from Der Spiegel:



The pain of the sequester has been bearable thus far, but that will soon change. This summer, thousands of Americans will suffer due to cuts triggered by the entrenched budgetary battle in Washington -- and the damage could last for generations.

Despite being only 32, Alicia Tolliver has had no shortage of tough breaks in life -- a teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, unemployment and homelessness. Eventually, though, she found a resource in Head Start, an American health and human services program for young low-income children and their families. For Tolliver, Head Start served as a motivational program as well. She went back to school, completed a training course and found a job.

But then things went downhill again. With the financial crisis came unemployment and the loss of her apartment and car. Again, Tolliver found salvation through Head Start, as she fought to keep things together for herself and her three children.

But then came the sequester.

"It's frustrating," Tolliver says. Once again, she's about to watch everything fall apart. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-long-term-costs-of-the-sequester-battle-in-america-a-901734.html

(CBC News) Mark Towhey was fired as Mayor Rob Ford's chief of staff because he told Ford to "go away and get help," a source close to the mayor's office has told CBC News.

Towhey was unceremoniously dumped from his job Thursday in the midst of a scandal that has shaken Toronto municipal politics — with the city's colourful mayor caught in the midst of allegations that he was recorded smoking crack cocaine.

The story broke last week and shortly after Towhey faced down the mayor telling him he needed help.

"There's nothing more I can do for you," the source quoted Towhey as telling Ford. The chief of staff then told Ford to "go away and get help." ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/05/23/toronto-ford-towhey.html

By: Bruce Horovitz USA Today, Published on Fri May 24 2013
1

McDonald’s needs kids more than today’s kids need McDonald’s.

Perhaps no one knows that better than CEO Don Thompson, who was seriously put on the hot seat by a 9-year-old girl at Thursday’s annual shareholder’s meeting in Oak Brook, Ill.

For a few moments, Hannah Robertson — whose mother, Kia, is a kid’s nutritional activist and creator of an interactive children’s game on nutrition called Today I Ate a Rainbow — stood and lectured the CEO of one of the world’s biggest brands.

“There are things in life that aren’t fair — like when your pet dies,” said Hannah, whose voice never wavered. “I don’t think it’s fair when big companies try to trick kids into eating food. It isn’t fair that so many kids my age are getting sick,” she said — blaming McDonald’s for unfairly targeting kids with advertisements for food that isn’t good for them. ..........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/business/2013/05/24/dont_you_want_kids_to_be_healthy_mcdonalds_ceo_gets_nutrition_lecture_from_9yearold_girl.html

from truthdig:


After Oklahoma Disaster, Give Thanks to Government

Posted on May 23, 2013
By David Sirota


Within hours of this week’s tornado disaster in Oklahoma, I (like many others) received emails from the President of the United States and my U.S. Senator. With impassioned language, they both claimed to care deeply about yet another community devastated by a cataclysm, and then said the best way for America to respond is to support private charities.

The work of non-governmental organizations, no doubt, is critical, and contributing money to them is laudable. But there is something troubling about government leaders initially implying—if subtly—that a non-governmental response is as significant as a governmental one. And there is something even more disturbing about that message being sent at a time when budget cuts and sequestrations engineered by those very governmental leaders threaten to prevent a more effective response to such disasters in the future.

It all suggests that the anti-government zeitgeist in America has become so powerful that public officials now feel compelled to downplay the public sector for fear of being tarred and feathered as a socialist, a Marxist or an opportunist unduly “politicizing” a tragedy.

Of course, avoiding a discussion of the government’s role at times like these is, unto itself, a politicized decision—one promoting the illusion that we don’t need government. And no matter how much anti-government conservatives deny it, that is an illusion. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/after_oklahoma_disaster_give_thanks_to_government_20130523/?ln

from truthdig:


How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour

Posted on May 23, 2013
By Nomi Prins

“How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away With Siphoning Off America’s Wealth”
A book by Les Leopold

Les Leopold’s latest masterpiece, “How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away With Siphoning Off America’s Wealth,” is necessary, alarming and really funny. His talent for deconstructing complex financial terms and topics constitutes a public service. What he reveals in “How to Make,” in a sardonic and appropriately irreverent tone, is something more ominous. We exist in a political-economic system that allows people who manufacture nothing and bet on everything to control the financial destinies of the rest of the population with impunity, and make stupendous amounts of money doing it. Because, as Leopold writes, “Making a million an hour means never having to say you’re sorry.”

That inanity is what makes Leopold’s book so important, especially now, when the powers-that-be are pretending we’re back to our pre-2008-financial-crisis status—and that’s a good thing. Hey, the stock market hit all-time highs—that’s never happened ahead of a major catastrophe before!

His “handbook” approach to a pretty arcane topic is hilarious and horrifying. His lively chapters are divided so that they read like a twelve-step Capitalists Anonymous program on how to achieve wealth nirvana.

There’s Step 2, “Take, Don’t Make,” which asks how can these hedge fund managers who create absolutely nothing tangible be rewarded so outrageously for it? There’s Step 7, “Don’t Say Anything Remotely Truthful”—well, that speaks for itself. And Step 9, “Bet on the Race After You Know Who Wins,” gets to the heart of how these managers, who inspire a plethora of reverential business magazine profiles and books, aren’t doing anything particularly daring or even smart. Hell, it’s not hard to find the bodies if you’re the one burying them. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/how_to_make_a_million_dollars_an_hour_20130523/

http://www.workinglife.org/2013/05/23/its-called-deceptive-price-gouging/


from the Working Life blog:


It’s Called Deceptive Price-Gouging
Posted on 23 May 2013.


Is there a website for corporate-speak slogans that are simply covers for robbery? Must be. If not, there should be — and AT&T’s “administrative fee” has got to take an honored place on the list.

C’mon, say this with a straight face:

AT&T Inc. has added a new monthly administrative fee of 61 cents to the bills of all of its contract wireless lines as of May 1, a move that could bring in more than a half-billion dollars in annual revenue to the telecom giant.

Other carriers also have so-called “below-the-line” fees, named that because they frequently appear at the bottom of the phone bill after the service charges. Such fees help boost revenue growth in a massive organization, but consumer groups criticize them because they are less likely to be noticed by users and allow carriers to advertise lower prices than they actually charge.

“Below-the-line fees are nothing more than a way for carriers to stealthily increase their prices,” said Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, a public interest group. “AT&T’s administrative fees are no different than the hundreds of other components that go into the cost of doing business,” he said.

“Administrative fee”? No, this is stealth robbery. Dishonest. But, of course, the company will get away with it.

Why Democrats Can’t be Trusted to Control Wall Street
Friday, May 24, 2013


Who needs Republicans when Wall Street has the Democrats? With the help of congressional Democrats, the Street is rolling back financial reforms enacted after its near meltdown.

According to the New York Times, a bill that’s already moved through the House Financial Services Committee, allowing more of the very kind of derivatives trading (bets on bets) that got the Street into trouble, was drafted by Citigroup — whose recommended language was copied nearly word for word in 70 lines of the 85-line bill.

Where were House Democrats? Right behind it. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a major recipient of the Street’s political largesse, co-sponsored it. Most of the Democrats on the Committee, also receiving generous donations from the big banks, voted for it. Rep. Jim Himes, another proponent of the bill and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, now leads the Democrat’s fund-raising effort in the House.

Bob Rubin – co-chair of Goldman before he joined the Clinton White House, and chair of Citigroup’s management committee after he left it – is still influential in the Party, and his protégés are all over the Obama administration. I like Bob personally but I battled his Street-centric views the whole time I served, and soon after I left the administration he persuaded Clinton to support a repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://robertreich.org/post/51226404952

There has been no shortage of hostility in Massachusetts as Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez looks to defeat Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in next month's special election. Tensions continued to flare on Thursday, when Gomez responded to an attack ad from Markey, calling him "pond scum" for running a spot that included images of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“You know I’ve got four young kids, and they gotta sit there and gotta see an ad with their dad who served honorably --talk to anybody I served with, whether as a pilot or as a SEAL, anybody I worked with,” Gomez told reporters. “And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, like to put me up next to bin Laden, he’s just gotta be called what he is. That simple.”

The Markey spot in question, a web video, displayed an image of bin Laden in noting Gomez's involvement in a group that attempted to prevent President Barack Obama from benefiting politically from the successful mission to kill the terrorist leader. A television ad, meanwhile, hit Gomez on gun control, saying that he is “against banning high-capacity magazines like the ones used in the Newtown school shooting.”

In response, the Gomez campaign released an ad this week blasting "dirty Ed Markey" and his attacks. The spot suggested that Markey had directly blamed Gomez for the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and compared him to bin Laden, but FactCheck.org has debunked those claims as overblown. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/gabriel-gomez-ed-markey-ad_n_3331166.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

L.A. Metro board members on Thursday approved funding for a new, underground $80 million Metro rail station in Leimert Park. It will be part of the upcoming Crenshaw Light Rail line.

The action comes a day after the L.A. City Council committed $40 million in Measure R funds for the station in the culturally historic African American community. And now, the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it will fund the rest, which in total, amounts to $120 million.

Outgoing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pushed to make this happen, along with L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who sponsored the motion. MTA members voted in favor, 10 to 1. Metro plans to choose a contractor for the project next month.

Community members say they’re happy leaders are planning a Leimert Park station. But some are concerned a train through the neighborhood could pose a safety hazard and hurt businesses. That's why they say they're pushing for an 11-block subway tunnel along the Crenshaw line. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/05/23/37396/la-metro-board-approves-leimert-park-subway-statio

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2013/05/moscows-subway-maps-through-history/5679/


from The Atlantic:


The Evolution of Moscow's Subway Maps

Mark Byrnes
May 23, 2013


Moscow's subway system turned 78-years-old last week. It started as 19 stations on one line; today it has 188 stations on 12 lines. As the system changed so have the maps, reflecting not only the growth of the subway system but evolving design trends as well.

Many of these maps can be found on a website run by Artemy Lebedev, founder of Art. Lebedev Studio. Lebedev's impressive online collection of Moscow Metro ephemera includes images, tickets, tokens, and maps (official and unofficial).

He and his firm have been pushing their own design concept for a Moscow subway map as well, first proposing a new map in 2010. Lebedev and his team won an online vote earlier this year for best redesign of the city's subway map. The firm's new design includes landmarks, parks, rivers and alternative transit options.

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1935



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1946



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1979



...........................(more at link)