| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2005 October 5 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 9 Number 12 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| NJ Mini-Wage Workers Get Another Buck an Hour |
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New Jersey's minimum wage went up Saturday to $6.15 an hour. The increase, signed into law in April, is the first of two $1 boosts to the wage, which hasn't changed in six years.
In October 2006, the base wage will rise to $7.15 -- 39% more than the federal minimum of $5.15.
"New Jersey's minimum-wage workers are getting a long-overdue raise," said Governor Richard Codey. "From now on, an honest day's work will be rewarded with an honest day's pay. It is the right thing for our hard working families, our state and our economy." Codey had called for the increase on behalf of the state's 200,000 minimum-wage workers during his State of the State address in January. The $2 increase was fiercely opposed by business lobbies but easily passed the Legislature in March. When Gov. Jim Florio bumped the minimum to $5.05 in 1992, the rate was among the highest in the nation. The rate was raised to $5.15 in 1999. New Jersey now joins 17 states that have minimum wages higher than the federal floor. Residents and advocates for the poor said the extra dollars will not do much for impoverished people. "It's not good enough. People work very hard jobs like dishwashers, you know? It's very sad," said Mayra Lanza, 22, a photo store clerk who said her friends use their minimum-wage pay to support families here and abroad in countries such as Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala. John Rogers, vice president of human resources for the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said his group is opposed to the hourly wage raise because it could result in a 40% hit to small businesses over the next two years. "Such an aggressive increase in the wage may actually put some employers out of business," he said, forecasting that employers will compensate for the wage raise by cutting workers' hours and benefits. Donny Cho, a part-time manager at his family's photo developing store in downtown Trenton, said the wage increase is long overdue. The 25 year-old Rutgers University graduate said the cost of living in New Jersey has gone up tremendously since the state last increased its minimum wage in 1999, but he also knows that the federal minimum wage of $5.15 hasn't been raised either. That's why his family starts its workers at $8 an hour. "It's a shame because it shows the attitude of our government leaders," he said. "It just seems like it's not a priority on their list, knowing how many people that it would affect." While the increase is a good step, Roberto Hernandez, program director for a family resource center, said it still doesn't go far enough. "The families that come here, sometimes they go one month without paying rent so that they could buy food. The next month they'll have to pay the rent and have to stretch their food." Source: Philadelphia Inquirer Source: Associated Press |
| Tsunami Relief Effort 'Chaotic' |
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The Red Cross has criticized aid agencies for failing to coordinate their response to the December tsunami disaster. Rivalries between hundreds of groups led to a duplication
and in some places a delay in aid reaching those affected, the Red Cross said in a report.
Some 250,000 people died in disasters in 2004, 225,000 in the tsunami. Disasters including floods, famine and hurricanes affected about 146 million people worldwide, according to the annual World Disasters Report by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The majority of those, about 110 million, were affected by severe flooding in India, Bangladesh and China. The devastating death toll in the Asian tsunami skewed the official casualty figures, pushing the 2004 total way past the recent average of 67,000. The international director of the British Red Cross said that 300 to 500 charities had arrived in Sri Lanka following the disaster, some of which had little or no experience. "It is simply very complex and chaotic when a disaster like this strikes," Matthias Schmale said. Correspondents say the scale of aid raised was partly to blame for a lack of coordination between agencies. "In remote places," said Schmale, "... and in some cases, new charities were set up which simply showed up on the scene and tried to help." Source: BBC Source: World Disasters Report |
| Gulf Coast Pay Cut Under Attack |
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Adapted from a piece by Call to Renewal:
"I will be swift to bear witness ... against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan ... but do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 3:5) On Sept 8, President Bush issued an executive order suspending the application of the Davis-Bacon Act in the hurricane zones of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. This alarming action virtually assures workers hired to rebuild the devastated region will be paid sub-poverty wages. The law requires federal contractors to pay workers the average or "prevailing" regional wage for public construction projects. In New Orleans, that wage is just over $9 an hour. The act's suspension allows contractors to pay as little as $5.15 an hour -- the current federal minimum wage -- for these projects. Addressing the nation from the French Quarter of New Orleans two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, the president vowed, "Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives." The following day, at a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, Bush declared, "As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality." Suspending the Davis-Bacon Act does just the opposite; it assures the persistence of the inequality that plagued much of the Gulf Coast long before Katrina. Workers who lost everything in the rising waters cannot be expected to support their families on $5.15 an hour. As these women and men begin to rebuild their lives and their communities, they desperately need a just wage, not a pay cut. Members of Congress agree, and many are taking action to reinstate the wage protections enshrined in the Davis-Bacon Act. Rep George Miller (D-CA) has introduced the "Fair Wages for Hurricane Victims Act," a bill that would repeal Bush's suspension of Davis-Bacon. In the words of Sen Evan Bayh (D-IN), "The workers whose wages would be cut are the same women and men struggling to support their families and find new homes to replace the ones they lost in the hurricane. They deserve all the support we can give them, not a cut in pay when they can least afford one." To Act: Restore Fair Wages for Gulf Coast Workers! |
| Uzbekistan Presses Local NGOs to Close 'Voluntarily' |
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Authorities in Uzbekistan are pressing a campaign to smother the country’s non-governmental sector. Reportedly, they're forcing local NGOs to apply for "voluntary" liquidation.
President Islam Karimov’s administration has come to link NGO activity with the so-called "color revolution" phenomenon, in which popular protests toppled entrenched leaders in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbek authorities moved to contain international NGOs within months of Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, targeting the Open Society Assistance Foundation office in Tashkent. The foundation’s closure occurred less than a month after Uzbekistan was hit by an abortive uprising carried out by Islamic militants. The most recent high-profile NGO closure was that of the Internews Network, a California-based media-development organization. Less publicized, but with equally serious consequences for Uzbekistan’s civil society development, the government has targeted local NGOs, especially those that operate in the Ferghana Valley, scene of the Andijan massacre in May. The NGO crackdown has significantly expanded in scope during the post-Andijan period, local human rights activists contend. According to Uzbek sources, hundreds of NGOs, most of them operating with miniscule budgets and small staffs, have been forced to cease activities. In many cases, NGO activists have been forced to "voluntarily apply for self-liquidation." Those who resist government pressure face "serious trouble," including possible arrest and imprisonment. Abdusalom Ergashev, Ferghana-based human rights defender, said Uzbek authorities are particularly interested in closing down NGOs that have received funding from public or private entities in the United States or the European Union. Even before NGOs faced pressure to cease operations, they were coming under scrutiny during the weeks and months prior to the Andijan events. The head of one NGO, an entity that offered legal advice to poor Uzbeks in Ferghana Province, reported that immediately following the March 24 revolution in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Uzbek authorities began freezing NGO bank accounts and tracing wire transfers. Ultimately, the Ministry of Justice ordered the closure of the legal-aid NGO, claiming that its "activities did not fit its charter." The NGO’s subsequent appeals were dismissed by Uzbek courts. "Many NGOs’ closures have gone unnoticed," Ergashev said. "Nobody can challenge [officials’] decisions. No complaints will ever reach Tashkent. Even if they do, they will be merely returned to local authorities." NGO activists maintain that the actual number of NGOs closed down during the post-Andijan period approaches 3,000, including many of the largest and best-developed local non-governmental entities in Uzbekistan. In the Ferghana Valley alone, they assert, 1,600 registered NGOs have been forced to cease operations. Source: Eurasianet |
| Aging Boomers Seek Purpose Not Rest |
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Some people think of it as a new stage of life, the period between middle age and frailty. It's spurring community conversations, online resources, support networks, and a multitude of self-help books with titles such as Don't Retire, Rewire! and My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life.
Many of those already entering "retirement" -- and blazing the trail for the boomers -- want to spend it giving back to their communities. Or pursuing passions long held at bay. Or taking new jobs. Or learning. They want fulfillment, meaning, purpose. Arthur Horbach, 63, of Lahaska PA, volunteers weekly at the Franklin Institute, using his skills as a scientist, despite a two-hour commute. He looked closer to home for a similar experience "but I didn't see anything quite the same." After her husband died, Beth Bresnan, 71, a homemaker in Penllyn PA for much of her life, wanted to "serve the poor." She turned to St. John's Hospice, a homeless shelter in Philadelphia, where she took a staff job. Many are groping, adrift from their moorings now that child-rearing and careers -- what gave purpose for so long -- are behind them. Retired two years, Marilyn Miller, 60, a former teacher, has struggled, as have many of her contemporaries, to claim an identity more than "retiree". "I thought of myself as a mother, a wife" and especially as a schoolteacher. "That's how I defined myself," she said of the conversation she has these days with herself and friends. "Then I was no longer that." People at the forefront of the new conversation on aging are eager to offer answers, hoping to take advantage of the new talent pool. One of those is Marc Freedman, 47, a Philadelphia native who runs a San Francisco think tank called Civic Ventures. In an essay this year, he wrote, "Never before have so many Americans had so much experience -- and so much time to do something with it. "Will our society make the most of this potential windfall ... helping direct these human resources in ways that promise the greatest return for individuals and the nation? Or will we write off what may be our only increasing asset, the experience of a generation of Americans soon to represent nearly a quarter of the population?" Freedman's words prefaced the New Face of Work Survey conducted this year for his group with funding from MetLife Foundation. The survey of 1,000 people age 50 to 70 found that most older boomers expect to work during the years when previous generations sought relaxation. Even though they may need to supplement fixed incomes, they often want work that will help others in significant ways. In the Philadelphia region, Dick Goldberg, 58, envisions thousands of energetic volunteers for all kinds of worthwhile efforts. Some may even help communities cope with an expected rise in the frail elderly. "We're sitting on a gold mine," said Goldberg, who directs Coming of Age, a two-year-old initiative whose mission is "helping individuals find meaning and the means to contribute to the greater good." "Some people are going to say, 'I've worked so hard. I deserve to sit,'" said Nancy Henkin, executive director of Temple University's Center for Intergenerational Learning, where Goldberg's program is based. "But a lot of people are saying they want to go back to their roots of the '60s -- activism." Source: Philadelphia Inquirer |
| Ancient Humans 'Altered' Climate |
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Humans were influencing the climate long before the Industrial Revolution, new research suggests. Levels of methane rose steadily in the atmosphere in the first millennium, according to an analysis of gases trapped in ice beneath Antarctica. Much of the greenhouse gas came from huge fires lit by humans as they cleared land for settlements and farming, researchers report in Science. Natural climate change would have contributed to the
emissions, they say.
Greenhouse gas emissions have risen to record levels over recent centuries, but little is known about the atmosphere in pre-industrial times. Now, using a new technique, scientists have been able to analyze traces of methane trapped in air bubbles within cores of 2,000-year-old Antarctic ice. The chemical fingerprint of stable types, or isotopes, of carbon atoms gives a record of methane in the atmosphere over the course of history, and where it came from. It appears that much of the gas came from the burning of biomass -- the likes of wood and grass -- rather than other known sources of methane, such as the burning of fossil fuels, or natural emissions of methane from swamps and wetlands. "Fire has been known to mankind for hundreds of thousands of years -- even though the human population was very small, they set off large fires on a regular basis," said lead researcher Dominic Ferretti. "It shows that in pre-industrial times there were much higher levels of methane from wood and grassland fires than we ever thought before." The research adds to a body of evidence that human settlers torched vast areas of jungle and grassland to clear land for farming and settlements. In the Americas, large swathes of grassland appear to have been burnt every year, for farming or to drive animals into the path of hunters. Large-scale fires were also lit in the Amazon jungle, to produce charcoal for improving the fertility of the soil. The data suggests that methane emissions from burning tailed off by about 1700. The researchers say this may have been due to a natural trend toward cooler and wetter conditions, as well as the decline in the indigenous population in the Americas because of the introduction of diseases by European explorers. With the advent of industry, however, emissions started to rise once again, far exceeding the levels seen between AD 1 and 1000. Source: BBC |
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| Women Underemployed in the War On Terror |
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One half of the population, here and in the Middle East, is barely being used when it comes either to causing terror or preventing it. 97% of bombers and suicide bombers are male, as are over 90% of those conducting the so-called ‘war on terror’.
Maybe it is time to consider what women would do. In fact, the British government has signed up to UN Resolution 1325, which is a worldwide agreement that we will include women in preventing and resolving violence. Why? Because all over the world women have shown that they’re good at it. Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, a Muslim woman from the borders of Kenya and Somalia, in 1992 managed to stop a clan war that had cost 1,500 lives, by getting together with women from the opposing clan. In Northern Ireland the Women’s Peace Party played a significant part in the Good Friday Agreement. When the five warring clans in Somalia were unable to reach agreement, Somali women formed themselves into the sixth clan and have since made a significant contribution to building peace in Somalia. And so on, but invisibly. It is thought that there are literally thousands of women’s peace initiatives springing up at grassroots level in the world’s tougher corners. When it comes to terror, the female way of doing things, which can be done effectively by either sex, is underused. This way of doing things tends to invest a lot of time in listening to human needs, to value the making of connections, and to favor the use of respect rather than the use of force. For example, measures such as training a significant number of women for the police forces, and supporting the role of women in development and education can bring striking results in areas of conflict. Women could be chiefly responsible for driving a powerful ‘human security’ or ‘soft’ approach to tackling the threat from terrorism -- based on winning hearts and minds through addressing the real human needs that, frustrated and ignored, fuel violence. In Britain it will mean adopting a gender-aware approach to dealing with the underlying causes of terrorism. For both policy makers and communities, it is essential to fully involve Muslim women in raising grievances and addressing problems within their communities and more widely. People have an easier time talking to women than to the cops. Therefore it would make sense to set up a national free hotline, where the caller remained anonymous and their number unidentifiable, to enable people anxious about the activities of people they know, to talk about it to women. At the very least this would help to build up a profile not only of how widespread are the preparations for attacks, but also of the motives. In order to prevent attacks it is essential to understand why people are driving themselves to such extremes as suicide bombing. Mothers, sisters and girlfriends spend a lot of time listening, and what they pick up could, again anonymously, form the basis for profiles on the causes of fury. Source: Positive News |
| They Say They Care |
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Adapted from a piece by Matt Friedeman:
Political partisans say their Sioux Falls and Mitchell SD billboards are having the desired outcome. "Jesus cares for the poor -- So do we." The group is not officially associated with the Democrats but close enough that they dub themselves "Grassroot Democrats." The chairwoman of the organization is giddy with the outcome of the campaign. "It's been phenomenal," says Lisa Engels. "We've gotten response from everywhere. Our Sioux Falls billboards got a lot of attention and most [people] contacted us after seeing them there. Enough people from Mitchell sent us money to put one up." The topic of the poor is a biblically important one, of course. Republicans have probably not taken the topic as seriously as Scripture does; Democrats have talked about the impoverished, but have done precious little to actually improve their plight. To the contrary, the Democrats' initial war on poverty, continued in too many ways by the GOP, have cost this nation trillions and served only to create a behavioral poverty that is nothing less than shocking. Here in Mississippi, the Democrats swooped in decades ago with a supposed passion for the poor and sought to help, for instance, unwed mothers. Money for you if you are pregnant and without husband. More money if you have more children. No more money if you get a job, or get married. And we are stunned -- stunned! -- when 75% of African-Americans in our state are born into a mother-only constellation (nearly half the state overall). And, as the illegitimacy rate climbs, so too does illiteracy, disease, and crime. And so what do the liberals -- presumably those who "love Jesus" and are Democrats -- want to do? Spend more money. And when money can be shown not to answer the problems that beset us? Spend more money. Not to totally lay the blame on Democrats. Republicans have decided they too, with the clout that comes from being in the majority, can spend, and spend, and spend. Lost is the paradigm that once worked in this country: establish a personal relationship with the poor and find out what they really need, hold them accountable to better their lives by taking responsibility before further assistance is given, and apply spiritual answers to the heart of the matter. Without these simple steps, you'll probably do more hurt than help. One wonders with those billboards if the real point is not helping or hurting, but getting an emotional rise out of viewers and making the point that, hey, our party can talk about Jesus, too. It should be said that nothing is really wrong with talk. But, as the brother of Jesus instructs, "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." Loving the poor has little to do with billboards, and a lot with doing something about it. Source: AgapePress |
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