Tea Party Comes to Brooklyn

Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by admin in Economy, Middle Class Crunch, Uncategorized

Is the Tea Party a real movement, an actual party or just a bunch of cranks? Well, the party has come to–of all places–Brooklyn. Its leader used to play guitar with members of Nirvana and Sonic Youth–and he’s no fan of Sarah Palin. John Kenneth Press explains why the movement is not extremist, and why Kurt Cobain wouldn’t be a member.

Little Green Shoots: The Honk Honk Man

Posted on 16. Apr, 2010 by admin in Economy, Uncategorized

Children’s music and merchandise is supposed to be recession proof, but this economic crisis has hit even the kids’ pockets (or at least their parents’). We caught up with Lloyd Miller to see how business is going for his popular Brooklyn-based children’s rock group, The Deedle Deedle Dees.

http://www.vimeo.com/10989964

Brenda and the S Word

Posted on 02. Apr, 2010 by admin in Economy, Middle Class Crunch, Uncategorized

If there’s one industry more worried than newspapers these days, it’s the book publishers. At South-By-Southwest last year, we were told, publishing executives asked the public what they should be doing. One author decided to answer the question herself.

Brenda Cullerton, who has worked with the big guys like Little, Brown, self-published her new novel “The Craigslist Murders,” and in two weeks it sold 700 copies – a good start, no matter who is publishing it.

Below, hear about Brenda’s adventures in self-publishing in the latest episode of “Little Green Shoots.” Also, check out her blog “Brenda and the F Word” here.
http://www.vimeo.com/10631962

Dennis Hof Runs a Brothel–Should He Run the Economy?

Posted on 19. Mar, 2010 by admin in Economy, Middle Class Crunch

We’re debuting our new economic program, “Little Green Shoots,” today. When we read the statement by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that he was starting to see “green shoots” in the economy, and we wondered, where? Instead of asking another politician or an economist, we decided to go to the people who would really know: the small business owner.

After all, small business owners are lauded by Congress as the “backbone of America,” and they’re also the ones bearing the brunt of the recession.

First up is Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch brothel in Carson City, Nevada.

Little Green Shoots: Up In Smoke

Posted on 04. Dec, 2009 by admin in Economy, Uncategorized

New Yorkers pay more tax for cigarettes than anywhere else in the US. So, are they buying more or less in the economic downturn? We headed to the city’s Lower East Side neighborhood to learn more about people’s smoking habits. Check out the results in the latest episode of “Little Green Shoots”.

http://www.vimeo.com/7966580

Al-Qaeda Magazine: Do They Take Freelance Pitches?

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by admin in Uncategorized, War on Terror

The Taliban in 2001 was famously suspicious of television cameras. The Taliban of 2009? They have press secretaries, one of whom—described as the “chief spokesman of the Taliban in Swat” was recently arrested.

Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, has a magazine empire. The al-Qaeda of 2001 now has splintered into various divisions, and each one has its own media outreach, according to Gregory Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen and currently a PhD candidate at Princeton. He tracks Yemen on the blog Waq al-Waq but points out that even al-Shabaab in Somalia has media productions and spokesmen.

Johnsen translated the latest issue (the 11th) of Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Battles). The magazine is published online by the recently merged al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Qaeda Arabian Penninsula.

But who did the cover shoot?

Now, you might be asking yourself, “What would be in such a magazine?” Sure, the cover features a grenade in the background and a beaker filled with liquid in front of it. But there are publication staples like a front-of-the-magazine piece (this one by the leader of AQY/AQAP, Nasir al-Wahayshi), congratulatory notices (for weddings and suicide bombs) and a women’s column (describing how to support your jihad man). There’s no advertising, like we would think of, although there is an editorial e-mail.

But primarily the magazine is concerned with theological and legal reasons to explain AQ’s actions. “They have their target market,” Johnsen says, “mostly in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. And they’ve done a very good job in Yemen creating a narrative.”

According to Johnsen, the magazine is most useful as a gauge for what’s happening within the organization. And the article that struck Johnsen most was an anti-Shia screed (“The Apostates: Stages of Confrontation”) by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee named Ibrahim al-Rubaysh.

“Yemen and Saudi Arabia are very different,” Johnsen says. “Anti-Shia [writings] are not common in Yemen, and a growing anti-Shia rhetoric suggests a much more Saudi influence. Whether this means the beginning of a trend or it’s a one-off is impossible to tell.”

But something to watch, especially as Yemen teeters on.

–Michele Mitchell

Hey – What’s Your Deal, Guy?

Posted on 10. Nov, 2009 by admin in Economy, Energy Security, War on Terror

(An Ongoing Series About Your Finest Public Servants At Work)

Health care reform has launched Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) back into the spotlight. After four terms, we thought, perhaps Lieberman sprinkles legislative magic from Hartford to the Hart Building. Let’s take a look.

Lieberman is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. One of the most important functions of that committee (and of Congress) is not just to spend money but to keep track of it. In fact, checks and balances are the whole point. But Lieberman held no hearings. None. Possible malfeasance by the Bush administration? Nope. Checking up on the progress of the Department of Homeland Security? Not hardly.

“We like to do legislation,” he told reporters. “We don’t like investigating … just to see who is at fault.”

Aetna, I'm glad I met ya!

This must extend to the role of Alberto Gonzalez, too. The former attorney general was supportive of the now-infamous torture memos. Lieberman said this: “As he leaves public service, the Attorney General deserves our appreciation for his work for our nation.”

Then again, Lieberman was also supportive of waterboarding, voting against a ban, saying, “It is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological”

He has been repeatedly and publicly foggy on the war on terror, calling Iraq “the central front of the war on terror against the enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01,” and in 2005 stating that “The last two weeks have been critically important and I believe may be seen as a turning point in the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism.”

Nearly $1 trillion spent on the war later, let’s look at health care reform, which Lieberman worries will increase the national debt.

Lieberman’s nickname (as told by one of our favorite congressional sources) of “Senator Aetna” comes from the $110,000 in campaign donations this year alone that the insurance giant has given him.

The senator, who is up for re-election in 2010, has promised to filibuster health care reform, and hold an investigative Homeland Security hearing on the recent shooting at Fort Hood by a Muslim soldier.

Perhaps he’s scheduling this flurry of activity between his ubiquitous television appearances. Hey, Senator Lieberman—what’s your deal, guy?

Common Debt

Posted on 03. Nov, 2009 by admin in Economy, Middle Class Crunch

When photojournalist Kelly Shimoda set out to chronicle debt for Film@11, the average US household had it — Harvard University’s Elizabeth Warren was seen as a Cassandra for her study that found families were in financial trouble due to large, fixed expenses like mortgages and health care insurance —but no one wanted to talk about it, at least not on record. Debt was seen as painful and shameful.

Well, it’s still painful, but the shame is no longer personal. Over 1 million Americans filed for bankruptcy last year. Many of them filed because of health care costs, and many of those actually had health insurance.

Our latest episode of “Political Graffiti” tackles the sticky question of reform and what to reform. Former Cigna executive Wendell Potter suggests starting with the insurance cartel itself.

My Public Option

Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by admin in Economy, Middle Class Crunch

Flu season is nearly upon us, and the good folks at the New York City Health and Mental Hygiene are providing the population with free access to the influenza vaccine. However, while there are over 8.3 million people in New York City proper, there is only a grand total of five free walk-in clinics operated by the city – one for each borough, or one clinic per 1.7 million people. In practice, this turns out to mean that it takes roughly four hours for a person to get a flu shot.

I arrived at 9 am at the clinic on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. The place had been open for an hour, and the line was already a hundred and fifty people long.

I spent the next three hours in line. Arguments broke out over line etiquette. A rat ran through the crowd. Every 20 minutes we shuffled forward en masse as another group was taken indoors. At last I was called, and with renewed vigor I strolled inside and down to the basement … where we were told to sit in chairs. Another half an hour passed.

A custodian cleaning the nearby bathrooms peered at us. “You know, y’all could just head to a Duane Reade or a Walgreen’s or somewhere and get this same shot right now! Fifteen dollars!”

“Twenty-five,” replied a Russian lady.

“Okay, okay, 25,” said the custodian, smiling. “Still, that’s not so much.”

Finally a female police officer coralled us into the elevator to the fifth floor, and then on to another seating area where we filled out several forms and waited for our number to be called. As I sat down, I heard the nurse bark “93!” I was number 140.

An hour later, I heard my number. After a series of quick questions with an attendant (all of which I’d already answered on the forms I’d filled out), the attendant pointed, without looking, towards a door, and I entered a hallway leading to the exam rooms. And sat down to wait again.

The shot itself, when it finally came, took about a minute and a half to administer. My arm throbbed afterwards.

At this rate, if everyone chooses to save their $25 and go with the public option, for all of New York to be inoculated would take approximately 3,718.6 years. Considering that the flu virus changes annually, we’re a bit behind.

- Ned Thorne

A Healthy Fight

Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by admin in Economy

So when upwards of 80 percent of health care insurance markets are held by a single company (WellPoint, we’re looking at you, in Maine), it would seem like a matter for the Justice Department, right?

Not so fast. Health care insurance companies have been exempted from anti-trust laws because of the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, which allows for state but not federal anti-trust regulation.

It’s been a nice loophole for the insurance companies — 94 percent of US health insurance markets meet the Justice Department standards for “highly concentrated” (or, little competition). And even if Congress had the will to overturn McCarran-Ferguson, critics say this will do next to nothing, as since 1996, according to the American Medical Association, the federal government has cleared 400 mergers in health insurance. This would coincide with the time period when most Americans saw their premiums soar and services plummet.

But Congress looks ready to give it a whirl, anyway. Both the House and the Senate have approved language that will drop the anti-trust exemption, and while the insurance industry dismisses this as a temper tantrum several congressional sources tell us that “the Senate is awfully motivated.”

Right now, the move has bipartisan support. One reason might be the study recently released by the Business Roundtable, a nonpartisan group representing CEOs of major companies. It found that without “significant” marketplace reforms to reduce costs, health care costs per employee will triple to nearly $29,000 over the next decade.