Issues: Political Awareness (Support Your local Local!)

by: Gracchus June 25, 2008 Comments: None.

The past several decades have seen a general decline in the number of eligible voters interested in participating in the American electoral process. Reasons for the seeming increase in citizen apathy are manifold: disenchantment with politics, nonchalance with (non-importance of) social concerns outside of one’s immediate environment, laziness promoted by an entertainment-centric culture. Political scientist Robert Putnam goes so far as to place the blame squarely on television, which drew citizens away from more socially-oriented activities, such as social clubs, craft and church groups, and sporting leagues. Americans retreated, physically and emotionally, into a pre-dispensed domestic lifestyle. The data does support his conjectures; from the period 1960 to 1990, as new media and cheap commodity production expanded at an alarming rate, national voter turnout dropped over 15%. However, theories, such as changes in the very nature of mass politics and the emphasis on attack-based campaigning, are also plausible alternative, or supplemental, explanations for contemporary voter discontent.

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Times they ain’t a changin’

Last month, I finished an eager reading of Oil! by Upton Sinclair. I absolutely loved it, to the point where I couldn’t bear to sit through There Will Be Blood. My father took it from me the day I finished, himself eager to read because of my rave review. He didn’t enjoy it quite as much, but we both agreed on one thing: Things haven’t changed too much from the 20s. Particularly, the similarities between the 1920 election and the 2000 election.

I’m going through another book, published about 12 years after Oil!: The Grapes of Wrath. Yes, we all read it in high school, but I remember enjoying it so much that I thought it worthy of another read. After just reading the first 100 pages, I’m glad I took the time to reread it. Clearly, I didn’t understand many of the concepts Steinbeck presented throughout. I’ve marked three particular short passages, two of which I think apply to what we’re talking about here at the Imp.

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Comcast thinks it owns the Internet

by: Joseph P. June 4, 2008 Comments: One.

Every day, terabytes of data are added to the Internet. With the availability of relatively cheap bandwidth, we’ve been able to create streaming, high definition video. We’ve been able to produce sites that host any video you want to upload. We’ve successfully removed the need for physical discs to store our music and movies. But Comcast doesn’t care about any of this. They’d rather cap usage so that they can generate more profit for being a gateway to the Internet. What good is streaming video if it just ends up costing consumers more money?

They’re supposedly trying a number of different tests, one of which is tiering data usage. If you use 5 GB a month — I go over that every single month, without fail, by myself — they want to charge you an overage fee. The worst part, actually is that they want to cap your downlink speed, too, at 768 kbps. What? They want people to pay them $30 per month for limited usage at crappy downlink speeds?

The message I get from this is that while big businesses abhor government regulation and oversight, they’re eager and willing to impose them on their customers. So yes, free markets are more efficient…at allowing companies to exploit their customers. Because of the lack of broadband options, many customers are stuck with Comcast — like many are stuck with Time Warner in New York City.

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Media across the Atlantic not sweating blogs

Steve Boriss hits on a whole lot of truth in his latest post. The lede is that while U.S. media outlets continue to be threatened by the emergence of blogs, the U.K. media has no such problem? There are surely a number of reasons for this, but I think that in the end it boils down to one theme. Simply, as Borris puts it, “there is no such thing as an objective, right-down-the-middle way to look at things.” The difference now is that the U.S. media continues to pretend that there is a middle ground (and do a terrible job of it), while the U.K. media tends to flaunt their partisanship.

What is happening is that American journalism created a problem for itself decades ago that will continue to threaten its existence until it ends its self-defeating ways. It decided that issues of public policy were a science, and journalists were like laboratory workers on a mission to deliver singular, objective truths. They began to treat opinion as a contaminant, and in the process lost the ability to handle it properly.

So when blogs — an ideal platform for pontification — came along, the mainstream media attacked them as unobjective and unworthy. The problem, of course, is that the American people seem to like blogs and their opinionated ways.

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States have final say in binding arbitration clauses

by: Joseph P. May 28, 2008 Comments: None.

In this current Supreme Court, you’d expect many rulings to favor corporate interests, especially when lawsuits are involved. For at least one day, though, they ruled in favor of the consumer and their ability to file suit collectively against a company. On Tuesday, an appeal brought by T-Mobile was rejected. The case involved binding arbitration, a clause inserted into many consumer contracts, most notably for cell phone service.

When you sign a cell phone contract, you might not read it over. You’re missing out on one of the most oppressive practices in business. Simply, binding arbitration means you waive your right to a trial by jury, and thereby relegate your claim to an arbitration hearing between you and the company. This removes the rights of consumers to band together and file class action lawsuits.

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W’s gift to us all , the Bush Boom

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After taking the weekend off to relax at a few Yankees games we are back, Impatient Sufferers. What better way to return than with news of another example of the trendiest economic phenomenon of them all, the Bush Boom?

Today we look at how contractors are benefiting from the collapse in the housing market. Fuel costs are rising, bringing up the cost of food and other essentials at the same time as many variable rate mortgages have seen skyrocketing rates. The result has been a glut of foreclosures and families suddenly left to figure out where to raise their families.

The problem of vacant homes is all the more striking when considered against predictions by economists that a couple of million more homes will enter foreclosure in the next two years, said Cheryl Lang, president of Integrated Mortgage Solutions, a company based in Houston that contracts with Mr. McCallister and Mr. Law on behalf of mortgage companies.

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A flood of crocodile tears

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Many artists work very hard for little to no monetary compensation. Some succeed and make vast profits but the majority never make it that far. Those whose art sells deserve financial compensation.

Who is really stealing from the artist though? Is it the college student downloading an album? While, there certainly is limited moral grounds for defending the decision to download music without purchasing the rights, perhaps that’s not where artists should be focusing.

There are many gray areas as media moves from physical distribution to a digital system. What was once clearcut is now a tangled web as options emerge to rent music through a subscription service, download it, purchase it in a physical form or even convert it between formats. What’s clear is that artists deserve compensation for the art they’ve created.

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Quick Hits

June 23, 2008 Comments: One.

Barack Obama has billed himself as a candidate that represents genuine change. However, his energy policy, which promotes the production of ethanol derived from heavily subsidized corn, belies that characterization. Obama has continuously announced his fervent support for the conversion of corn into biofuel which, as has been discussed here at the Imp, is energy-inefficient, environmentally damaging and a threat to the world food market.

In emphasizing corn-based ethanol, the candidate that was supposedly above ’special-interests,’ seems to bow quite low for the agri-giants and influential constituents in his home state of Illinois, such as corn ethanol-king ADM (who, coincidentally, once provided him with subsidized flights on their corporate jets). Continued subsidies for corporate behemoths, unsubstantiated tariffs blocking sugar(cane) importation…is this really change we can believe in?

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May 22, 2008 Comments: None.

We mentioned this briefly before, and it bears repeating. If you’re in the NYC area, we highly recommend taking an evening in the next few days to attend at least a portion of the Toy Theater Festival that Great Small Works has put together for this weekend. There are many incredible performers who will be participating. There will be great art, great politics and plenty to think about. I’ll be there. How about you?

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May 22, 2008 Comments: None.

The US prison population is out of control. Canton, OH is about to pass a law that should help exacerbate that problem. It is expected that next week the town will make it illegal to fail to mow your lawn. Repeated violations could lead to as much as 30 days in jail. While there are many places we are well served by having the governments influence, this seems like overkill. Why should property owners not be free to have their grass at a length they choose? There are many industries and practices in need of government regulation. Lawn mowing just doesn’t seem high on that list.

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May 15, 2008 Comments: None.

It’s hard to maintain an appropriate level of outrage sometimes. There have been many cases of the Bush administration looking the other way wounded veterans are not given the quality treatment they deserve after their enormous sacrifices. Still, as the pentagon considers awarding purple hearts for psychological injuries, a Department of Veterans Affairs internal e-mail suggests they are actively discouraging the diagnosis of some mental diseases.

“Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O PTSD,” the e-mail said.

There is nothing more disgusting than throwing our veterans off the cliff to save a buck.

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May 14, 2008 Comments: None.

I’m not entirely sure that there is any political leverage to be gained by an endorsement this late in the game. Instead, John Edward’s endorsement of Obama can be seen more as a confirmation that, despite her wins yesterday, Hillary is not going to be the parties nominee. I expect we will see an endorsement of Obama by Al Gore soon followed shortly by Hillary’s own endorsement of Obama. If nothing else, won’t it be nice to have a candidate who thinks before he answers a question?

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