Natural Disasters, Infrastructure, Preparation, Funding
“First, there is a better way to handle disasters than
appropriating money for relief after each catastrophe. In a previous era of
politics, this wouldn’t be a problem, but conditions are such that any “must
pass bill” like funding for the victims of hurricanes creates opportunities for
partisan irresponsibility in Congress. It’s true that the federal government
has a spending and debt problem, but that issue should be completely separate
from helping people who just lost their homes, livelihoods or worse.
Instead, Congress, in consultation with state and local
government, should create a national strategy for disaster relief and
prevention including funding replenished each year through predictable sources.
Democrats, in the past, have proposed taxing carbon energy producers and other
polluters. Obviously this solution does not appeal to most Republicans. But
perhaps, as we enjoy a brief moment of bipartisanship after storms that tore
down the homes of Democrats and Republicans alike, Congress can find a mix of
revenue streams to create such a fund in a bipartisan way.
Second, those moneys shouldn’t be used exclusively for
emergency relief, which is obviously critical. As the old saying goes, an ounce
of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Of course you can’t prevent a hurricane
or an earthquake, but you can help communities likely to be affected by natural
disasters better prepare to handle them. By investing in infrastructure
improvements in vulnerable areas, we can prevent the worst effects of natural
disasters.”
Elections
““After the last election, there were a lot
of people who felt their votes aren’t being counted due to the two-party
system,” says Cindy Black. “People were like, what are the (other)
possibilities?”
Black, executive
director of the Seattle-based nonprofit Fix Democracy First, is now heading up an
effort to answer that question: A Seattle charter amendment that would shift
the city to a ranked-choice balloting system.
The system, used in 13
cities across the United States including San Francisco and Minneapolis, asks
voters to rank their preference of candidates, rather than casting a vote for a
single candidate. Ideally, the system takes away the threat of a minor
candidates acting as a spoiler, empowering voters to cast their ballots for
candidates they most agree with without worrying about electability. For
example, in this year’s mayoral primary, had a voter been 100 percent on board
with Dave Kane’s campaign, but seen Jessyn Farrell as the most palatable of the
“top six” candidates, they could have put Kane as their No. 1 choice and
Farrell as No. 2 and continued ranking down the rest of the 21 candidates. If
no candidate got more than half of all No. 1 votes in the first round of
counting, then the candidate with the fewest No. 1 votes (Dave Kane) would be eliminated and the No. 2
choice on those eliminated ballots would be added to the totals of the
remaining candidates (in the case of our hypothetical voter, that vote would
transfer to Jessyn Farrell), and so on (go here for a more detailed explanation.)”
Inspiration,
Women
“At an
event for first-year law students at Georgetown University, Ginsburg reflected
on her years working on women’s rights cases, with several of the selected
student questions centering on issues facing women in the law.
When
asked why she built her legal career around issues of gender equality, she
rephrased the question.
“You
mean, how did I decide to become a flaming feminist litigator?” she said, to
laughter.
Saying
that it was “exhilarating” to see women making up the majority of students in
Georgetown’s incoming law class, Ginsburg recounted that there were only nine
women in her class at Harvard Law School, and that there were few, if any,
anti-discrimination laws when she was entering the profession.
“Employers
were up front about wanting no, quote, lady lawyers,” she said. “The main
difference is all the closed doors are now open. There is nothing that a woman
can’t do in the law.”
While
“overt barriers” no longer exist, she said, women now face challenges that are
harder to detect.”
The Brain, Mind, Body, Spirit
“Americans are
taking in five times as much information each day this year than they did in
1987 — a stunning and impossible-to-process 35 gigabytes of information during
our leisure time in just one day, said Levitin. “That’s a huge cognitive
burden, and it leads to a sense of fatigue.”
Multitasking, the typical
response to this firehose of information, doesn’t work, Levitin explained. The
science is very clear: The human brain pays attention to each thing separately,
shifting back and forth as necessary.
“We’re fracturing our
attention into little bitty pieces and never paying full attention to one
thing,” he said. “On every measure, we might think we’re getting more done, but
on every measure we’re doing worse.””
DACA,
Immigration
“PROVIDENCE, RI – Gov. Gina Raimondo said she and a number of
philanthropic organizations have raised $170,000 to cover the renewal fee for
all Rhode Island residents who are eligible to renew their Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals status.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump
rescinded protection for young adults who came to the United States as children
but have now applied to legally work and attend college here. There are 1,200
so-called “Dreamers” in Rhode Island and approximately 250 are eligible to
renew their DACA status but they have to act quickly.
Recipients whose work permits expire before
March 5 must submit their renewal applications no later than Oct. 3. They must
be received by Oct. 5. This money is for those young adults.
“This is a human issue,” Raimondo told a
gathering of like-minded individuals.”
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