Teacher Exodus Proves We Are Willfully Destroying US Public Education

Republicans weaken education because they need the poorly educated to make up their voting base. 

STEVEN SINGER in Common Dreams

Remember when federal, state and local governments actually seemed poised to do something about the great teacher exodus plaguing our schools?

With an influx of money earmarked to help schools recover from the pandemic, many expected pay raises and bonuses to keep experienced teachers in the classroom.

Ha! That didn’t happen!

Not in most places.

In fact, the very idea seems ludicrous now – and this was being discussed like it was a foregone conclusion just a few months ago at the beginning of the summer.

So what happened?

We found a cheaper way.

Just cut requirements to become a teacher.

Get more college students to enter the field even if they’re bound to run away screaming after a few years in.

It doesn’t matter – as long as we can keep them coming.

The young and dumb.

Or the old and out of options.

Entice retired teachers to come back and sub. Remove hurdles for anyone from a non-teaching field to step in and become a teacher – even military veterans because there’s so much overlap between battlefield experience and second grade reading.

And in the meantime, more and more classroom teachers with decades of experience under their belts are throwing up their hands and leaving.

Stop and think for a moment.

Such a powerful man!

 

Oh Canada

 

Superstorm Sandy Showed Ocean State What Future Storms Could Look Like

And what have we learned?

By Cynthia Drummond / ecoRI News contributor

More frequent and intense weather events and major storms, such as Superstorm Sandy in 2012, are taking a toll on Block Island’s coastline. (Judy Gray)

Superstorm Sandy was a complex, hybrid storm, the result of warm tropical air colliding with cold northern air. The storm reached Rhode Island on Oct. 29, 2012, causing significant damage to coastal homes and businesses. The National Flood Insurance Program paid more than $31 million in claims from Rhode Island alone.

Now, a decade later, researchers are developing ways to predict how severe storms will impact coastal communities.

Isaac Ginis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, develops storm-intensity prediction models, including a computer model used by the National Weather Service. Ginis described Sandy as the type of intense storm that might strike Rhode Island more often in the fall and winter.

“This happens in the winter time, when the temperature over land is getting colder and colder,” he said. “We typically have cooler air sliding down from Canada and then, the temperature of the water is still warm.”

That temperature difference, or gradient, produces nor’easters. As Sandy approached New England, getting energy from the warmer ocean water, Ginis explained the storm also began to draw energy from the atmosphere, with its warm/cold air temperature difference.

Slowing Memory Loss

Crossword Puzzles Beat Cognitive Computer Video Games

By COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IRVING MEDICAL CENTER  

According to a new study, doing crossword puzzles
has an advantage over computer video games
for memory functioning in older adults with
mild cognitive impairment.

A new study shows that doing crossword puzzles has an advantage over computer video games for memory functioning in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. The research was conducted by scientists from Columbia University and Duke University. The study will be published today (October 27) in the journal NEJM Evidence.

In a randomized, controlled trial, researchers determined that participants (average age 71) trained in doing web-based crossword puzzles demonstrated greater cognitive improvement than those who were trained on cognitive video games. The study was led by D.P. Devanand, MD, professor of psychiatry and neurology at Columbia, with Murali Doraiswamy, MD, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke.

House Analysis Confirms Corporations Use 'Cover of Inflation to Raise Prices Excessively'

Price gouging

JESSICA CORBETT For Common Dreams

A report by a panel of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform highlighted how "certain corporations are using the cover of inflation to raise prices excessively, resulting in record profits and profit margins" at the expense of consumers.

The analysis—Power and Profiteering: How Certain Industries Hiked Prices and Drove Inflation—was produced by the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, which held a related hearing featuring testimony from economists in September.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the subcommittee chair, said in a statement that "today's analysis reaffirms what an overwhelming 80% majority of Americans already recognize according to a recent poll: Under the guise of inflation, certain corporations excessively hiked prices far beyond what their costs necessitated, further driving inflation."

"As American corporations report their highest profit margins the United States has seen in over 70 years, executives of leading companies are admitting on earnings calls that they're taking advantage of inflation," the congressman continued. 

"One executive argued that 'a little bit of inflation is always good in our business' while another admitted that his company's prices wouldn't fall with decreasing costs, stating, 'We don't reduce prices on the back end of these increases.'"

"It is unacceptable that certain companies and industries are engaged in extreme price hikes under the cover of inflation," he declared. "Americans understand this is happening, and they want it to stop. We have an obligation in Congress to shine light on this practice, which is exactly what today’s analysis does."

Recounts and mail ins will determine final election outcome

One local race hangs in the balance.

By Will Collette

This is the Board of Election's timeline for
determining the final election results

Let me begin by declaring that political polls are bullshit. It has been a long time since our very expensive habit of polling to predict the outcome of elections has panned out.

I think the problems include pollsters’ inability to reach a truly representative sample given the radical shift most Americans have made to using their cellphones exclusively. Those of us who still have landlines get polled so intensively that it is tempting (at least it is to me) to just make up answers.

This year, there was supposed to be a devasting Red Wave that would sweep Republicans into control of Congress, including the election of Allan Fung. We won’t know who controls Congress for some time but we do know Fung blew his chance. 

Rhode Island Blue Tsunami

We were supposed to see big gains for the GOP in the General Assembly and perhaps several upsets among the state’s general officers. James Diossa was supposed to be in trouble in his bid for General Treasurer and the GOP thought maybe they could pull off upsets by beating Dan McKee for Governor and Sabrina Matos for Lieutenant Governor.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

The state GOP got crushed. Allan Fung is now 0 for 3 in his efforts to win an office bigger than Cranston mayor. Stick a fork in him - he's done.

The GOP did not increase its General Assembly power in part due to two Charlestown women: Tina Spears and Victoria Gu, who flipped House 36 and Senate 38 from red to Blue.

The final count will be in accordance with the Board of Election schedule posted in the upper left.

There’s one local seat that could be affected: House 39 where Democrat Megan Cotter of Exeter is four votes ahead of radical insurrectionist Trumplican Justin Price of Richmond.

Four votes.

If Megan’s lead holds, that will be another seat flipped for the Democrats. 

Filippi cliff-hanger on Block Island

Another nail-biter of some local interest is Block Island’s Town Council race. Steve Filippi, Blake “Flip” Filippi’s brother and owner of controversial Ballard’s Inn, ran unopposed as an independent for one of three open seats. Democrat Martha Bell also ran, receiving 509 votes to Filippi’s 92.

By the way, Steve Filippi was co-plaintiff with his mother suing Blake Filippi and his other brother Paul in the family feud litigation, Filippi v. Filippi.

But here’s the surprise: even though Martha Bell and Steve Filippi were the only candidates on the ballot running for 3 seats, more Block Island voters voted for write-in candidates than for Bell and Filippi combined.

The current tally is: Write-ins 1051, Martha Bell 509 and Steve Filippi 92. The Board of Canvassers will have to comb through the write-in votes, applying the state’s stringent requirement that the write-in names must be complete and accurate. Only then will Block Island know who is on their Town Council.

While Martha Bell’s win seems assured, Filippi’s does not, depending on how the review of the write-in votes turns out.

Can't wait till it opens

 

A reminder from Nelson Mandela

 

Battles Over Water Rights, Land Use Likely to Become More Common

"Water is the new oil"

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

The Ashaway Road property in Hopkinton that is part of a battle over land and water rights. (Colleen Cronin/ecoRI News)

A proposed amendment that would have allowed residentially zoned properties to host commercial water wells failed at a recent Town Council meeting.

All five members of the council voted this week against the zoning change, sought by Thomas Byrnes, the owner of land on Ashaway Road who has been seeking to sell water from the well on his property.

Byrnes was requesting that the town change its land-use table to allow a “commercial water distribution center,” which would help clear the way for a commercial well on his property.

The issue highlighted the clash between individual property owners’ rights and the fact that water in Rhode Island is becoming a scarce resource.

“This is the kind of business, literally, and I don’t mean any pun with this, that would drain us dry,” Town Council member Michael Geary said. “Water is one of those things that slowly, for anybody watching, is slowly becoming a crisis.”

Council President Stephen Moffitt emphasized that the council’s vote was not against a specific project, but the addition of a whole land-use category.

“I just don’t see this can of worms is beneficial to us,” he said.

Leah Boisclair, an attorney representing Byrnes, said he may decide to continue the fight, which has led to contentious public meetings, one gas station confrontation, and a cease-and-desist letter from the town.

Condolences to the family of Wenonah Caroline Brown and the Narragansett Indian Tribe

Narragansett Tribe Medicine Woman Dies on October 30

From her obituary:

Wenonah was the definition of a beloved matriarch. From consummate knowledge and cellular embodiment of ancestral wisdom, to fierce protector of all who needed her strength. From mentor offering the purest love and the highest of standards to all who sought her advice, to healer with hands which were miraculous instruments of intuition- and as always, adoring mother and grandmother, especially to her own family; who were always present in her words and thoughts, and who now as a clan embody the different aspects of this uniquely extraordinary woman. 

She was born in Putnam, CT September 7, 1947 to John B Brown Sr. of Westerly RI, and Ella Wilcox ( Sekatau ) of CT. The oldest of nine of John & Ella's children. 

Wenonah would marry Harry Nelson Mars Jr. of RI and the two had three daughters between 1975 and 1980, Anemone, Quahna, and Nishke Mars. A second marriage in life to Douglas Harris of NY would bring her stepson Touré Harris into the familial fold. In 1996 she began her journey into incomparable grandmotherhood. Her grandchildren (5 grandsons and 1 granddaughter) Atsa Zah, Eiyazh Foster, Mishkwatuk (Jayden) Mars, Liliana Ava Mae Mars, Skylar Rain Etsitty and Nodin River Etsitty, were her reigning pride and joy and she is survived by four siblings; Roslyn Brown, Hiawatha J, Brown, John B Brown III and Muriel Stanton Brown- all of her children and grandchildren. 

Wenonah devoted her life to the service of protecting Indigenous children and traditional family structures, through not only her implementation and upholding of "organic law and lore", but also her expert knowledge and application of the Indian Child Welfare Act. She was a formidable advocate of the various protections and preservations of traditional core family values not only within tribal infrastructures, but extensively inclusive within inter-state departments of children and families along with state family court systems for over 35 years. Her service to her tribal people expanded throughout her life in multiple facets and in the wake of her mother's passing, Wenonah assumed the role of hereditary traditional Medicine Woman of the Narragansett Tribe, as was her mother before.

Her burial took place today at the Narragansett Indian Tribal Cemetery on tribal lands

Why inequality is growing in the US and around the world

Gross inequality threatens democracy and social stability

Fatema Z. Sumar, Harvard Kennedy School

Elon Musk is the world’s wealthiest person. 
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

U.S. income inequality grew in 2021 for the first time in a decade, according to data the Census Bureau released in September 2022.

That might sound surprising, since the most accurate measure of the poverty rate declined during the same time span.

But for development experts like me, this apparent contradiction makes perfect sense.

That’s because what’s been driving income inequality in the United States – and around the world for years – is that the very rich are getting even richer, rather than the poor getting poorer.

In every major region of the world outside of Europe, extreme wealth is becoming concentrated in just a handful of people.

Charlestown changes

So what happens next?

By Will Collette

They both won big

Statewide, the Blue Wave is sending Seth Magaziner to Congress from our District and every state general officer seat will be filled by a Democrat.

Locally, we're going to get the change that many of us wanted (in fact, the majority). We flipped both open General Assembly seats representing Charlestown from red to Blue. We elected Victoria Gu to the state Senate, replacing retiring Dennis Algiere (R). Tina Spears will be our new state Representative, replacing the odious Blake "Flip" Filippi (Trumplican).

Tina and Victoria both won by impressive 20+ point margins.

But perhaps the biggest news is that for the first time since 2008, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) failed to win a Council majority, soundly beaten by Charlestown Residents United (CRU). In fact, it looks like only incumbent Susan Cooper will represent the CCA on the Council. Oh, I forgot, all these CCA people are "independent," right?

Deb Carney easily won the most votes, so she will return as Council President. Rippy Serra came in second, earning the position of Vice-President. Deb is a Democrat and her three CRU colleagues - Rippy, plus incumbent councilor Grace Klinger and Steve Stokes - are Republicans. 

Hopefully they'll be able to work and play together and Charlestown can be different than the rest of the country.

There probably is no joy in the CCA clubhouse, wherever that is, tonight. It wouldn't surprise me if Ruth Platner starts planning to storm Town Hall to overthrow the election results. Imagine the CCA insurrectionists marching up West Beach Road from Quonnie to Town Hall.

It wouldn't be the first time that the CCA organized a riot at Town Hall. In 2011, they lead a mob of non-resident property owners to scream about a proposed Homestead Tax Credit that would have given full-time Charlestown residents $1000 off their tax bills.

There may be some small shifts in the town election numbers when all mail-in ballots are counted, but it is very unlikely to affect the outcome on the Council.

One race where counting every ballot carefully will be critical is House District 39 where Democrat Megan Cotter holds the lead over radical Trumplican Justin Price by ONLY 4 votes! 

Charlestown Democrat Jennifer Douglas had her third swing and miss at unseating radical Trumplican incumbent Elaine Morgan. Even though Morgan was caught committing campaign finance fraud, it wasn't enough to sway the vote.

Last but not least, Charlestown voters approved the idea of a cannabis store in Charlestown by almost 10 points. I'd still like to see the Narragansett Tribe get the state license and re-purpose the Smoke Shop. They wouldn't even need to change the sign. We'll see if the new Council majority is open to it.

Boosting the red hat market

By Pat Bagley

 

Ike was right