Garcetti, Backed by Tenant Groups, Wins LA Mayor’s Race
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 22‚ 2013
Eric Garcetti has won a 53%-46% victory in the Los Angeles mayor's race following a tough campaign against Wendy Greuel. Greuel sought to become the city’s first female mayor, but was a bland candidate from the Valley who failed to energize women voters. Although the media framed the candidates as ideologically similar--- the New York Times claimed they “did little to differentiate themselves on major issues like jobs and the city budget”--- the city’s big landlord and realtor groups backed Greuel while tenant groups like the Coalition for Economic Survival supported Garcetti. Greuel pledged to decimate the city’s vastly improved housing code enforcement program, while Garcetti has long backed tenants and affordable housing. I wrote on April 3 that Greuel faced an “uphill battle,” and that New York City’s Christine Quinn, another real estate backed moderate woman candidate, had a greater chance of success. Quinn’s chances still look good, particularly because she does not face an opponent as strong as Garcetti.
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How America Became a Third World Country (2013-2023)
by Mattea Kramer and Jo Comerford‚
May. 22‚ 2013
The streets are so much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Some are already being subdivided and sold to the highest bidder. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. The air in city after city hangs brown and heavy (and rates of childhood asthma and other lung diseases have shot up), because funding that would allow the enforcement of clean air standards by the Environmental Protection Agency is a distant memory. Public education has been cut to the bone, making good schools a luxury and, according to the Department of Education, two of every five students won’t graduate from high school.
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There Are Plenty of Reasons Why Parents May Read More With Their Daughters
by Nanette Fondas‚
May. 22‚ 2013
Understanding a new study that finds girls get more reading time with their parents than boys
May is the month parents freak out about children's academic progress. It could be their eight-year-old's below grade-level reading; or their middle-schooler's weak standardized test scores; or their high-school student's failure to keep up with the Jones' whiz kid who somehow aces three AP classes while playing two varsity sports and a musical instrument. Parental anxiety boosts demand for information about how to give kids a head start early in life, in the hope of avoiding academic trouble later.How well and how much children read, in particular, is a hot topic at playgrounds swarming with toddlers, whose parents often intensely invest in their intellectual and social development, education, and well-being. In a new study, Michael Baker at the University of Toronto and Kevin Milligan at the University of British Columbia examine how such parents interact with their pre-school children. Baker and Milligan analyze surveys done in the United States, Canada, and Britain to delineate how parents spend that coveted one-on-one time, for example, in play, sports, reading, talking, singing, or arts and crafts.
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As Cities Prosper, Poor People Relocate to Suburbs
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 21‚ 2013
According to a new Brookings Institution report, the number of low-income people living in suburbs increased 67% between 2000 and 2011, altering longstanding perceptions of a rising middle-class fleeing from cities to achieve the American Dream. Reasons for the shift include urban gentrification, the foreclosure crisis, greater access to suburban affordable housing and the rapid expansion of suburban areas. Paris and other European cities have long had the wealthy living in central city areas and the poor outside the city’s core, but the post-World War II growth of suburbia sent the United States in the other direction. This shift of the middle-class to the suburbs and corresponding central city decline continued until the the late 1970’s, and urban America's dramatic comeback continues at full speed today. Now that cities offer walkable, bicycle-friendly, public transit-available neighborhoods with desirable restaurants and a high quality of life, the poor are being shunted to car-dependent suburban areas in economic decline. Activists now face the challenge of helping the suburban poor while still pushing for public housing residents and those living in non-gentrified urban neighborhoods to get the resources they deserve.
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Fighting Big Food With Social Media
by Dana Woldow‚
May. 21‚ 2013
Big food and beverage companies are spending less on advertising their products to kids, and yet their presence in children's lives feels greater than ever. How can that be? Two words - social media. Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to bring their message to children is vastly cheaper than traditional media, and it may not even be perceived by youngsters as "advertising", making it all the more insidious. Now one fed-up mom is fighting back, taking advantage of social media's low cost and ease of distribution to get her message about processed food out to kids.
A December 2012 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report on food marketing to children and adolescents examined data from 44 major food and beverage companies. Comparing 2009 spending to 2006, the report found "total spending on food marketing to youth dropped 19.5% in 2009, to $1.79 billion. Spending on youth-directed television advertising fell 19.5%, while spending on new media, such as online and viral marketing, increased 50%." [more]->
How Far Does 2/3 Go?
by Brian Leubitz ‚
May. 21‚ 2013
When the Legislature hit the magical 2/3 mark after the November 2012 election, a lot of progressives started dreaming big. Prop 30 just passed, and a statement had been made for a progressive vision of California. A majority of Californians had just voted to raise their taxes. Whether thanks to the strong field campaign around Prop 32 or through changing demographics of a presidential election, the Democrats gained big on the Legislative front.
But muddying these waters was a lot of mixed messaging. Gov. Brown had at least signaled that he thought Prop 30 was the only tax revenue measure that we should pass for a while, and some of the Democratic legislators had more or less said the same thing.
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The Chicago Board of Education Votes This Week Whether to Shut Down Fifty-four Schools
by Allison Kilkenny‚
May. 21‚ 2013
Chicago is braced for a critical vote by the Board of Education this week to determine if fifty-four schools will be closed. Last week, parents of three children, two who have disabilities and a third who is black, filed a lawsuit at the US District Court in Chicago alleging that the school closings violate the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Illinois Civil Rights Act. A second complaint, filed by the parents of three more children with disabilities, alleged the closings will occur too late in the year and don’t allow sufficient time for those children and their peers to transition to “unfamiliar” schools.
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IRS, Benghazi “Scandals” Won’t Hurt Dems in 2014
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 20‚ 2013
According to conventional wisdom, the IRS and Benghazi “scandals,” coupled with a difficult roll out of Obamacare, have energized Republicans and spell problems for Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, whose words are gospel for millions, suggested last week that, while the impact of most scandals is less than many think, the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups “has the potential to harm Democrats’ performance in next year’s midterm elections, partly by motivating a strong turnout from the Republican base.” But as Silver knows, Democratic losses in midterm elections are primarily caused not by a galvanized GOP base but by a demoralized and/or unenergized Democratic one. This means that Democratic success in 2014 hinges not on the impact of the IRS and other “scandals” but on passing comprehensive immigration reform, rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, and avoiding a budget deal that undermines Social Security. Success on these issues will get young people and others who back Democrats in presidential election cycles to go to the polls in 2014, proving again that good policies are the best politics.
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Emulating Malcolm X
by Bill Fletcher Jr.‚
May. 20‚ 2013
On or around May 19th and February 21st, many Black activists reflect upon the life and work of Malcolm X, with the former his birthday and the latter the day that he was assassinated. Two years ago the publication of the late Manning Marable’s biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention had been a Moment that many of us had hoped would be an opportunity for a larger movement reflection on the life and work of Malcolm X. Instead, a campaign of vilification of Marable ensued accompanied by an almost canonization of Malcolm X by many critics of Marable, neither helping us to get a better understanding of Malcolm’s contributions.
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Public Rallies Against FEMA/UC Berkeley Tree Clear-Cutting Plan
by Randy Shaw‚
May. 20‚ 2013
May 22, 2013
