LIFE-NET NEWS
by Ret Z.
Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices
2004 July 28 No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 8 Number 10 All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

'Rich', 'Poor' Vary Widely
      If there were an average American, he or she would earn about $23 an hour, or $3,000 to $4,000 per month, British economist John Kay writes. Then, in his book Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets, he reminds readers that there is no average American. Kay introduces readers to people around the globe who personify the economic statuses of large segments of their societies:
  • The Americans, Roger and Sandra, Grant and Lanelle, and Harvey and Blythe, all earn more than the average $23/hour, but their lifestyles vary according to their incomes and where they live.
  • Heidi, a Swiss primary-school teacher, and her husband, Micra, earn more than the average and enjoy a richer menu of recreational and cultural amenities.
  • Sven, a farm worker in Kivik, Sweden, earns the union wage of about $2,000 a month. His girlfriend, Ingrid, also works on the farm. They own a Volvo 740, go skiing in the north, and spend summer holidays on Mediterranean or Baltic Sea beaches.
  • Ivan, who has a doctorate from the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics, earns $900 a month as a maintenance engineer for AT&T. His wife, Olga, an English-linguistics teacher, earns $100 to $300 a month. They drive a 10-year-old Ford Sierra.
  • Ravi, who works for the State Bank of India in Mumbai, earns $320 a month. His wife, Nandini, does not work. They live with Ravi's parents in the upscale district of Worli and have a housekeeper who cleans and cooks every morning for about $25 a month.
      "Ravi and Nandini in India, and Ivan and Olga in Russia, have very different economic lives from modern Americans or West Europeans," Kay writes. But economic realities are only a part of human life. "Ravi and Ivan do not think of themselves as poor. Like most people, they derive their frame of reference from their local environment." Nevertheless, he emphasizes, Ravi and Ivan would like to have the resources and opportunities available in rich countries.
      "Heidi and Sven, along with the American couples, have higher material living standards, not because they are more talented or more hardworking, but because they were born and live in Switzerland, Sweden and the United States. We often talk of globalization as if the world were becoming homogeneous. But globalization has emphasized, not eliminated, these facts of geography."
      Source:  Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Underhanded On Overtime
      The Bush administration's new rules for overtime (OT) pay, which the administration touted as an improvement for workers last April, will still cut pay for millions of workers in dozens of occupations. The earlier version of the Bush plan would have eliminated OT for 8 million workers.
      Faced with fierce opposition from workers and many members of Congress, the administration modified its proposal to include a complex set of salary and duties tests that were difficult to decipher. Now, thanks to reports released this month by both the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and a bipartisan group of former US Department of Labor officials, the new rules can be examined under a brighter lamp:
      Currently 80% of workers fall under categories eligible for time-and-a-half OT. This percentage is about to change. Initially some 400,000 low-wage workers will newly qualify for OT because of new salary guidelines, but according to the EPI, some 6 million people could lose OT protections because of broad reclassifications and interpretations of jobs and responsibilities. For example:
  • A redefinition of the label "executive" will allow employers to deny OT to workers who do very little supervision and a great deal of manual or routine work. People affected: 1.4 million low-level salaried supervisors and 548,000 hourly supervisors.
  • More than 900,000 employees without a graduate or even college degree could be designated as "professional employees" and denied OT.
  • Pre-kindergarten and nursery school teachers, no matter how low their pay, will be exempt under the new rule. So will approximately 130,000 chefs and sous chefs -- even those not at the executive-chef level.
      The list goes on and on.

      Source:  Union Voice
      Report:  Longer Hours, Less Pay

Open-Source Software Gets a Day of Its Own
      With Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) you have the right to use a program for any purpose, even commercial. You can examine its every detail, because you have the source code (which is what the original programmer entered before it got translated into the bits and bytes that actually run the computer and when you print them look like a babble of odd symbols). Since you see exactly how the program is made, you can use it as an example in teaching yourself programming. You can make your own changes to it, which may be the only way to make your old computer do new things when you're stuck with a machine so old that you can't find software for it in the marketplace anymore. You can redistribute the program to others -- the original version or yours.
      The release of source code has in some cases spawned large communities of volunteer developers who have provided the world with highly useful and entirely free software such as Linux, OpenOffice, and Mozilla. These are then available free of charge to schools, churches, charities or anyone else with little or no money to spend on software.
      On August 28, 2004, a Software Freedom Day will happen. The world will hear more about the virtues of FOSS and be urged to use it more widely. Stations will be set up in public places to give away informational fliers and CDs with selected FOSS programs.
      Volunteers are wanted around the world. A team may have already formed near you.
      Source:  Software Freedom Day

Problems and a Solution for Philadelphia Schools
      The School District of Philadelphia is closing out the racial equity lawsuit that requires the District to provide equitable education services to citizens of color. It's making operating rules that turn education, which should be a training-to-work process, into a de facto minimum-security-prison process.
      The District is also implementing a $1.5 billion school construction program without a proper plan by which neighborhood residents and businesses can participate.
      The District has admitted in public forums via the city government that they do not have an effective county prison repeat offender management system. They also admit that the rate of repeat offender incidents is imposing enough costs that it could contribute significantly to a citywide financial collapse.
      While all this is going on, the white mainstream media -- manufacturing consent via newspapers, radio, and TV -- is building up the white male chief administrators (Hornbeck and Vallas) as saviors. In fact, both of these characters have a reputation on the street for overt racism in their actions to stop or block the efforts of numerous community members who want to improve conditions in the schools.
      The District serves 13% of the total population of Pennsylvania. It turns out 40% of the state's prisoners.
      The CROP Save Our Schools and Children Action Committee Program integrates human development finance with human development support services delivery in a separation-of-duties framework. The finance component consists of a community development credit union and a mutual insurance company. The support services delivery comprises a distance-learning-based charter school and a registered trade apprenticeship instruction management organization. The finance organizations use Individualized Development Account Trust Agreements to finance the support services. The separation of duties is needed for quality control in the support services arena in order to counter the culture of corruption -- the society-wide moral dilemma created by the failed "war on drugs".
      [CROP recently held a public forum to address problems in the schools. Since we missed a chance to cover it for LNR, we're making a series of LNN articles using material supplied by CROP. This article is the first installment.]
      Source:  Community Rebirth Organization Program

'Faithful Action' Yields Progress on Sudan
      Civic actions by Americans of faith are yielding some hopeful responses from US officials regarding the shocking genocide that is steadily growing in Darfur. On Friday, just before adjourning until September, both the US House and Senate unanimously passed resolutions declaring a genocide in Darfur and calling on the US government to take action to stop the killing.
      The Congressional vote came after weeks of protests and appeals from hundreds of thousands of Americans, including constituents and leaders of the National Council of Churches. On July 14, in an act of civil disobedience to call public attention to the unfolding genocide, NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar and other prominent Americans were arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. His arrest was part of a campaign by many humanitarian groups that included daily demonstrations in front of the embassy. Last week, members of Congress received more than 52,000 messages sent by participants in FaithfulAmerica.org, the new online advocacy service sponsored by NCC for persons of faith.
      "While a significant victory, the Congressional resolutions will mean little until we see real change on the ground to save lives," FaithfulAmerica.org wrote its members over the weekend. "Unfortunately, the situation in Darfur is getting worse."
      Source:  National Council of Churches

A Camden Street's Ongoing Battle of the Brains
      Amyin Muhammad, 14, and Yusef Johnson, 10, were going at it on Broadway near Federal Street in Camden. Amid the fumes of passing buses and the smell of incense curling up from the tables of sidewalk vendors, Amyin, the ninth grader, had challenged Yusef, the fourth grader, to a joust in what has become a regular urban street sport: chess.
      Chess is the main subject at what is known as the Camden Street Academy -- four folding tables with chessboards presided over by academy founder Baba Yatahma, a street vendor and longtime denizen of that patch of sidewalk. One of the chessboards is actually an echelon of squares bigger, on which Yatahma's popular chess variation "Yamagochi 81: The Game of the Ninth Crown Wisdom" is played.
      Amyin said, "I've been coming every day during the summer for the last four years," as he tried to concentrate on the board and talk at the same time. "Baba taught me how to move the pieces."
      While the state is spending $175 million to revitalize Camden, Baba Yatahma and other community activists such as Jameel Sadiq -- another Academy regular -- are trying to save its young people by promoting chess as a fun alternative to hanging out on street corners. The two were planning to make a pitch to school officials in mid-July to get the game back into Camden schools, where it was popular before budget cuts.
      "It's good entertainment," said Amyin. "But it also increases the brain speed. You can think quicker." Academy players usually move fast.
      "You learn strategy," agreed Yusef, as a knight took a bishop. "You have to think and plan."
      [The Camden Street Academy has starred on Life-Net Radio twice so far.]
      Source:  Philadelphia Inquirer

#  LNN  #  Small  #  Hauls  #
  • Since 1935, American workers have had the right to form unions and bargain collectively with their employers. In the ensuing decades, large corporations, with the help of anti-union politicians, have chipped away at these rights. With little fear of penalty or public scrutiny, employers have abused, manipulated and violated these rights through the use of threats, coercion and intimidation. Legislation pending in Washington called the Employee Free Choice Act would help protect the right to organize by ensuring that when a majority of employees in a workplace decides to form a union, it can do so without the obstacles employers now use to block free choice. (NJ AFL-CIO)

  • This fall, thanks to New Jersey SEEDS (Scholars, Educators, Excellence, Dedication, Success), young Cecily Sackey will attend ninth grade at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, on scholarship. If she keeps her performance up, she can reasonably hope an Ivy-caliber school will offer similar financial aid in four years. Nonprofit SEEDS was launched at the Peddie School 11 years ago by a group of private school, education and business leaders who formed a think tank on how to bring more minority students into independent high schools. Headquartered in Newark, it identifies promising students at mostly inner-city middle schools across New Jersey and puts them through a 14-month program that prepares them for transition to the more rigorous regimens of the private schools. (Trenton Times)

  • The Delaware River Port Authority will no longer write checks to nonprofit organizations with close ties to board members. Instead, as of last month, all religious, civic, cultural and educational groups looking for financial support from the bistate authority will have to submit an application to a seven-member committee that will accept or reject each request on its merits. In addition, the DRPA will give away less money overall. Making contributions using bridge tolls is not universally popular among commissioners and commuters. (Courier-Post)

  • Within days after the current administration took office, highly respected scientists on dozens of advisory committees were replaced with individuals who promote "sound science" as defined by industry and the religious right. A recent report, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists and endorsed by over 60 Nobel Prize winners and leading scientists, documented egregious censorship and interference with independent scientific inquiry by the administration. Recently the administration has demanded the power to approve all US scientists who sit on World Health Organization committees. The Department of Health and Human Services blocked the travel of over 150 US scientists to the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

  • Investor-owned hospitals in the US have 19% higher charges than non-profit hospitals, says a McMaster University study.
    • The for-profits skimp on nurses but spend lavishly on executives and paper-pushers.
    • For-profit dialysis clinics have higher death rates.
    • For-profit nursing homes deliver lower quality care.
    • For-profit hospices give dying patients less care.
    • For-profit rehab facilities cost Medicare more.
    • And for-profit HMOs deliver poor quality care while, according to the Congressional Budget Office, increasing Medicare costs by at least $2 billion a year.
    (Physicians for a National Health Program)

  • A recent "March for Life" helped people in Honduras concerned about illegal logging and related corruption win a meeting with the Honduran president. The locus of concern: Olancho, Honduras’ largest department and home to a unique range of ecoystems. This area slightly larger than New Hampshire is one of the most environmentally threatened in the Americas. Uncontrolled logging has devastated its forests, poisoned groundwater and caused water table levels to drop. While an elite few profit from the illegal logging, communities repeatedly are displaced in search of arable land, further deepening Honduras’ already extensive poverty. (National Council of Churches USA)

  • As of mid-July, the Camden County Youth (detention) Center housed 81 juvenile offenders in a facility built to hold 34. Overcrowding increases the chance that a nonviolent offender could end up in a room with a violent one, as when 65-year-old Joel Seidel was moved into a Camden County Jail cell with Martin Lister, a much larger man who had been recently transferred from a state psychiatric hospital after raping a fellow inmate. Less than an hour later, Seidel had been murdered. Camden County freeholders have approved a contractor to build a $16 million, 130-bed facility next to the current youth center. (Courier-Post)

Life-Net News Extras

Enable Women, Have Enough Food
      In Nicaragua, empowerment of women is another path to food security and more. Through a program supported by Church World Service (CWS) and Foods Resource Bank and carried out by CWS partner CEPAD (the Council of Evangelical Churches of Nicaragua), 170 rural women in five parts of the country are learning more self-reliance while gaining skills in soil and water conservation, sustainable agriculture, efficient patio gardening, and micro-project management.
      The women come from working families with few resources -- families who don't have enough food or don't eat the variety of foods needed for good health. Most of the women come from male-dominated homes with high levels of domestic violence.
      At workshops, the women develop plans for managing their garden plots and hear success stories from women who took the training in previous years. Augmenting their hands-on farming skills, the women are learning to cope with and prevent violence in their families and participating in trainings on women's rights and self-esteem.
      Source:  Church World Service

A Republicanism for Social and Economic Justice
      Lincoln was the first compassionate Republican president. Through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the Lincoln-era Republicans launched the first and only completely slave-free nation-state government, where the government owes a duty to its citizens to prevent situations of involuntary servitude -- a duty that the federal government carries out through domestic assistance.
      An oft-overlooked fact is that at the time of the original, Lincoln-era Republicans, America didn't only have Black slaves, but it also had White, Brown, Red, and Yellow slaves. Lincoln and the Lincoln-era Republicans freed them all and thus set the stage for the good life that ordinary Americans enjoy today -- a good life that can be made better if Americans keep following the economic and social justice traditions of the Lincoln-era Republicans.
      Source:  Philadelphia New Majority Council

Be Thankful For What You Have
      "Each one of you is part of the body of Christ, and you were chosen to live together in peace. So let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts. And be grateful." (Colossians 3:15, CEV)
      If you are reading this, there are literally millions of people who would trade places with you. They envy you and would be very grateful to enjoy all that you do.
      Usually the more someone has, the less thankful they become.
      How can you overcome ingratitude? Only by changing your beliefs. As long as you believe you're getting a raw deal, or less than you deserve, you will never become a thankful person. An attitude of gratitude is the result of what we set our minds on.
      Remember, you deserved punishment. Instead, God gave you what He deserved, and everything you have -- every breath -- is a gift. Keep this idea front and center in your thinking and you will acquire thankfulness.
      "Beware! Don't always be wishing for what you don't have. For real life and real living are not related to how rich we are." (Luke 12:15, LB)
      "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" (Hebrews 13:5, NIV)
      A thankful person is a happy person.
      Source:  Church For All

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