On poverty, both material and intellectual

If the photo on the left offends you more than the one on the
right, you need to revise your ideas about immorality.

Responding to comments on "Too Many American Children Live in Poverty"

By Linda Felaco

A commenter has asked why, if I'm so concerned about poverty, I'm not traveling to the Third World to fight it. Leo Tolstoy also asked "What then must we do?" about poverty in Russia. One solution I don't espouse is that of Newt Gingrich, one of the current frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination. Gingrich has suggested that rather than educate poor children, we should fire all the school janitors and give the poor children mops. Even if it were true, as Gingrich has stated, that "children born into poverty aren't accustomed to working unless it involves crime"—which it most emphatically is not—it takes a real sick and twisted mind to conclude that the solution is to put poor children to work in the schools rather than allowing them to study in them, thereby dooming them to a life of poverty.

Of course, blaming the poor for their poverty is hardly a new phenomenon. 

Charlestown voters will see different names on their 2012 ballots

Redistricting affects Charlestown’s state Senators and Representatives more than any other South County town.

This is the OLD House district map

By Will Collette

When the General Assembly reconvenes in January, they will be presented with new maps defining the state’s political districts. Every ten years, in the year after a national Census, the maps must be re-drawn so that they all contain the same number of people.

Charlestown was one of the only towns in South County to lose a major number of people (the only other town to experience a population decline in our are was Narragansett and by a smaller percentage). All of the other towns gained in population. These gains and loses pretty much guaranteed some serious district line shifting.

But Charlestown’s two Senators, Republicans Dennis Algiere and Francis Maher, and two Representatives, Democrats Donna Walsh and Larry Valencia, saw their districts undergo some major surgery. In this article, I will focus on the House districts. I will cover the Senate changes later this week.

Move Your Money to a Better Bank

Smaller financial institutions take the time to get to know their clients.

By Andrew Korfhage

During a key scene in the classic holiday film It's A Wonderful Life, savings-and-loan proprietor George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, memorably explains to the townspeople how his business works – that he's not sitting on piles of money just because he runs a small, local bank.

"Your money's not here," George tells the crowd. "It's in the Kennedy house and the MacLaren house, and a hundred others. You all put your savings in here and then we make loans to people to buy homes and cars and other things."

At Peace with Christmas

What you call credit card debt is what some other person calls a job.

By Donald Kaul

It's now officially too late to do your Christmas shopping early.

That's OK. Doing your Christmas shopping late counts too. Remember, it's not the thought behind the gift that counts; it's what you spend on it.

Oh, I imagine you Xmasologists out there are offended by such crass materialism. You say that Christmas should be all about the birth of Christ and we should walk around looking pious.

I say that's nonsense.

Redistricting maps OK'd - big changes for Charlestown

New legislative boundaries approved - General Assembly must give final OK

By Will Collette

Tonight, the state redistricting commission approved new maps redrawn to meet the legal requirement that all districts contain the same number of people.

The Commission approved "House alternative D, as amended." This map moves the boundary line between District 36 (Rep. Donna Walsh) and District 39 (Rep. Larry Valencia northward so that all of Charlestown would be represented by Rep. Walsh.

Too Many American Children Live in Poverty

The latest numbers are a moral outrage and a wake-up call.

By Marc Morial

The Census Bureau recently delivered some disturbing news about how the Great Recession and its aftermath are affecting the most vulnerable among us — America's school children.

More than 20 percent of the nation's counties saw significant increases in poverty among school-aged children between 2007 and 2010. Nationally, 22 percent of our children are living in poverty.

Breathe better

Food Scrap Can be Better Used Than to Make Stink

By Greg Gerritt, eco-opinion to EcoRI.org

The smell from the state landfill is primarily the result of the decay of organic matter. If we stopped burying food scrap and other organics, and instead composted them, the smell from the landfill would be greatly diminished over time, and we would be producing compost that can be used to revitalize agricultural soils in Rhode Island, improve the economy in our communities and increase our resilience in the face of climate change.

In fact, more and more communities around the world are composting every day.

Can we “Pre-Impeach?”

Gingrich advocates the arrest of federal judges 

By Will Collette

Since Bill Clinton became President – ironically at the time Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House – it has become a Congressional tradition that every President will have at least one impeachment resolution filed against him.

Why attending Town Council meetings is not a waste of time

It’s said that 90% of life is just showing up—and the rich show up. Witness last week’s Town Council meeting.

By Linda Felaco

When it comes to dark skies, we'll never be able to compete with North Korea

In announcing the death yesterday of Kim Jong-Il, Slate republished Christopher Hitchens's February 2010 column on the North Korean regime, in which he linked to a satellite image of the Korean peninsula at night. As Hitchens describes it, North Korea "is an area of unrelieved darkness. Barely a scintilla of light is visible even in the capital city." Truly something to aspire to.

We always knew it

Whitehouse Emerging as Environmental 'Star'

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., keeps company with some high-profile liberal coworkers in a recent plea from them seeking to increase domestic investment in renewable energy.

In a letter published Dec. 16 in the Huffington Post and on the environmental website Grist, Whitehouse shares the byline and is included in a photo collage with Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Grist refers to the Washington lawmakers as "star senators."

The letter takes exception to negative press surrounding the high-profile bankruptcy of solar manufacturer Solyndra, noting that global investment in renewable energy is exceeding the money spent on fossil-fuel power plants. 

Have yourself a Green Christmas

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle ... Rejoice!

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

In the five weeks between Thanksgiving and the new year, Americans produce five times more trash than any other time of year. Whether you are dreaming of a white Christmas, or lamenting a blue Christmas without a loved one, everyone should be looking to increase the Christmas green. Here are some tips for decorating, entertaining and gift giving for all of Santa’s eco-conscious elves:

Buy a living tree. A small pine tree in a planter can be reused for a lifetime with none of the maintenance and clean up associated with a cut tree and none of the environmental impact of a plastic tree. At the end of the holiday season, you can just stash your tree out in the yard where it will rest until the next holiday season. They’re called evergreens for a reason.

Fun facts from Harper's Index

Leslie Banks as "Count Zaroff" in
The Most Dangerous Game.

On the state of the economy:

Amount an unemployed Utah man is charging for the opportunity to hunt and kill him: $10,000

(Perhaps he should visit the Ninigret Wildlife Refuge next year during hunting season)

Percentage of the current U.S. debt that was accumulated during Republican presidential terms: 71

Portion of debt-ceiling elevations since 1960 that have been signed into law by Republican presidents: 2/3

Percentage of profits American corporations paid in taxes in 1961: 40.6

Today: 10.5

Estimated value of government subsidies that will go to the oil and gas industries between now and 2015: $78,155,000,000

Portion of the increase in U.S. corporate profit margins since 2001 that has come from depressed wages: 3/4

Percentage of Americans who say they did not have money to buy food at all times last year: 18.2

Percentage change in the median household wealth of white families since 2005: –16

Of Hispanic families: –66

Wealth is the Gift that Keeps on Giving

Whether you are religious or secular, make holidays a celebration of family, tradition, and values instead of unsustainable spending and materialism.

By Mariko Chang and Dedrick Muhammad

The holiday season exerts a lot of pressure to spend what you don't have and go deeper into debt in the name of "giving." This year, let us all support each other to be financially responsible and engage in building wealth instead of destroying it.

Wealth, or net worth, is the value of your assets minus your debts. Assets include things such as money in checking or savings accounts, the equity in your home, and stock. Common types of debt include credit card debt, mortgages, and college loans. Without any wealth, people are just a paycheck away from financial disaster.

Rhode Island ranks well in “corporate welfare” accountability

State ranks 8^th in national report 

By Will Collette

Thanks in large part of the efforts of our local state Representatives Donna Walsh, Teresa Tanzi and Larry Valencia, Rhode Island recently enacted reforms to the way it gives corporations subsidies that made those companies more accountable to produce the jobs and benefits to the economy that they promised when they asked for the money.

“Corporate welfare” can be a very good thing when it stimulates the economy and helps to preserve and expand good jobs with good benefits.