, Ranocchia, the papyrologist and Italian physicist Mocella became fierce competitors -- all fighting to make history as the first to reveal the contents of the scrolls – a gladiatorial wrestling match in the hallowed halls of the Ivory Tower. Ranocchia accuses Mocella of sabotaging his research. Seales is convinced the Italians poached his idea to use the synchrotron. The mystery of the scrolls is playing out like some tragic Italian opera.

Brent Seales: You know, they say, Bill, that the reason academics argue is because the stakes are so low. Right? The stakes actually are really high. If you think about the possibility of revealing these manuscripts to the world from 2,000 years ago that no one's ever read. And, okay. So now we're gonna argue with each other? Really? I mean, maybe we could do that later after we've read them.

But the two Italian rivals used their European connections and convinced curators to let each of them – and only them – have limited access to a few scrolls to scan with the synchrotron. They leapfrogged over American Brent Seales and raced to this one in Grenoble, France. Mocella got there first.

Vito Mocella: Rosallo.

It was hard for us to make out, but he said his scan revealed letters.

Bill Whitaker: These are letters?

Vito Mocella: Si. Queste sono lettere.

Yes, he said, these are letters. Mocella won international praise and headlines as the first person to see inside one of the ancient scrolls of Herculaneum. When Papyrologist Ranocchia scanned his scrolls, he said he did Mocella one better.

Bill Whitaker: Has anyone else found anything as clear as this?

Graziano Ranocchia: Nothing like this.

He said he saw phrases.

Graziano Ranocchia: Peys theye, namely, "They would be persuaded." This is a--

Bill Whitaker: Would be persuaded.

Graziano Ranocchia: Yeah, right.

Brent Seales is not persuaded.

Bill Whitaker: You don't believe that?

Brent Seales: Hey, I engage in wishful thinking all the time. But at the end of the day, I'm a scientist. And wishful thinking is-- is not what science is based on. I was unable to replicate their results. And so far I've not heard from anyone who's been able to replicate them.

But with their findings published in scientific journals, the Italian scholars savored their achievements. Mocella considers Brent Seales' criticism sour grapes.

Bill Whitaker: Brent Seales looked at your latest findings and he says he doesn't see any letters.

Vito Mocella: I know, I don't know why.

Bill Whitaker: You don't know why?

Vito Mocella: I don't know why.

Brent Seales: I guess my threshold is somewhat different. When I see writing, you know, it should line up. It should be more than a letter or two. You ought to be able to see text that looks like something you can actually read.

Since he couldn't get access to the Herculaneum scrolls, Seales looked elsewhere to prove his algorithms and software. That led him to Jerusalem and this charred fragment, a 1,700-year-old scroll from a burned synagogue near the Dead Sea.

Brent Seales: Is there a line up here?

Israeli archaeologists didn't expect much, but what Seales' software revealed was like a miracle.

Bill Whitaker: What was it?

Brent Seales: Well, it was the Bible.

He resurrected all the surviving Hebrew script, the oldest text of the Bible as we know it today.

Brent Seales: The first two chapters of Leviticus in a scroll that, prior to that-- was assumed to be nothing or so badly damaged no one would ever know.

Bill Whitaker: This is what you hope to see in the Herculaneum scrolls?

Brent Seales: Absolutely. This is actually an identifiable text.

Following his breakthrough in Jerusalem, even Graziano Rannochia admits Brent Seales' software is brilliant. Now the Naples library, which wouldn't let Seales get his hands on the scrolls, is considering granting him access. He's convinced the secrets of Herculaneum, locked away in the scrolls for 2,000 years, are just within reach.

Produced by Marc Lieberman and Sabina Castelfranco. Associate producer, Michael Kaplan.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


THIS ARTICLE ON TOO MUCH INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET IS NOT, I BELIEVE, THE PROBLEM, BUT THE QUALITY OF THE INFORMATION THAT WE CONSUME INSTEAD. REMEMBER, IN THIS COUNTRY WE DO HAVE A CHOICE OF WHAT WE WATCH AND DO. MANY PEOPLE JUST PLAY STUPID AND OFTEN CRUEL OR EVEN VULGAR VIDEO GAMES. THEY DON’T WANT ANY “INFORMATION” AT ALL. OUR CHOICES OF INTERNET CONSUMPTION ARE TOO OFTEN WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE SHEER STUPIDITY, THE LOUD AND THE DISTURBING, AND THINGS THAT ARE LITERALLY VICIOUS.

A RECENT EXAMPLE IS THE DISGUSTING WAY THAT FOX NEWS STAR LAURA INGRAHAM BEHAVED TOWARD A TEENAGER WHO IS ACTIVE AND OUTSPOKEN AGAINST AN UNREGULATED GUN TRADE, WHICH IS HIS RIGHT; JUST BECAUSE HER NEWS SITE IS LINKED TO THE FAR RIGHT. WHEN HE TURNED THE TABLES ON HER SHE WAS FURIOUS. LET’S FACE IT, WE THE US PUBLIC CAME TO THIS COUNTRY FROM A WASTELAND IN EUROPE DURING THE PREVIOUS SEVERAL CENTURIES, AS A PLACE TO “MAKE A NEW LIFE,” AND MADE THIS COUNTRY A WASTELAND, TOO, INTELLECTUALLY, THAT IS.

WHEN I USE THE TERM “INTELLECTUALLY,” I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT ALL OF US BEING GENIUSES, BUT THAT WE HAVE THE CAPABILITY AND IN FACT THE RESPONSIBILITY TO GET A FREE EDUCATION AND USE IT TO BECOME BETTER CITIZENS AND PEOPLE, BUT NO. MOST PEOPLE SIMPLY DON’T WANT TO DO THAT.

THAT’S TRUE IN WHAT WE SPEND OUR MONEY ON AND WHY WE HAVE CHOSEN THOSE FORMS OF “INFORMATION;” BUT ALSO, ESPECIALLY ACTUALLY, ON WHAT WE WANT TO USE OUR TVS, SMARTPHONES AND DESKTOP COMPUTERS TO DO OR LEARN. IT ISN’T THAT IT’S TOO MUCH INFORMATION, BUT THAT OUR CHOICES AS INDIVIDUALS ON WHAT WE VALUE AND CHOOSE, OR AS AN ECONOMIST WOULD SAY, WHAT WE “INVEST IN,” SHOW A DISTINCT LACK OF DISCRIMINATION. WE ARE CHOOSING NOT TO BE MORE INFORMED AND SANE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overload-how-technology-is-bringing-us-too-much-information/
CBS NEWS April 1, 2018, 9:11 AM
Overload: How technology is bringing us too much information

Smartphones and other gadgets deliver a wealth of information, but are they also delivering an OVERLOAD to our senses? Our Cover Story is reported by Sunday Morning Senior Contributor Ted Koppel:

Fifty, sixty years ago, television was the threat. It would, we feared, rot our children's minds, and our minds -- diminishing our attention span, addicting millions to mindless drivel.

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The "vast wasteland," in the palm of your hand. CBS NEWS
There are those who say, "And they were right!"

So, what's different about today and the internet?

"I think every technology that changes the way people live inspires exaggerated hopes and fears," said technology critic Nicholas Carr, who has spent most of the past decade worrying, and warning, about the dangers of social media and the internet -- posing the famous question: "Is Google making us stupid?"

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W.W. NORTON
"We've never had a technology like a smartphone, where it's with us all the time," Carr said. "So, I think this is something new in human history. And I think we're starting to see the science -- behavioral science, sociological science -- that is pointing to how deeply this technology is affecting us, because we're using it so intensely."

That's the focus of Byron Reeves' research. He's a professor, a "media psychologist," at Stanford University. Reeves developed a way to accurately track our digital lives. How do those two-to-three hours a day spent on the phone break down?

"To view that three hours of content, on average, I am turning that phone on and off 300 times a day," said Reeves. "And that's just the average. There are a lot of people that are turning it on and off 500, 600, 700, 800 times a day. So it's going on, going off for an average of ten seconds."

Take, for example, a news story on "Sunday Morning": "How long does one last -- two minutes? Ten minutes?" asked Reeves.

"This one will probably last nine, ten minutes," said Koppel.

"I'll just talk about Stanford students for a second. If you put software on laptop computers and smartphones to measure how long they spent with any given segment of life that they intend to do -- how long they wrote their paper, how long they watch a news story -- it's about ten seconds."

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Byron Reeves. CBS NEWS
Koppel interjected: "But wait a second: I've got a nine-minute piece here! I want 'em to watch the whole damn thing!"

"Not gonna do it, most likely!" Reeves replied. "It's going to be atomized, and fragmented."

That sounds like a formula for confusion.

"It could be," Reeves said. "But oftentimes we find it's done with a progression of screens that at least kind of make sense to me. 'Cause you might've said something that's really important to me in minute two, and I want to get right to that."

Nicholas Carr said, "What becomes important to us is the next new thing that comes along in a matter of seconds; that's what grabs our attention. And not only do we begin to ignore the need to think deeply and quietly and contemplatively about things, but we begin to see that as a waste of time, because it stops you from grabbing the next new bit of information."

Facebook was the first among the social media companies to turn those short and shallow attention bites into a hugely profitable business model. They realized that advertisers could just be given what amounts to a one-click road map to our brains -- showing them, as we flitted from one subject to another, what we liked and didn't like.

Meet Justin Rosenstein, co-inventor of the "Like" button: "The idea was, 'Could we make it one-click, really easy for people to be able to share little bits of positivity and affirmation in the world?'"

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Click that button. Feel good? You've just added a data point for advertisers! CBS NEWS

"And when did you first come to realize that there were, I don't know if you want to describe them as problems, 'complications'?" asked Koppel.

"Yeah, it's been interesting to see how it's played out as this kind of double-edged sword. I think it's very dangerous right now to have a business model in which the way that these companies make money is by selling people's attention to advertisers," said Rosenstein. "So, regardless of whether they have good or bad intentions, the financial incentives just lean you more and more toward trying to get people to stare at their phones.

"And, as a result, we see that influencing the level of depth that we're able to think at. We see that influencing our politics."

A BuzzFeed analysis of the top election stories on Facebook during the final three months of the 2016 presidential campaign confirms Rosenstein's fears: Fake election news stories from phony sites significantly outperformed stories from major news outlets like The New York Times, CBS News and the Huffington Post.

The notion that major news outlets see themselves as professional gatekeepers carries less and less weight: "The gatekeepers, the editorial gatekeepers, the journalistic gatekeepers have been overthrown," said Carr. "And I think there was a general sense that was liberating in the early days of the web and the internet: 'We can do this ourselves, it will democratize media.'

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Nicholas Carr. CBS NEWS

"And we now know that those enemies, the people we thought were our enemies, the gatekeepers, actually played a very valuable role."

While Facebook and Twitter are undertaking efforts to limit the spread of mis-information online, the fact remains that all these internet companies see themselves as distribution vehicles without any clear editorial responsibility.

And in 1996, Congress actually passed legislation to that effect -- Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act: "They were simply a platform which information flowed on," said Sen. Mark Warner, of Virginia, one of the tech industry's best-informed and sternest critics. "So there was no responsibility to curate, police, or in any way review the information that appeared on your platform."

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Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). CBS NEWS

Koppel asked, "What would happen if they began exercising real discipline over what goes out? And we're talking, what, billions of items a day?"

"Billions of items a day. And these companies would fight against that regulation tooth-and-nail," Warner said.

The internet, the senator reminds us, has been weaponized: Interference in our elections; threats to our infrastructure; undermining confidence in our institutions.

"My fear is that we may be investing in the best 20th century planes, tanks and guns, when much of the conflict in the 21st century will be in the realm of mis-information, dis-information and cyberwarfare," Warner said. "And I'm not sure we're ready."

Carr added, "I think ultimately that's the question -- whether as a public we have the kind of sense of a democratic future to make hard choices about what we pay attention to, how we think about things, or whether we let the devices and the social media determine that for us."

"You don't seriously think that we have that kind of discipline, do you?" Koppel asked.

"I don't see any evidence of it," Carr replied.

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Justin Rosenstein. CBS NEWS

Justin Rosenstein left Facebook some years ago. Today, he's the co-founder of Asana -- a software company that enhances workplace productivity.

"There are a lot of concerns that I have about [how] technology will continue to erode our attention span, make it harder for us to focus on important social issues, make it harder for us to think clearly, which is critical to having a functioning democracy," Rosenstein said. "At the same time, I think there's a huge opportunity for us to re-imagine these tools and redesign them, in order to be a huge boon for civilization.

"The opportunity there is for us to become the most informed, most compassionate populace of all times, and to be the most functioning democracy of all times. But it's a real fork in the road. I worry that, if we continue with business-as-usual, we run the risk of kind of walking off the cliff of civilization while staring at our phones."


For more info:

nicholascarr.com
"The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr (W.W. Norton); Available via Amazon
Byron Reeves, Dept. of Communications, Stanford University
Follow Justin Rosenstein (@rosenstein) on Twitter
Asana
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Follow @MarkWarner on Twitter

Story produced by Dustin Stephens.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


BERNIE VIEWS – FOUR ARTICLES

ON KOCH LED PRIVATIZATION

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/01/sen-bernie-sanders-shulkins-ouster-really-all-about-koch-brothers-privatization-push
Published on Sunday, April 01, 2018
byCommon Dreams
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Shulkin's Ouster Is Really All About Koch Brothers' Privatization Push
byAndrea Germanos, staff writer

"This is part of a broader approach of the Trump administration," the senator says.

Photograph -- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaking Sunday to CNN's "State of the Union." (Image: screengrab)

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that President Donald Trump's ouster of Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin is rooted in a Koch brothers-led effort to hand federal agencies over to private corporations.

"This is part of a broader approach of the Trump administration," the senator, a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, told CNN's "State of the Union."

Sanders' interview with host Jake Tapper comes days after Shulkin wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "advocates within the administration for privatizing V.A. health services [...] saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed."

As Common Dreams noted last week, "the VA has long been a major target of Charles and David Koch, who have used their 'front group' Concerned Veterans for America to advocate pushing veterans into the private healthcare market and sharply reducing the department's budget."

Echoing comments he made to the Washington Post last week, Sanders said, "Let us be clear...you have the Koch brothers—the third wealthiest family in this country who are going to spend some $400,000,000 on with their billionaire friends on the coming elections—having enormous power over the Trump administration."

"And what the Koch brothers believe," he said, "is not just that we have to privatize the Veterans Administration. They want to privatize Medicare ... they want to privatize Medicaid... they're beginning to go after Social Security."

"We have a Secretary of Education who does not believe in public education, a Secretary of the ...EPA who does not believe in environmental protection. So what you're looking at under the leadership of the Koch brothers is a massive effort to privatize agencies of the United States government and give them over to private corporations. That is what the removal of Shulkin is all about," Sanders said.

"I would hope whether it's guns, whether it's Social Security, whether it is prescription drugs, that the Trump administration start listening to the American people, not just the billionaire class and the Koch brothers," he added.

Sanders' perspective on the president's booting of Shulkin is shared by Iraq war veteran and director of government relations for VoteVets Will Fischer, who told MSNBC Thursday that Trump and the Concerned Veterans for America's desire "to destroy and privatize the VA" was the motivating factor.

Shulkin, for his part, also spoke to Tapper on Sunday, saying that he "did not resign," adding, "I believe that way you have to improve care is to work closely with Congress, listen to the veterans' groups, and make sure that you're doing what the veterans want."

(Denise H. Rohan, the head of the nation's largest veterans organization, the American Legion, it should be noted, said in a statement last week, "Our 2 million members are opposed to any legislation or effort to close or privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare system.")

As he said in his Times op-ed, Shulkin told Tapper than some political appointees "saw me as an obstacle," and "when they didn't see that their way was being adopted, used subversive techniques to be able to change leadership at the VA."

Shulkin also spoke with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday and said, "I had been at the VA under the Obama administration and I knew ways that we needed to move forward and transform the VA and it wasn't to simply privatize. It was to begin to start modernizing the VA, give veterans greater choice, which we've done, and this was a path forward."

"I do believe," he added, "that the issue at hand is the future of VA and whether it's going to be privatized or not."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License


SANDERS, WARREN AND A NUMBER OF OTHERS ON MEDICAL TREATMENT FINANCING

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/21/we-need-medicare-all-says-warren-until-thats-achieved-her-new-bill-aims-curb-pain
Published on Wednesday, March 21, 2018
byCommon Dreams
'We Need Medicare for All,' Says Warren, But Until That's Achieved Her New Bill Aims to Curb Pain of For-Profit System
"We need a healthcare system that puts patients first—not insurance companies."
byJake Johnson, staff writer

Photograph -- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks on health care as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) listens during an event September 13, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Acknowledging that Medicare for All must be the end goal for an ultra-wealthy nation in which tens of thousands die each year due to lack of health insurance, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced legislation on Wednesday aimed at making immediate fixes to the current system to protect consumers from the "nasty tricks" of the private insurance industry, lower prescription drug costs, and shield low-income families from premium hikes.

"We need Medicare for All—and until we get it, there's no reason private insurers can't provide coverage that lives up to the high standards of our public health care programs." —Sen. Elizabeth Warren"So long as private health insurance exists, there is no reason to allow our health care to be held hostage by insurance companies that refuse to do better," Warren said in a statement unveiled alongside her legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). "Our bill will hold them accountable while significantly improving access to healthcare for millions of Americans."

Warren summarized the main objectives of her bill—titled the Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act (pdf)—in a video published on Twitter Wednesday:

As the Huffington Post's Daniel Marans noted in an exclusive look at the legislation ahead of its release on Wednesday, Warren doesn't view her plan as an alternative to a single-payer system, and she remains a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All bill.

"We need a healthcare system that puts patients first—not insurance companies."

—Sen. Elizabeth WarrenRather, Warren is attempting to address problems in the short-term that are contributing to soaring healthcare costs and kicking Americans off their insurance entirely—from the Trump administration's relentless sabotage efforts to the outlandish costs of prescription drugs.

Under Warren's plan, for instance, insurance companies would "be barred from changing the kinds of drugs that they cover in the middle of the year, as well as how much of those drugs' costs are born by consumers," Marans notes. "Consumers would also be shielded from the effects of an insurer dropping a plan during their course of treatment."

"Too many Americans have to battle with their insurance companies just to see their doctor or get a prescription filled," Warren wrote on Twitter Wednesday. "We need a healthcare system that puts patients first—not insurance companies."

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IF YOU DON’T READ ANY OTHER ARTICLE IN TODAY’S BLOG, YOU SHOULD READ THIS ONE. IT’S ABOUT THE LIFE AND WORK OF TEACHERS WHO WORK WITH KIDS VERSUS THAT OF AN ARMY OF TESTING PROFESSIONALS. LOOK AT THE PAY AND BENEFITS FOR BOTH. I, FOR ONE, DO NOT BELIEVE THIS INCREDIBLE EMPHASIS ON TESTS IS THE KEY TO A BETTER EDUCATION AT ALL; AND IT IS BECOMING A PRIMARY WAY THAT KIDS AFTER GRADUATION ARE BEING SEGREGATED FOR COLLEGE OR LOWER LEVEL FUTURES. WE’RE MASS-PRODUCING KIDS AND THEN SORTING THEM MECHANICALLY. NO WONDER SOME OF THEM GO INSANE AND START SHOOTING. WE’RE TURNING PEOPLE INTO AUTOMATONS, NOT CITIZENS. I CALL FOR ALL PARENTS WHO CAN DO SO AT ALL TO HOME SCHOOL THEIR CHILDREN. THERE ARE EVEN ONLINE COURSES FOR KIDS FROM THE YOUNGEST TO THE OLDEST, TO HELP PARENTS DO JUST THAT. THEY COULD THEN DO ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES LIKE TRIPS TO MUSEUMS AND ZOOS AND, MOST BASICALLY OF ALL, LIBRARIES. IS THAT RADICAL?

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/03/27/testing-corporations-rake-cash-while-teachers-sell-plasma-survive
Published on Tuesday, March 27, 2018
by Common Dreams
Testing Corporations Rake in Cash While Teachers Sell Plasma to Survive
Keep in mind, both teachers and test makers are being paid with public tax dollars.
bySteven Singer

Photograph -- "We take teachers for granted. We value the work they do but not the people who do that work." (Photo: John Raby/AP)

If you want to get rich in education, don’t become a teacher.

Open a charter school or take a job at a testing corporation.

Sure, charter schools are elaborate scams to make money off children while providing fewer services.

3f7ccd898a1d7e2ad178656da70f58b7--teaching-quotes-teaching-ideas
Sure, standardized tests are just corporate welfare that labels poor and minority kids failures and pretends that’s their fault.

And teachers? They’re just the people who do all the actual work of educating children. Yet there’s never enough money, never enough resources for the job they do.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary of public school teachers in Pennsylvania is between $53,000 and $59,000 per year.

Compare that with the salaries of the people who make and distribute the state’s federally mandated standardized tests – employees at Data Recognition Corporation (DRC).

DRC publishes numerous assessments in various states. However, in the Keystone state, the corporation makes everything from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments (PSSA) to the Keystone Exams in Algebra, Literature and Biology.

At its 14 locations across the country, the company has more than 750 full time employees and 5,000 seasonal ones used mainly to help grade the tests.

Screen Shot 2018-03-26 at 7.41.50 AM

According to glassdoor.com, a site that showcases job listings, here are some openings at DRC and their associated salaries:

Test Development Specialist – $68K-$86K
Quality Assurance Analyst – $77K-$83K
Technology Manager – $77K-$84K
Business Analyst – $81,856
Software Developer – $83,199
Psychometrician – $95,870
Senior Software Developer – $96,363

So teachers spend 180 days in overcrowded classrooms with fewer resources than they need – often forced to buy school supplies for their students out of pocket – to get their students ready to take the high stakes tests.

Meanwhile, the test makers sit in luxury office buildings taking home tens of thousands of dollars more just to make the tests that students take over the course of a few weeks.

And these corporate test employees DO work in luxury.

Here are some of the benefits they receive listed on DRC’s own Website:

“DRC offers a comprehensive benefits program that allows employees to make choices that best meet their current and future needs.

Key Benefits:

Choice of medical plans
Choice of dental plans
Flexible spending accounts
HSA account
401K savings plan
Profit sharing
Short- and long-term disability plans
Wellbeing Benefits

Paid vacation
Paid holidays
Personal time off
Workout facilities/locker rooms at select locations
Tuition reimbursement
Community service hours
Discount programs
Adoption assistance
Fitness classes
On-site massage
Walking paths
Convenience Benefits

Business casual attire
On-site subsidized cafeterias
Dry cleaning pick-up and delivery
Company store

It’s funny. Some folks get all in a lather about the much less extravagant benefits given to teachers, but I’ve never heard anyone in a rage about these benefits being paid to corporate test makers.

And keep in mind, both teachers and test makers are being paid with public tax dollars. YOU are funding the test makers on-the-job massage break just as you’re funding the public school teachers trip to the doctor for anti-anxiety meds.

The Pennsylvania legislature has entered into three contracts with DRC through 6/30/21 for services related to standardized testing for a total of $741,158,039.60, according to State Sen. Andrew Dinniman (D-West Chester).

That is your money funding the test makers workout facilities and flexible spending accounts. You pay for their walking trails, fitness classes, dry cleaning services and subsidized cafeterias.

Meanwhile, public school teachers – who do the bulk of the work educating children – are left struggling to make ends meet.

According to estimates by the National Education Association (NEA), teaching salaries from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia have stagnated by 2.3% in the past 15 years.

But that’s way better than in most parts of the country.

In West Virginia, teachers across the state went on a 9-day strike to get a 5% pay raise.

Teachers in Arizona and Oklahoma are planning their own strike due to even worse neglect.

In Oklahoma, some educators have actually had to resort to selling plasma in order to survive.

KOCO News 5, in the Sooner State, reported on a fifth grade teacher at Newcastle Elementary school, Jay Thomas, who sells blood to supplement his income.

“I’ve got a permanent scar doing that. Just did it yesterday,” Thomas said.

“I’ve been doing it for a couple of years. I’ve given over 100 times. It’s twice a week.”

Though Thomas has been an Oklahoma teacher for 16 years, he makes less than $40,000 a year after taxes.

Selling plasma nets him about $65 a week.

And if you think Thomas is the anomaly, when this story was spread on Twitter, other teachers responded that they do the same, some even including pictures of themselves at the blood bank.

Screen Shot 2018-03-23 at 9.57.25 AM

This is why there is a teacher shortage in many states. This is why fewer college students are entering the field. And it is why many of those educators who have stayed in the classroom are considering strikes.

We take teachers for granted. We value the work they do but not the people who do that work.

Meanwhile, we give extravagant rewards to the corporate vultures who provide very little for children but divert funding that should be going to educate students – the standardized testing corporations and the privatized school operators.

If we really want to improve our education system in this country, the first step is to value those who work in it.

We need to turn the money hose off for unnecessary expenses like standardized testing and allowing charter and voucher operators to pocket tax money as profit.

And we need to spend more on the people in the trenches day-in-day-out making sure our children get the quality education they deserve.

We need to give teachers the resources and respect they need to succeed and end the scams of high stakes testing and school privatization.

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ANOTHER SAD SOCIETAL NOTE. ISRAEL BECAME A REFUGE FOR JEWS FREED FROM THE DEATH CAMPS, AND NOW IT IS BECOMING AN OPPRESSIVE NATION ON ITS’ OWN. THE ONGOING MUTUAL HATRED BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS CAN AND SHOULD BE STOPPED IF BOTH PARTIES WERE TO STOP THE CONTINUAL PROVOCATIONS. WE CAN’T EXPECT A WOUND TO HEAL WHEN WE CONSTANT RUB SALT INTO IT.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/01/politics/bernie-sanders-gaza-protests-cnntv/index.html
Bernie Sanders: Israel 'overreacted' during Gaza protests
Anchor Muted Background
By Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Updated 12:51 PM ET, Sun April 1, 2018

Washington (CNN)Senator Bernie Sanders said he doesn't believe the official response from Israeli authorities, who say that deadly clashes in Gaza this past week were "violent terror demonstrations," and that Hamas fighters were embedded within a crowd of protestors.

"From what my understanding is, you have tens and tens of thousands of people who are engaged in a nonviolent protest. I believe now 15 or 20 people, Palestinians, have been killed and many, many others have been wounded. So I think it's a difficult situation, but my assessment is that Israel overreacted on that," the Vermont Independent told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
The clashes on Friday resulted in at least 17 Palestinians being killed and more than 1,400 injured in confrontations with Israeli security forces.
Sanders responded to the news, tweeting that "the killing of Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli forces in Gaza is tragic. It is the right of all people to protest for a better future without a violent response."

Bernie Sanders
✔
@SenSanders
The killing of Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli forces in Gaza is tragic. It is the right of all people to protest for a better future without a violent response.

3:47 PM - Mar 31, 2018
52.3K
23.9K people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
He added: "Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza remains a humanitarian disaster. The US must play a more positive role in ending the Gaza blockade and helping Palestinians and Israelis build a future that works for all."
In his comments Sunday on CNN, Sanders emphasized the need for more involvement in the region on the part of the US.
"The bottom line here is that the United States of America has got to be involved in dealing with the terrible tragedy in Gaza," he said, adding, that "Gaza is a disaster right now."



HERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS ON THE MATTER.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/daniel-barenboim-tries-bridging-the-middle-east-conflict-with-music/
Daniel Barenboim tries bridging the Middle East conflict with music
Of all the orchestras he conducts around the world, this may be the one that moves Barenboim the most
Apr 01, 2018
CORRESPONDENT
Holly Williams

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more accomplished musician than Daniel Barenboim, a celebrated conductor and distinguished concert pianist, who grew up in Israel and for the last seven decades has been performing with the great orchestras of the world. For many maestros, all that would be enough. Not for Barenboim. At 75, he's still at it and he's embarked on a second act: starting his own orchestra for young musicians from Israel and the Muslim world and taking on a subject that's as contentious as it gets: the conflict in the Middle East. His work has earned him Palestinian citizenship and charges of treachery from some of his fellow Israelis. But as we found out, controversy hasn't slowed Barenboim down, he seems to thrive on it.

asecondact3.jpg
Composer Daniel Barenboim CBS NEWS
Of all the orchestras Daniel Barenboim leads around the world, this might be the one that moves him the most.

Some of the young musicians on stage at this summer concert in Berlin are Iranian, Syrian, Palestinian.

Others are Israelis, all playing in perfect harmony, even as their governments threaten to destroy one another.

It's called the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

Holly Williams: Is it surprising, really, that if you bring very good Arab musicians and very good Israeli musicians together that, that they play together? They make--

Daniel Barenboim: Of course it is

Holly Williams: music?

Daniel Barenboim: surprising, because from the education and where they come from, they are taught the other is a monster.

"In the orchestra, we have equality."
It was an idea he hatched twenty years ago with his friend, the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said, to find young musicians from across the Middle East… bringing them together for two months out of the year, and giving them an opportunity to play on the world's most prestigious stages.

Some of the musicians here risk punishment from their governments for performing with Israelis. Others are living in exile. Nadim Husni is a violist from Damascus, Syria. He hasn't been back to see his parents for eight years.

Nadim Husni: Whenever my phone rings you know, I'm every day waiting for some bad news about my parents. I have no idea who's calling and why.

That's because swathes of his country have been leveled in a seven-year civil war, Israel still remains Syria's greatest foreign enemy.

Holly Williams: Had you ever met an Israeli before that?

Nadim Husni: No. No, no, no, never. I had no idea what to expect, how to talk to these people, you understand? They were just foreign creatures.

Coming face to face with the enemy is the whole point of the Divan, but Barenboim has no illusions about what he can accomplish.

Daniel Barenboim: The orchestra has been very often described as an orchestra for peace. Of course, it isn't an orchestra for peace. This orchestra is not going to bring peace.

Holly Williams: Then why do it?

Daniel Barenboim: Because in the orchestra, we have equality. So when you create a situation in which there is a Palestinian clarinet player, who has a difficult solo. And you have the whole orchestra wishing him well and accompanying him, is the only place where a group that includes so many Israelis wishes the Palestinian well and vice versa.

Holly Williams: Except, of course, the Middle East is not an orchestra. People, there are not musical instruments. They're not even musicians. And there is no conductor there to tell them what to do.

Daniel Barenboim: I know. I know. But this-- I am a conductor. I'm not a politician. I'm a conductor. And therefore, I do what I feel I can do.

There's not much Barenboim hasn't done in the seventy years since he made his concert debut as a child prodigy in Argentina. At the age of ten his family moved to Israel and, soon after, he started conducting. He's been classical music royalty ever since.


When 60 Minutes first met Daniel Barenboim 20 years ago, Correspondent Bob Simon found that he was a maestro in perpetual motion.

Bob Simon: I've been following you around for almost a week now… I'm exhausted.

Daniel Barenboim: Yeah, you look tired.

Bob Simon: And anyone who spends a week with Daniel Barenboim will discover that he's not only a musical genius, but a 56-year-old child.

At 75, this older Barenboim is a more sober character than he used to be, more political. He's still giving recitals as a concert pianist and he has his day job, as Music Director of the State Opera in Berlin, but recently he also opened the Barenboim-Said Academy, a conservatory built in this redesigned warehouse in downtown Berlin which, just like his orchestra the Divan, brings together students from Israel and across the Middle East.

a-second-act-2.jpg
Violist Sadra Fayyaz studies at the academy and plays in the Divan. He's from Iran, a sworn enemy of Israel. As a kid, he grew up buying black-market videos of Barenboim's concerts.

Sadra Fayyaz: And then, we watch them until we know every gesture by heart. So we just, when we have them, we are so happy because it's even not in our imagination that someday actually we are going to meet them. We cannot even see them in concert.

Holly Williams: And so, you grew up in Iran--

Sadra Fayyaz: Yes.

Holly Williams: Watching DVDs and videos of Daniel Barenboim--

Sadra Fayyaz: Yes.

Holly Williams: An Israeli conductor.

Sadra Fayyaz: Yes. Sure. We don't even know that he's Israeli. It's all about the music.

They are accomplished young musicians who get to practice and perform in a new concert hall designed by architect Frank Gehry. But the music is only part of what Barenboim wants them to learn here.

Holly Williams: Do they also discuss politics? Do they argue with each other

Daniel Barenboim: Oh yes. Yeah. Oh yes. All the time. All the time. And they should. And I don't expect them to agree on the pol-- I expect them to agree on the music.

Holly Williams: Are there also love affairs? Do some of the Israeli players--

Daniel Barenboim: I'm not supposed to know about that--

Holly Williams: I'm sure you do, though. Did-- does it happen?

Daniel Barenboim: It must be very exciting to fall in love with the enemy. You should try it maybe one day.

fullshow.jpg
There's chemistry in the rehearsal rooms too. Just listen to this ensemble, that's Sadra the Iranian violist, a Palestinian violinist and an Israeli on clarinet, Miri Saadon.

Holly Williams: What's it like as a musician, as an Israeli musician playing alongside Arab musicians or Iranian musicians?

Miri Saadon: I mean, sometimes I have this moment of, of like, "Oh, my God, we are Palestinian and Iranian and me. And just sometimes I remember that, you know, each of us is from such a different background. But we are actually a lot of things-- very similar.

Last summer, Barenboim took us to a fault line in the Middle East conflict, the Palestinian city of Ramallah on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he has another musical project. It's just a few miles from Jerusalem, but sealed off behind a long security wall that snakes its way across the Palestinian countryside.

Daniel Barenboim: The occupation is horrific for the Palestinians, but it's not good for Israel.

Those can be provocative words in Israel. But Barenboim goes even further, after years trying to build bridges here, he says the wall only serves to deceive.

Holly Williams: I mean this makes many Israelis feel safe in their own homes.

Daniel Barenboim: But they're not. They're not.

Holly Williams: So it's a lie?

Daniel Barenboim: Well, I wouldn't say it's a lie. It's a make-believe. It's a make-believe. Israel will have full security when there is justice for the Palestinians.

He's opened a music school in Ramallah which draws kids from cities, towns and villages in the West Bank, many of them wouldn't normally have access to classical music. It's a demanding program, which brings in professional musicians from all over Europe to teach around 100 kids.

Natalie's nine and Sana's 11. They've been studying here for more than two years.

Holly Williams: What's your favorite piece of music to play?

GIRLS: "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

Holly Williams: "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

Holly Williams: What does it make you think of? Does it sound a bit sort of magical like it's from a far away place?

GIRLS: Yeah


For many of the kids in Barenboim's school, that's exactly where music takes them, to a faraway place. Katia is a 17-year-old Palestinian. She's been studying for ten years and practices three to four hours a day.

Holly Williams: How do you feel when you pick up your violin and start playing?

Katia: I, I feel relaxed. I feel like I'm safe now, and I can do whatever I want. I think music takes me into another world, and I can do whatever I want there, with no one controlling me.

But not even a conservatory for children is immune to the rancor of this region, especially when someone like Barenboim is involved.

Holly Williams: There are some Palestinians who object to it simply because you are an Israeli.

Daniel Barenboim: Yeah, and they call this normalization

In other words, we Palestinians suffer under Israeli occupation, and therefore we want no contact with Israelis.

Holly Williams: I mean, on the other side there are Israelis who say, "Why are you devoting your time and resources to the Palestinians?"

Daniel Barenboim: But, maybe those Israelis and those Palestinians should get together. I think I have more or less equal proportion of admirers and detractors, both in Israel and in Palestine. So something of what I do must be right.

Perhaps, but when Barenboim accepted Palestinian citizenship ten years ago, some Israelis considered it treachery.

Holly Williams: It sounds as if you quite enjoy angering people.

Daniel Barenboim: No.

Holly Williams: You quite enjoy being controversial.

Daniel Barenboim: Not at all. Not at all. I couldn't care not at all. I couldn't care less. I do really I have if I am happy about something, is that I have arrived at this stage where I can do what I feel is right.

The kids in Ramallah rarely have the opportunity to play for Barenboim in person, some of the younger ones weren't even totally sure who he was.


But Barenboim demanded as much from these minor maestros in the making as he would from any other musician who shares his stage.

For some of the older ones, there was an even bigger opportunity, Barenboim had flown in members of the Divan Orchestra to perform alongside the kids and their teachers.

Parents, grandparents and local dignitaries turned out for a rare event in Ramallah, a classical concert featuring their very own, taking the stage with a legend.

Barenboim couldn't pass up an opportunity to speak his mind.

Daniel Barenboim: Jewish blood runs through my veins and my heart bleeds for the Palestinian cause.

But the night belonged to the kids and to the music. Mozart, which spoke for itself.

Produced by Michael H. Gavshon and David M. Levine.

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