O, say! Does that woman’s lamp still burn beside the golden door in 2017?

October 28, 2017

Liberty gazing out at about 265 feet above the water of New York Harbor. Image by Statue of Liberty Tickets

Liberty gazing out at about 265 feet above the water of New York Harbor. Image by Statue of Liberty Tickets

Liberty was dedicated to the people of the United States on October 28, 1886. She’s 131 years old today.

Liberty stands gazing out at about 265 feet* above the water of New York Harbor, a fixture there since construction in the 1880s.

The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4, 1986.

The Statue of Liberty has been a fixture in the U.S. and American psyche, too.  Excuse me, or join me, in wondering whether we have not lost something of our former dedication to the Statue of Liberty, and the reasons France and Americans joined to build it.

Poem-a-Day sent Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” out this morning (Poem-a-Day is a wonderful service of the American Academy of Poets — you may subscribe and I recommend it).  There it was, waiting for me in e-mail.   My students generally have not heard nor read the poem, I discover year after year —  some sort of Texas-wide failure in enculturation prompted by too-specific requirements of federal law and state law, combining to make a slatwork of culture taught in our classrooms with too many cracks into which culture actually falls, out of sight, out of mind; out of memory.  I fear it may be a nationwide failure as well.

Have you read the poem lately?  It once encouraged American school children to send pennies to build a home for the statue.  Today it wouldn’t get a majority of U.S. Congressmen to sign on to consponsor a reading of it.  Glenn Beck would contest its history, Rush Limbaugh would discount the politics of the “giveaways” in the poem, John Boehner would scoriate the victims in the poem for having missed his meeting of lobbyists (‘they just missed the right boat’), and Sarah Palin would complain about “an air-bridge to nowhere,” or complain that masses who huddle are probably up to no good (they might touch, you know).

Have you read it lately?

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus

Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde - Wikimedia Commons image

Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde – Wikimedia Commons image

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

AAP makes poems available for iPhones, too, and you can see how it appears, phrase by phrase.  “The New Colossus” takes on more of its power and majesty delivered that way.

Is the Academy of American Poets playing politics here?  In much of America, there is an active movement to nail shut the “golden door,” to turn out a sign that would say “No tired, no poor nor huddled masses yearning to breathe free; especially no wretched refuse, no homeless, and let the tempest-tost stay in Guatemala and Pakistan.”

Would Americans bother to contribute to build a Statue of Liberty today?  Or would they protest against it?

Does that lamp still shine beside the golden door?

Stereoscopic image of the arm and torch of Liberty, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia

Stereoscopic image of the arm and torch of Liberty, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia; Robert N. Dennis Collection, New York Public Library.  The arm was displayed to encourage contributions to the fund to build a pedestal for the statue, from private donations.

_____________

*  I’m calculating Liberty’s gaze at about 40 feet below the tip of the torch, which is just over 305 feet above the base of the statue on the ground.  The base is probably 20 feet higher than the water, but this isn’t exact science we’re talking about here.

Yes, this is mostly an encore post. Fighting ignorance requires patience.

Yes, this is mostly an encore post. Fighting ignorance requires patience.

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2 Comments | History, Homelessness, Icons of history, Immigration, Patriotism, Poetry, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

What does music do to our brains, or did Einstein really know what he was doing?

August 16, 2016

Einstein playing his violin in 1931, aboard the S.S. Belgenland, travelling from New York to San Diego. Vintage Everyday image.

Einstein playing his violin in 1931, aboard the S.S. Belgenland, travelling from New York to San Diego. Vintage Everyday image. Einstein claimed to get great joy from his violin. Did it also help his physics work?

Albert Einstein played a mean violin. I don’t think any recordings exist, but some say he was good enough to have earned a slot in a decent symphony.

Albert Schweitzer made money to support his work for health in Africa by offering organ recitals.

Thomas Edison liked to hire men in his lab who played instruments. In the midst of high pressure experimentation, they would often take a break as a group, and do a performance just for themselves.

People who make music often claim they do it to relax, but there may be more than mere relaxation going on when we play an instrument or sing. It’s possible making music makes us better at doing other things, too.

Should we be surprised this showed up from the World Economic Forum?

It’s an article by Assal Habibi who is a researcher at the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, at the website of WEF, explaining where his group is going to find out how music training affects the way we think and work.

Over the past two decades, several investigators have reported differences in the brain and behavior of musicians compared to nonmusicians.

Music training has been found to be related to better language and mathematical skills, higher IQ and overall greater academic achievement. Also, differences between musicians and nonmusicians have been found in areas of the brain related to hearing and movement, among others.

However, the interpretation of the findings remains unclear. For example, the differences reported between adult musicians and nonmusicians might be due to long-term intensive training or might result primarily from inherent biological factors, such as genetic makeup.

Or, as with many aspects of the nature-versus-nurture debate, the differences may well result from contributions of both environmental and biological factors.

One way to better understand the effects of music training on child development would be to study children before they start any music training and follow them systematically after, to see how their brain and behavior change in relation to their training.

It would involve including a comparison group, as all children change with age. The ideal comparison group would be children who participate in equally socially interactive but nonmusical training, such as sports. Follow-up assessments after their training would reveal how each group changes over time.

Go take a look.

If you’re a teacher, ask whether you should be incorporating more music into your social studies, language or science classes. If you’re a manager or employer, ask whether you should be encouraging your team members to find musical outlets.

If you’re just curious, ask whether you wouldn’t be better off to volunteer in a local choir or band.

Maybe we should all dance to beats of different drummers, and violinsts, and guitarists, and clarinetists and . . .

Three years of this study remain. But these interim results are promising. They support previous findings on the positive impact of music training on brain development.

Our findings suggest that music training during childhood, even for a period as brief as two years, can accelerate brain development and sound processing. We believe that this may benefit language acquisition in children given that developing language and reading skills engage similar brain areas. This can particularly benefit at-risk children in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods who experience more difficulties with language development.

Should we be using this tool to better educate our kids?

1 Comment | Brain development, Brain learning, Business, Education, Music, Music education, Poverty, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Please give to Scouting for Food on Saturday, February 13

February 12, 2016

Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts in Southwest Dallas County will collect food for our local food pantries on Saturday, February 13, 2016.

Scouting for Food in Dallas, Texas area, February 13, 2016. Image from Yorktown Pack 200

Scouting for Food in Dallas, Texas area, February 13, 2016. Image from Yorktown Pack 200

(Of course, Scouts throughout Circle 10 Council, BSA, will be collecting in the rest of the Council, the counties around Dallas up to the Oklahoma border.)

Food pantries and outreach ministries in the Best Southwest Area some years rely on this February Scout service campaign to carry them through Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, in the past decade donations have not been sufficient to meet with demand. If you’ve given four or five cans of food in the past, please give eight or ten, if you can, this year.

Please give generously when a Scout knocks on your door.

Press release from the Council:

Scouting for Food is the largest single-day food collection event in Dallas and one of the largest in the nation. On one day, approximately 30,000 Scouts go door-to-door collecting non-perishable food items for the less fortunate. The food is then distributed to local food pantries and assistance agencies across Circle Ten Council.

Tom Thumb has sponsored this food drive for 28 years and collects food at their locations throughout the entire month of February.

What is Scouting for Food?
Scouting for Food is the largest door-to-door food collection effort in the Dallas-Fort Worth area benefiting more than 45 assistance agencies across the area.

Who helps with Scouting for Food?
Scouting for Food involves approximately 30,000 Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Venturers, friends, family and volunteers from the Circle Ten Council, BSA.

2016 Scouting for Food Dates:  February 13, 2016

Food items can also be dropped off at any Tom Thumb Food and Pharmacy throughout the month of February!

2 Comments | Boy Scouts of America, Dallas, hunger, Poverty, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

American tsunami

December 10, 2011

Alfredo Sabat on starvation in Africa, Lurie Award winner 2006

Alfredo Sabat on starvation in Africa, Lurie Award winner 2006

Remember this cartoon, from Sabat, in Brazil?  It was a commentary on the “tsunami” striking African children, who were not getting aid like victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami were getting.

Steve Benson, the genius cartoonist at the Arizona Republic, updated the idea.

Steve Benson on the increase in poverty and hunger in America, 2011

Steve Benson in the Arizona Republic, on the increase in poverty and hunger in America, 2011

More: 

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Leave a Comment » | Cartoons, hunger, Political cartoons, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

7 billion people on Earth?

October 25, 2011

Exponential growth’s potential to rapidly change the numbers of a situation tends to fall out of the thoughts of most people, who don’t see such things occur in daily life.

You should stop and think about this one for a minute:  World population will tip to over 7 billion people soon, maybe in the next week, but most assuredly by next spring.

A very large crowd in a stadium

Seven billion people? Really?  Are the concessions adequate?  The restrooms?

Joel E. Cohen wrote about the event in Sunday’s New York Times:

ONE week from today, the United Nations estimates, the world’s population will reach seven billion. Because censuses are infrequent and incomplete, no one knows the precise date — the Census Bureau puts it somewhere next March — but there can be no doubt that humanity is approaching a milestone.

The first billion people accumulated over a leisurely interval, from the origins of humans hundreds of thousands of years ago to the early 1800s. Adding the second took another 120 or so years. Then, in the last 50 years, humanity more than doubled, surging from three billion in 1959 to four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987 and six billion in 1998. This rate of population increase has no historical precedent.

Can the earth support seven billion now, and the three billion people who are expected to be added by the end of this century? Are the enormous increases in households, cities, material consumption and waste compatible with dignity, health, environmental quality and freedom from poverty?

(Joel E. Cohen, a mathematical biologist and the head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, is the author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?”)

We’re in for some dramatic shifts in concentrations of people, if not shifts in how we think of the world (thinking is always slower than reality).

While the bulge in younger people, if they are educated, presents a potential “demographic dividend” for countries like Bangladesh and Brazil, the shrinking proportion of working-age people elsewhere may place a strain on governments and lead them to raise retirement ages and to encourage alternative job opportunities for older workers.

Even in the United States, the proportion of the gross domestic product spent on Social Security and Medicare is projected to rise to 14.5 percent in 2050, from 8.4 percent this year.

The Population Reference Bureau said that by 2050, Russia and Japan would be bumped from the 10 most populous countries by Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I’m not ready, and neither are most other people, I’ll wager.  How about you?

More: 

98 Comments | Demographics, Economics, foreign affairs, Geography - Economic, Geography - Political, History, Population, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Class warfare and tax cuts for the rich

August 21, 2011

This claim that 51% of Americans don’t pay taxes — does anyone know where they fit in the economics scheme of things?

I wonder, partly because it’s mentioned over at Disaffected and It Feels So Good, and partly because in the light of what else is said over there, it’s relevant.

What is that blog saying?

The Heritage Foundation’s 2001 report proclaimed if the Bush tax cut legislation were to pass, it would:

1) Effectively pay off the federal debt;
2) Reduce the federal surplus by $1.4 trillion;
3) Substantially increase family income;
4) Save the entire Social Security surplus;
5) Increase personal savings;
6) Create more job opportunities.

Everyone of those claims did not happen and in fact the exact opposite occurred. But, what did happen was a massive transfer of wealth to the Ultra-Wealthy, which were the true goals of the Bush Tax Cuts.

Be sure to see the clip from Jon Stewart’s program about how America’s poor are really rich, and we could balance the budget on that demographic alone.

Who pays taxes, and is it fair?  Odd to me that the assumption is it’s the poor who don’t pay taxes, and that it’s unfair to the rich because the poor are living so high on the hog.

Evidence, anyone?

12 Comments | Government, Politics, Poverty, Taxes | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Barbara Ehrenreich wonders: What’s the real poverty rate in America?

August 10, 2011

Barbara Ehrenreich, “How America turned poverty into a crime,” Salon.com, August 9, 2011:

At the time I wrote “Nickel and Dimed,” I wasn’t sure how many people it directly applied to — only that the official definition of poverty was way off the mark, since it defined an individual earning $7 an hour, as I did on average, as well out of poverty. But three months after the book was published, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., issued a report entitled “Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families,” which found an astounding 29 percent of American families living in what could be more reasonably defined as poverty, meaning that they earned less than a barebones budget covering housing, child care, health care, food, transportation, and taxes — though not, it should be noted, any entertainment, meals out, cable TV, Internet service, vacations, or holiday gifts. 29 percent is a minority, but not a reassuringly small one, and other studies in the early 2000s came up with similar figures.

The big question, 10 years later, is whether things have improved or worsened for those in the bottom third of the income distribution, the people who clean hotel rooms, work in warehouses, wash dishes in restaurants, care for the very young and very old, and keep the shelves stocked in our stores. The short answer is that things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008.

Liberty does not flow to those who lack the money to eat, or keep warm.  We have strides to make to get to “liberty and justice for all.”

Libertarians, why do you oppose liberty for poor-but-working people?

7 Comments | Civil Rights, Economics, Equality, Liberty, Politics, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Can public schools work? Texas Tribune’s interview with Michael Marder, Part II

June 11, 2011

From my earlier post on the Texas Tribune interview with Michael Marder, in which he questioned the assumptions that monkeying with teacher discipline, accountability, pay, training, vacations, or anything else, can produce better results in educating students, especially students from impoverished backgrounds.

Marder is the director of the University of Texas’s program to encourage much better prepared teachers, UTeach.

Michael Marder’s numbers show that it’s not the teachers’ fault that so many students are not ready for college, and not learning the stuff we think they should know.

Texas Tribune said:

In the popular 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said, “But even in the toughest of neighborhoods and circumstances, children excel when the right adults are doing the right things for them.”

After looking at the data, Marder has yet to be convinced that any teaching solution has been found that can overcome the detrimental effects of poverty on a large scale — and that we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place.

[Reeve] Hamilton’s interview of Marder takes up three YouTube segments — you should watch all three.

Here’s Part 2:

Read the original introductory article at Texas Tribune.

For the record, Michelle Rhee is probably right:  In the toughest neighborhoods, children excel when the right adults do the right things for them.  But the right adults usually are parents, and the right things include reading to the children from about 12 months on, and pushing them to love learning and love books.  Teachers get the kids too late, generally, to bend those no-longer-twigs back to a proper inclination.  The government interventions required to boost school performance must come outside the classroom.  Michelle Rhee’s great failure — still — is in her tendency not to recognize that classroom performance of a student has its foundations and live roots in the homes and neighborhoods who send the children to school every day.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education assessment, Education reform, Education success, History, Poverty, Research, Teachers, Teaching, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Blaming the teachers can’t overcome problems of poverty in educational achievement

May 24, 2011

We got the scores from the state yesterday, for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).  Most of my students are juniors, so this is a big deal.  If they pass these tests, in mathematics, science, English language arts and social studies.

Preliminary results gave me a 100% pass rate with 41% commended, out of  134 students whose scores counted (don’t ask about those formulae).  Considering that our students’ poverty rate, as measured by school lunches, is well north of 85%, that’s good.

It doesn’t mean all these kids are ready for the Ivy League, though.

I know the preliminary results err somewhere.  I can find two students in special education categories who did not muster the scores I had hoped, and to me, it looks like they may need to retake.  Two failures wouldn’t be bad, either.  I’ll let the state and our administrators fight that out.

So, I’ve done an okay job of teaching our kids bubble guessing.   That’ what the TAKS test does, focus teaching on bubble guessing.  Are we getting these kids ready for life and college?  I have more doubts.  The TAKS curriculum is limited, and shallow.  Dallas District has two other tests, but again the curriculum tested is limited and shallow.

Each year I discover most students don’t remember what they studied of Paul Revere, and almost none know the famous Longfellow poem about him.  They don’t know about Joyce Kilmer, either his poem or the sacrifice of his life.

Reading political cartoons proves difficult for many students, because they don’t understand the symbolism, sometimes of easy stuff like, “who does the Statue of  Liberty represent?” or “why is that guy dressed in a star-spangled coat, striped pants and striped top hat?”

They don’t know about Route 66.  They don’t know the National Parks.  They don’t know Broadway, nor Stephen Foster.  They are convinced Utah has some big river that led the Mormons to settle there, “on or near a waterway,” instead of the real reasons the Mormons settled there, for religious freedom in a desert.

Despite their remarkable test achievements, their teachers are all on the chopping block this year.  The Texas Lege still quibbles over whether to lay off 10,000 or 100,000 teachers over the summer.  We leave the academic year knowing only that the legislature as a collective hates teachers and teaching and schools, and they probably don’t like the students much, either, but they can’t say that because they want the students’ parents’ votes.

Jonathan at JD 2718 sent me a note a couple of weeks ago alerting me to a story in the online Texas Tribune, by Reeve Hamilton.  Hamilton interviewed Dr. Michael Marder, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin who in his spare times runs UT’s UTeach Program, which encourages the best students in science and math to consider teaching elementary and secondary classes.  Marder has a strong case to make that it’s not the teacher’s fault when students in some schools do not measure up to the standards promulgated by the state tests, inadequate and inappropriate as those standards are.

(Personal note:  Reeve Hamilton is a very good reporter who often does great work on otherwise mundane issues; he’s also the son of a woman I met in graduate school at the University of Arizona, the first woman who ever gave me a highly contingent proposal of marriage, which as you see we did not carry out — probably much to the benefit of all of us, with Reeve doing such great work, and all our kids being basically sane and sound.  I smiled when Jonathan said such good things about Reeve’s work, and the subject of the story.  Nice to hear unasked-for compliments about people you know and like.)

Marder knows numbers.  Marder got the statistics on schools and their preparation of students for college, as well as we can get those numbers without an expensive and expansive study.

Michael Marder’s numbers show that it’s not the teachers’ fault that so many students are not ready for college, and not learning the stuff we think they should know.

Texas Tribune said:

In the popular 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman, former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said, “But even in the toughest of neighborhoods and circumstances, children excel when the right adults are doing the right things for them.”

After looking at the data, Marder has yet to be convinced that any teaching solution has been found that can overcome the detrimental effects of poverty on a large scale — and that we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place.

Hamilton’s interview of Marder takes up three YouTube segments — you should watch all three.

Marder indicts those who blame teachers first, with the data.  By implication, he also indicts the state legislatures who appear bent on continuing the daily flogging of teachers until teacher morale improves.

In Part I of the interview with Hamilton, Marder shows the statistics that demonstrate poverty of the student is a greater influence on student achievement than the teacher:

6 Comments | Education, Education assessment, Education reform, History, Teachers, Teaching, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fatal flaw in American politico-economic system, that schools could fix, but won’t

November 7, 2010

. . . unless we change them soon, and in a fashion much different from what Arne Duncan wants.

John Quiggin, again:

Contrary to the cherished beliefs of most Americans, the United States has less social mobility than any other developed country. As Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution have shown, 42 percent of American men with fathers in the bottom fifth of the income distribution remain there as compared to: Denmark, 25 percent; Sweden, 26 percent; Finland, 28 percent; Norway, 28 percent; and Britain, 30 percent. The American Dream is fast becoming a myth.

Tea Partiers, most of them, believe they have a vested interest in keeping things that way, to preserve their own modest economic achievement.  And those at the top?  They delight in a little bit of “Let’s You and Him Fight.”

Quiggin’s article at Foreign Policy introduces five of the ideas in his new book, Zombie Economics; well worth the read.

11 Comments | Economics, Education, History, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

O, say! Does that woman’s lamp still burn beside the golden door?

September 12, 2010

Liberty stands gazing out at about 265 feet* above the water of New York Harbor, a fixture there since construction in the 1880s.

The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4, 1986.

The Statue of Liberty has been a fixture in the U.S. and American psyche, too.  Excuse me, or join me, in wondering whether we have not lost something of our former dedication to the Statue of Liberty, and the reasons France and Americans joined to build it.

Poem-a-Day sent Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” out this morning (Poem-a-Day is a wonderful service of the American Academy of Poets — you may subscribe and I recommend it).  There it was, waiting for me in e-mail.   My students generally have not heard nor read the poem, I discover year after year —  some sort of Texas-wide failure in enculturation prompted by too-specific requirements of federal law and state law, combining to make a slatwork of culture taught in our classrooms with too many cracks into which culture actually falls, out of sight, out of mind; out of memory.  I fear it may be a nationwide failure as well.

Have you read the poem lately?  It once encouraged American school children to send pennies to build a home for the statue.  Today it wouldn’t get a majority of U.S. Congressmen to sign on to consponsor a reading of it.  Glenn Beck would contest its history, Rush Limbaugh would discount the politics of the “giveaways” in the poem, John Boehner would scoriate the victims in the poem for having missed his meeting of lobbyists (‘they just missed the right boat’), and Sarah Palin would complain about “an air-bridge to nowhere,” or complain that masses who huddle are probably up to no good (they might touch, you know).

Have you read it lately?

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus

Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde - Wikimedia Commons image

Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde - Wikimedia Commons image

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

AAP makes poems available for iPhones, too, and you can see how it appears, phrase by phrase.  “The New Colossus” takes on more of its power and majesty delivered that way.

Is the Academy of American Poets playing politics here?  It’s September 12.  Yesterday many Americans took part in ceremonies and service projects in remembrance of the victims of the attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.  In much of the rest of America, there is an active movement to nail shut the “golden door,” to turn out a sign that would say “No tired, no poor nor huddled masses yearning to breathe free; especially no wretched refuse, no homeless, and let the tempest-tost stay in Guatemala and Pakistan.”

Would Americans bother to contribute to build a Statue of Liberty today?  Or would they protest against it?

Does that lamp still shine beside the golden door?

Stereoscopic image of the arm and torch of Liberty, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia

Stereoscopic image of the arm and torch of Liberty, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia; Robert N. Dennis Collection, New York Public Library. The arm was displayed to encourage contributions to the fund to build a pedestal for the statue, from private donations.

_____________

*  I’m calculating Liberty’s gaze at about 40 feet below the tip of the torch, which is just over 305 feet above the base of the statue on the ground.  The base is probably 20 feet higher than the water, but this isn’t exact science we’re talking about here.

32 Comments | History, Homelessness, Icons of history, Immigration, Patriotism, Poetry, Poverty | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Jesus knocks on Dobson’s door: No room at the Dobson Inn

December 15, 2009

Dr. James Dobson profits from his image as a great Christian leader.  His campus of enterprises in Colorado Springs is one of the largest businesses in the city.

But this does not compute:  Colorado Springs has several hundred people homeless in the city, with no place to sleep but public parks and other public places.  There are more homeless than there are facilities to help them.

Colorado Springs officials consider a law to make it illegal to “camp” in a public place inside the city.  One person died from the cold recently.  Whole families are camping in some places.  [Good news before I hit the “send” button:  Colorado Springs decided to shelve action on the ordinance now, and work to find solutions instead, until February.]

Colorado Springs Salvation Army officials have a shelter,  but it can’t handle the homeless population.

Robert Moran, an advocate for the homeless, said the city this year has been doing a “great job” showing compassion toward homeless people. Among the examples is the Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team, he said. But the proposed no-camping law would take those efforts in a “completely opposite” direction, Moran said.

“It would be criminalizing homelessness,” he said. “People have the right to survive, and people that are homeless are part of our community as much as anybody else.”

The Salvation Army’s shelter only has 220 beds, he said.

“We have more people than that living in tents in the Springs,” he said.

James Dobson, you with that big campus of buildings:  What do you think Jesus would do in this situation?

Focus on the Family's visitor center in Colorado Springs - photo by David Shankbone - Wikimedia image

Focus on the Family's visitor center in Colorado Springs - photo by David Shankbone - Wikimedia image

Why are there hungry and homeless families freezing to death in the city where James Dobson has lots of space?  What about the other national religious organizations?

Other information:

Help in Colorado Springs

Other news

http://www.gazette.com/articles/public-90297-camping-springs.html

Somebody’s knockin’; let ’em in:

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4 Comments | Economics, History, Political Smear, Politics, Poverty, Religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Think you have health insurance? Wrong

August 7, 2009

Baseline Scenario lays out the facts: People fear government reform of health care because they think it will interfere with their own health insurance.  Such people need to understand that they don’t have health insurance, and a broader government plan is the only saftey net they have to protect them from going naked against major health expenses.

Right now, it appears that the biggest barrier to health care reform is people who think that it will hurt them. According to a New York Times poll, “69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the government created a program that covers everyone.” Since most Americans currently have health insurance, they see reform as a poverty program – something that helps poor people and hurts them. If that’s what you think, then this post is for you.

You do not have health insurance. Let me repeat that. You do not have health insurance.

Just one more point in a series of misconceptions, misperceptions, and unwarranted listening to false claims about health care and legislation designed to save our tails.  James Kwak and others at The Baseline Scenario do a good job explaining economics in the U.S. today.  In this piece he makes the point that in terms of health care, we are all among “the poor” (save for those few of you who make more than $1 million a year and have done for the past decade).

Ask not for whom the health insurance reform bill tolls; it tolls for you.

10 Comments | Economics, Health care, Legislation, medicine, Poverty, President Obama | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

India today, in photos

August 3, 2009

Geography teachers, get out your PowerPoints and Keynotes.

Photo of life in Delhi, India. From a collection by Belgian photographer Frederik Buyckx, 2009

Photo of life in Delhi, India. From a collection by Belgian photographer Frederik Buyckx, 2009

Thought provoking, occasionally breath-taking photos from a 6:00 a.m. walkaround in Delhi, India; Belgian photographer Frederick Buyckx promises more photos from his recent trip to India and Pakistan, at his blog.

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2 Comments | Art, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Images, India, photography, Poverty, Travel, Urbanization | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Missouri Rep. Cynthia Davis: Poverty? Show me!

June 25, 2009

The story writes its own ending.  As I watched the story of Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis, I kept hearing the Muppet version of Scrooge, who, confronted by a plea for charity for orphans said:  “What?  Are there no prisons?  Are there no workhouses?”

When I staffed the Senate, we prided ourselves on having people who knew a lot more than any reporter in town or any news organization with all its resources.  When I staffed the Utah legislature, the members made sure they knew their stuff before they called for change, generally.  Olberman, Stewart and Colbert sometimes appear to have corraled all the smart people outside of the White House.  But what in the hell is Davis’s excuse?

Update:  Welcome, visitors of July 2.  Obviously, you’re linking from somewhere else — but my systems have not picked it up.  Where are you coming from?  Somebody tell, in comments, please.

4 Comments | Government, Human Rights, Humor, Politics, Poverty, Reason | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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