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Jose Antonio Vargas: Why Twitter is the Most Popular Word of 2009

2009-11-30T14:02:07Z

Of course Twitter is the most popular English word of the year.

Yesterday, the Global Language Monitor declared the San Francisco-based micro-blogging site as the top English word of 2009. In a decade marked by the growth of most everything Internet-related, this marked the first time a Web company has earned that distinction. MySpace (founded in 2003), Facebook (in 2004) and YouTube (2005) never made that spot in their early years.

But Twitter's achievement also underlines a sobering reality -- one that President Obama, a BlackBerry addict, hinted at in a town hall meeting in Shanghai two weeks ago. Asked via the Internet if the Chinese should be able to use Twitter freely, Obama responded: "Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone."

For all the buzz (our "first Twitter Christmas," the New York Times wrote Friday, noting how retailers like Best Buy use the site); all the magazine covers ("How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live," read a headline in June's Time magazine); all its undeniable impact in all aspects of life, from politics to entertainment (remember country-pop princess Taylor Swift thanking her Twitter followers during her speech at this year's MTV Video Music Awards?), Twitter is not mainstream.

Not mainstream in terms of size; since this summer, there's been report after report that Twitter's membership has peaked, not anywhere near the 300-million strong membership of Facebook.

Not mainstream in terms of usage; though many live, swear and exist through Twitter's 140 character limit, Twitter's retention rate, as been widely reported, is somewhere around 40 percent. (A caveat: that doesn't take into account people who use Twitter through third-party applications and mobile phones.)

Not mainstream in terms of omnipresence and ubiquity; Twitter ain't Google.

In other words, Twitter is not for everyone -- not yet, at least. Many people are confused by it. (If I had a dime for every time a friend or a relative who's not glued in front of his/her computer all day said to me, "I still don't get this Twitter thing!"). Others don't see how it relates to their everyday lives. ("So why do I need this again?") Broadly speaking, and with many exceptions, Twitter is still largely the province of the world's digital elites and early adopters, who from the streets of Tehran to the fragmented Republican Party are getting their message out, whatever that message may be, unfiltered, unedited, be it photos, videos, opinion or just plain news. And the message will get out. And the message will inevitably spread. It's no coincidence, by the way, that the top English words of the past few years, as surveyed by Global Language Monitor, are news-related. Last year, the top word was "change," in reference to Obama's improbable and winning campaign. Three years before that, in 2005, it was "refugee," in reference to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. In 2000, it was "chad" -- as in the hanging chads of Florida, which played a central role in the tight race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Twitter, after all, is about having a voice. Here in the U.S., it may mean tweeting about this or that party. Abroad, in authoritarian regimes such as Iran, it means tweeting about the fight for democracy.

"Twitter has gone in the way of YouTube. At first, people thought YouTube was silly and weird; they didn't know how to YouTube and what a YouTube channel was. Now YouTube is synonymous, the industry standard, for online video -- for everyday people to watch, upload and share videos," Scott Goodstein, the text messaging expert who ran Obama's social networking presence during the campaign, told me. "Twitter is going through the same process. Twitter has become synonymous with quick, short opinion and perspective -- coming from anyone, going everywhere."

The Web is flat. And in a world made smaller by the Internet and new technologies, Twitter forces us to become each other's witnesses, one tweet at a time.

That's why Twitter, only three years old, is the most popular English word of 2009.

Will Bunch: Decades Are Only "From Hell" If We Make Them

2009-11-30T00:18:05Z

The decade that we're in now (more on that awkward phrasing in a second) is still with us for another 32 days, but the race to define it is already on. Time magazine -- which didn't dare wait for December lest it be scooped -- jumped out to an early and perhaps insurmountable lead when it declared the last 10 years as "The Decade from Hell," a phrase I've already heard reverberating loudly about the Big Media echo chamber. Unless you've been stuck in a garage since the year 2000 building a giant balloon in order to become a reality TV star, you can probably rattle off all the supporting evidence in your sleep: 9/11, the global economic meltdown, the failures of Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and torture and the rapid loss of U.S. prestige in the world, and so on and so forth.

One potential good thing about "The Decade From Hell" is that it does give the years from 2000 through 2009 the thing they so strikingly lack: a name! Indeed, that problem became noticeable just months into the year 2000, when it became clear there was no consensus name (like the Nineties, or '90s) and then 9/11 in some bizarre way just brought that whole conversation to a halt; when it resumed there were some awful suggestions like "the Naughts" (really?) but I tend to use "the 2000s," any confusion with either the 21st Century or the new millennium be damned. But beyond that, I have some other problems with this whole "Decade From Hell" concept. Was it really? And if so, why was that?

The biggest problem is that the "Decade from Hell" suggests that life can be boiled down to, in $10,000 Pyramid terminology, "Things That You See on CNN." What about all the billions of people, literally, who brought a new son or daughter into the world during the 2000s, who found a soulmate or got married (or even both!) or created an amazing work of art during the last 10 years? True, these same folks may have also been pained by 9/11 or suffered a job loss as well, but they probably won't look back on these years as all hellish.

It's also, appropriately in a weird way, a very America-centric view -- I doubt people in India or China, which grew their economies and gained clout on the global stage, will see the 2000s through a ring of hellfire. But yes, if you look at the United States and from the perspective of all the big stuff in politics, the economy and the ways that we relate as a society, it was not the best of times. But here's the other thing that troubled me about "The Decade from Hell" concept, this underlying assumption that maybe our Decades are somehow fated or handed down to us; that the same fickle Decade Gods who gave us sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll in the 1960s and then whomped us upside the head with Pet Rocks, the AMC Gremlin and "Muskrat Love" in the 1970s are up there deciding our fate in 10-year increments. The Time cover story states that:

If we are now watching the sun set on a Decade from Hell, does it naturally follow that the next decade will be all good and glory? Of course not. And yet there are some hopeful signs...There's also a natural cycle to history. Unless you believe that this country is in the throes of a deep and permanent decline, there's no question that we will rebound. "Usually when you've had a really bad decade like this one, the next decade turns out to be much better for investors," says Richard Sylla, a professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business.

That can be some dangerous thinking right there -- and not just because it seems to associate our greater health and well-being with the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I think that when history looks back with more clarity on the 2000s and how they played out in the United States, we'll see that the bad things that happened were the result not of a fate-driven up-and-down cycle of decades but from events that trace all the way back, for the most part, to the start of the 1970s and to both powerful forces that were outside America's control and to poor choices that were within our control, that we made as a nation.

It was in the year 1970, in fact, that oil production in the United States peaked and began an inexorable decline -- that and the growth of a global economy undercutting high-paying U.S. factory jobs were perhaps first and foremost the signals that the generation of American economic dominance that flourished after World War II was winding down. Ironically, for me personally, I spent the end of the 2000s reliving the 1980s as I wrote and researched a book on Ronald Reagan and his legacy called Tear Down This Myth; I was reminded of how early tentative steps toward alternative energy that could have put the nation on a brighter path was chucked aside for a bubble economy that encouraged massive borrowing by both the government and by families trying to survive in a now-consumerist economy where a tiny few reaped windfalls in newly deregulated financial markets and paid lower taxes on their bounty; how preserving our global dominance meant investing billions not in new ideas but on new tanks and jet fighters, increasingly aimed at the part of the world that did still have a lot of oil, the Middle East.

It from those very human decisions -- which were not fated at all, and in fact could have been avoided -- that a "Decade from Hell" arrived in our inbox on 1/1/00. Because it was that unregulated, finance-driven economy that have us an economic meltdown, a decision to spend billions on tax breaks for the wealthy instead of infrastructure that contributed to Katrina's levee collapses and a lethal bridge collapse in Minneapolis, and our need for dominance in the world's oil regions that caused us to invade Iraq, with many bad consequences. In the case of the 9/11 attacks, that cannot of course be blamed on America -- it speaks instead to the evil cycle of fanaticism and the power-mad manipulators like Osama bin Laden -- but at the same time I do think it's fair to wonder how the 2000s would have played out differently -- from terrorism to Afghanistan to Iraq -- if we had heeded Jimmy Carter's call in the late 1970s to end our dependence on foreign oil.

As for the 2010s, I don't think we can afford to sit around watching CNBC and waiting for the Decade Gods to automatically turn everything green as some sort of karmic balance for the awfulness of the 2000s. We can't go back in time undo the lousy decisions of yesteryear, but we can at least, belatedly, start to do the right things -- try to get it right on alternative energy and on infrastructure, to remain a leading nation on the world stage not because others fear our weapons, but because they cherish our ideas and also our ideals, as they existed before they were corrupted by the likes of Guantanamo and torture. Those good choices over the next 10 years could bring us not one but a series of more heavenly decades, and demolish the myth of a fated cycle.

Because a "Decade from Hell" doesn't just happen -- unless we make it that way.

Harry Shearer: Why Obama Needs to Weigh In With the Corps of Engineers

2009-11-24T14:08:42Z

Of course, Republicans defended George W. Bush and blamed state and local officials when independent investigations (here and here) pointed to the US Army Corps of Engineers' culpability for the 2005 flooding of New Orleans. Now Democrats are doing the same thing when critics, like myself, find the Corps making some of the same mistakes in the rebuilding and the president calls the flooding a "natural disaster." One persistent commenter to my posts keeps deflecting responsibility to (minority) Republicans in Congress and to the now-Republican leadership of the state of Louisiana. Today's news provides a cogent response.

The Times-Picayune reports that the Chairman of Louisiana's Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority is seeking mediation between his agency and the Corps over--wait for it--where the Corps dumps its mud. It's been known for years that, as the Corps keeps the Mississippi River channel clear for navigation, it dumps what it dredges in the Gulf of Mexico--at the same time that the state's coastal wetlands, deprived of sediment from the leveed-off river (and damaged by thousands of miles of pipelines and canals serving the oil industry), continue to disappear at an alarming rate. The Corps refuses to use that dredged material to help replenish the wetlands. The State has two options--prevent the dredging, which would cripple navigation on the Mighty Miss, or request the mediation.

Of course, the Corps' Commander in Chief, a gentleman by the name of Obama, could cut short this process, order the Corps to request the money from Congress (if, indeed, the Corps is correct that helping restore the wetlands would cost more than filling a hole at the bottom of the Gulf), and help preserve New Orleans' main buffer against more severe hurricanes (since hurricanes lose force over land). The question is: will he?

Arianna Huffington: Will The Unemployment Disaster Be Obama's Katrina?

2009-11-23T18:14:12Z

There's a Category 5 storm about to make landfall, and the president and the officials in charge of preparing for the approaching disaster don't seem to be particularly worried. Sound familiar?

Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.

The members of the Obama administration may not be attending a birthday party at John McCain's ranch in Sedona or shopping for expensive Ferragamo shoes in New York as a great American city is destroyed, but their decidedly lackadaisical response to what job losses are doing to multiple great American cities raises the question: will unemployment be Barack Obama's Katrina?

His economic team's resistance to a second round of stimulus, "lukewarm" reaction to Congressional jobs legislation, and prioritization of deficit reduction over job creation certainly has the feel of a taking-in-the-damage-from-2,500-feet flyover moment.

"There is no discussion of a package like a second stimulus," said deputy White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki. "But we are working closely with Congress and consulting with outside experts to determine the right policies and next steps." No word on whether those outside experts include the 1 in 6 workers currently unemployed or underemployed.

Of course, the real problem isn't the outside experts; the administration's wrongheaded approach is a classic inside job. Sen. Sherrod Brown summed it up on CNN, telling John King that when it comes to putting the focus on Main Street, the president's "advisors are mixed."

Which makes one wonder: what level of unemployment would it take to unmix them? Even 10.2 percent, the highest level in 26 years, after 22 straight months of job losses, doesn't seem to have quickened the pulse of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.

And it's not like the levees haven't begun to crack, with the real unemployment rate -- factoring in discouraged and partially employed workers -- at 17.5 percent, the unemployment rate for workers aged 16 to 24 at 19 percent, and the unemployment rate for young African-Americans at 30 percent. What's more, the average length of unemployment is at a record high, while the ratio of job seekers to open positions is now 6 to 1.

A new ABC/Washington Post poll reported that 30 percent of Americans say someone in their home has lost a job. I'm guessing that Summers and Geithner are comfortably in the other 70 percent. But even if it hasn't hit home for them, it should be clear that unemployment is going to be the singular issue of 2010.

Congressional Democrats have certainly gotten the message -- and have grown tired of waiting for the White House to take the lead. According to The Hill, House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Pelosi, are "worried they've appeared unresponsive to rising unemployment because they were absorbed by health care." The article also says that Harry Reid has told colleagues he wants a jobs bill soon.

As John Larson, the fourth-ranking House Democrat puts it: "It's jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Members of this caucus feel... that a jobless recovery is just simply unacceptable to us."

The problem for the White House and for the Democratic Party -- and, most importantly, for the country -- is that the administration's response on jobs is being led by Summers, who actually opposed the extension of unemployment benefits Obama just signed. At this point you have to wonder what Obama's attachment to Summers and Geithner is. We know if you become a target of Glenn Beck and cause five seconds of embarrassment to the administration you need to start updating your resume (ask Van Jones), but if you slowly bring down the administration, and the party, and the country, that's apparently fine.

Back in February, when the $787 billion economic stimulus bill was signed, Summers and company promised that it would keep the unemployment rate from going any higher than 8.5 percent. With another 3.4 million jobs lost since then -- and the official unemployment rate at 10.2 and rising -- what does Summers say now?

"I think we got the Recovery Act right."

Really, Larry? What would getting it wrong look like?

The tone-deafness of that statement rivals the clueless response of a certain clothes-conscious former International Arabian Horse Association commissioner turned FEMA head.

I can hear it now: Heck of a job, Larry! Heck of a job, Timmy!

But though the alarm bells don't seem to be ringing in the White House, last week showed that there has clearly been a major shift in the tectonic plates on Capitol Hill.

For starters, there is increasing agreement that Obama's economic team is not up to the job of dealing with the unemployment crisis. According to Rep. Peter DeFazio, there is a "growing consensus" in the Congressional Progressive Caucus that Geithner should resign -- and that Summers needs to go, too. "We need a new economic team," DeFazio said on MSNBC. "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."

And the next day, DeFazio told HuffPost's Sam Stein: "It is pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs."

This comes just a few weeks after Senator Maria Cantwell told MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan that she was "not sure" why Geithner still has a job.

Even more dramatic evidence of the shift came in the House, where members of the House Finance Committee passed a measure to audit the Federal Reserve -- for the first time ever. The bill, sponsored by the bipartisan duo of Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Alan Grayson, was passed over the objections of Chairman Barney Frank -- and of the Fed and its big time friends and lobbyists. That's a group that doesn't lose many votes in Congress. What's more, a last-minute "compromise" amendment that would have significantly watered down the bill was submitted by Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina and heavily backed by the Fed. In normal times, this sort of "split-the-difference" amendment would likely have passed. But these are not normal times, and the amendment was defeated -- much to the shock of the Fed and its supporters.

The House Finance Committee was the site of another indication of how the ground is moving under the administration's feet. An hour before a scheduled final vote on the comprehensive financial regulation reform package sought by the White House, members of the Congressional Black Caucus cornered Chairman Frank and said they would refuse to vote for the bill because of the White House's lack of attention to unemployment. It was, as HuffPost's Ryan Grim reported, intended "as a direct rebuke of the White House."

When we hear about members of Congress holding up a vote (and we've heard it a lot lately), most of the time, it's a ploy to secure some kind of pork for their home district. This was an instance of the brakes being put on not for pork -- but for principle.

So, clearly, the winds of change are picking up in Washington and around the country. It's time for the White House to stop holding no-rush summits and insisting that everything is going as planned, and course-correct. Now. And there is no shortage of bold steps the administration can take to mitigate the damage before it turns into an all-out catastrophe.

Among the best ideas currently being floated:

-- Use Wall Street bailout funds left in the TARP program to hail out Main Street (via increased lending to small businesses and using money for public services being cut by states and cities).

-- Enact a one-year payroll tax holiday (creating a moratorium on Social Security, Medicare, and FICA taxes will encourage businesses to hire new workers).

-- Expand the Small Business Association's lending programs (45 percent of all job losses have been at small businesses).

-- Offer businesses a tax credit for every new job created over the next 12 months, or have the government pay a portion of the salary of new workers hired over the same period.

The bottom line: extending unemployment benefits, crossing your fingers, and waiting for things to turn around is just not enough.

In the post-Katrina fallout, video surfaced of a final briefing before the storm hit in which federal disaster officials warned President Bush that the hurricane could breach the levees and overwhelm the ability of rescuers to properly respond. Bush famously didn't ask a single question but assured local officials: "We are fully prepared." He later insisted, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Are we going to get similar protestations from Obama when the unemployment waters continue to rise?

The unemployment disaster has already inflicted great damage all across the country. And the Obama White House will be defined by its response to it.

So what is it going to be: a muscular, multi-tiered jobs plan to deal with reality or "heck of a job" delusion?

Britain Floods: Lake District Devastated; Many Rescued (PHOTOS)

2009-11-20T08:29:52Z

AP

COCKERMOUTH, England Military helicopters winched dozens of people to safety and emergency workers in inflatable boats rescued scores more as floods on Friday swamped northern England's picturesque Lake District. One police officer died after a bridge was swept away by the surging waters.

British soldiers conducted house-to-house searches for those trapped by floods as deep as 8 feet (2.5 meters). Troops also dropped down on lines from air force helicopters, breaking through rooftops to pluck people to safety.

Emergency services said more than 200 people were rescued in the hardest-hit town, Cockermouth. At least 960 homes were flooded after a day of unprecedented rain, police in the northern region of Cumbria said.

Heavy rain and gales also brought widespread flooding to Ireland, as more than 3 feet (1 meter) of water shut down the center of the country's second-largest city, Cork, and more than a dozen towns and villages.

Cockermouth, a market town 330 miles (530 kilometers) northwest of London, lies at the junction of the Cocker and Derwent rivers and is known for being the birthplace of poet William Wordsworth.

"It has devastated the town," said Michael Dunn, manager of the Bitter End pub in Cockermouth. "There is a lot of properties in Main Street, private shops, that have had their windows smashed in by the force of the water and by debris in the water.

"There were cars floating down the street. It will be a long time before Cockermouth recovers from this."

The rain stopped and floodwaters began to ease Friday, giving rescuers a chance to reach trapped people by boat. Debris swirled around the boats as they pulled people to safety.

Tony Walker of Cockermouth told BBC radio he was on the top floor of his house and the water on the ground floor was chest-high.

"I've had better mornings," Walker said. "I've been here all night and I've run out of water now, so I'm thinking of making a break for it, really. The water is still pretty deep, it's going down, but at this rate it's going to be hours before it's clear."

Forecasters said the rainfall was unprecedented. The Environment Agency recorded 12.3 inches (314.4 millimeter) of rain in 24 hours in one spot – one of the wettest days ever recorded in England.

"It looks like a very historical event," said Julian Mayes, a forecaster with MeteoGroup UK.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told the BBC that flood defenses were meant to withstand a one-in-100-years flood – but could not cope with the volume of water.

"What we dealt with last night was probably more like one-in-a-1,000, so even the very best defenses, if you have such quantities of rain in such a short space of time, can be over-topped," Benn said.

Police urged people not to travel, as many roads were impassible. Two bridges collapsed in the town of Workington, including a main one over the River Derwent. Cumbria Police said Constable Bill Barker, 45, died after he was knocked into the water when the structure gave way.

"This is a stone bridge – to wash away a bridge of that size and dimension is incredible," said lawmaker Tony Cunningham.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown that he had spoken to Cumbria Chief Constable Craig Mackey to offer help.

"Our thoughts are with all those who have been impacted by these floods," Brown said.

The Irish army deployed more than 100 soldiers, two dozen trucks and several flat-bottomed boats to evacuate people trapped by waist-deep floodwaters in cars and homes. A helicopter also winched to safety a County Galway family of five, including the 87-year-old grandmother.

The floods caused transport chaos along Ireland's western coast, with many major roads blocked and train services canceled.

The water caused extensive damage to the Lake Hotel on the shores of the fabled Killarney Lakes in County Kerry. About 170 guests at the Victorian period building had to be evacuated by tractor as dozens of staff carried period furniture upstairs.

The hotel's 12th-century castle, normally a floodlit tourist's highlight on the lake vista, was almost completely under water Friday.

"You can just see the top of the castle and everything else is covered," said the hotel's general manager, Niall Huggard.

The River Suck burst its banks in County Leitrim near the Northern Ireland border, flooding the town of Ballinasloe and cutting off major roads to Ireland's northwest. About 40 families had to be evacuated by boat.

The Irish weather forecasting service, Met Eireann, said parts of southern and western Ireland suffered their most intense and sustained rainfall in 30 years.

Friday was mostly sunny but more rain and gales were forecast for the weekend.

___

Associated Press Writers Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin and Jill Lawless, Danica Kirka, Bob Barr and Jennifer Quinn in London contributed to this report.

Judge: Hurricane Katrina Flooding Was Caused By Army Corps Of Engineers' Negligence

2009-11-18T23:12:39Z

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

Help Rebuild John McDonogh High School in New Orleans

2009-11-18T17:57:37Z

Coming here from joe.msnbc.com? Scroll down to the widget below and click the "Contribute" button to give to City Year. Don't know what we're talking about? Read on...

As we've previously reported on Impact, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" has teamed up with the HandsOn Network and Starbucks for Brewing Together, a new joint initiative aimed at encouraging public service and community involvement.

Their partnership kicked off a few months ago, with the "Morning Joe" crew proudly sipping from Starbucks cups during their morning broadcasts. Just last week, Starbucks announced an updated coffee, named Gold Coast Blend: Morning Joe Edition, which you can read about through Starbucks.

This morning, "Morning Joe" broadcast live from John McDonogh High School in New Orleans, Louisiana. The show discussed the devastation still seen in NOLA four years after Katrina, how this high school has struggled and ultimately excelled despite the setbacks. Joe Scarborough, an advocate for more effective reconstruction in New Orleans, has wanted the media to refocus on the tragedy of Katrina and what individuals can do to contribute to the rebuilding effort. The Brewing Together campaign also wants people to make public service a part of their everyday lives, starting tomorrow with a sponsored Day of Service.

To discuss these issues, "Morning Joe" put together an all-star line-up of writers and advocates for today's show: Newsweek contributing editor Julia Reed, ESPN's Digger Phelps, Starbucks U.S. President Cliff Burrows, Obama Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who joins "Morning Joe" via satellite from Washington, D.C.

They also highlighted City Year, a nonprofit which organizes a full year of public service for dedicated youth. City Year effectively instills a sense of magnanimity in today's young people by putting them in positions to be mentors and tutors to America's underprivileged. They're also facilitating many of the donations to John McDonogh High School, and a contribution to their New Orleans affiliate will go a long way toward many of their reconstruction efforts.

If you watched the show and want to know how you can further get involved, below are some actions that will point you in the right direction:

Look up volunteer opportunities in your area through the HandsOn Network. Though "Morning Joe" was in New Orleans this morning, they want you to take action on whatever cause you're most passionate about. Ours is a country full of people in need, so take the time and look at how you can help in your community.

Upload your videos on volunteering to joe.msnbc.com. They want to see how you're getting involved in public service and could show your video on the air!

Donate to City Year through this link or the widget below. Your donations go directly to providing young people with the tools they need to give back to their community.

As a sign depicted on "Morning Joe" this morning said, "Education Is All A Matter Of Building Bridges." Watch Joe and Mika discuss the obstacles that John McDonogh High School has overcome and how you can get involved with Brewing Together's Day of Service:

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Tim McGraw: Neighbor's Keeper Fund Featured on NBC NIghtly News

2009-11-13T19:24:10Z

NBC Nightly News wraps up its weeklong celebrity causes spotlight on "Making a Difference" with country music artist Tim McGraw and his unyielding belief in the power of neighbors to help and influence local communities.

After years of charity work and benefit concerts, Tim McGraw and his wife, Faith Hill, founded Neighbor's Keeper Fund in 2004 to nurture the spirit of neighbors helping neighbors and strengthen communities in need. The two both grew up in small Southern towns where people were always willing to lend a helping hand, and the fund aims to emulate that philosophy.

Neighbor's Keeper focuses mainly on children's initiatives, and funds the work of existing charitable groups who are already working in areas where relief is needed. The fund targets community-focused local organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity in Nashville and St. Jude's Research Hospital, and gives them financial backing to complete their projects.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated areas close to where McGraw and Hill grew up and impacted the lives of numerous friends and relatives, the two were inspired to expand the scope of Neighbor's Keeper. Though the news was flooded with stories of death and displacement, all McGraw could think about were the children affected by the disaster.

"We thought the best way we could help was find a community of people, an organization, that was really addressing the mental health situations for children," says McGraw.

That organization turned out to be Community Initiatives Foundation, which helps traumatized children work out their emotional problems through art therapy. Neighbor's Keeper Fund contributed $1 million to the nonprofit for its projects.

McGraw explains what distinguishes Neighbor's Keeper from other organizations: "We can go straight to the heart of the problem, identity a problem or a situation and put funds directly into it, without any red tape, without any overhead, any committee."

WATCH:

Read McGraw's blog post, "Every Day You Can Make a Difference."

Stay posted for the full-length interview with Tim McGraw.

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Jim Luce: NBC's Brian Williams: Changing the World for the Better

2009-11-13T16:39:22Z

Several weeks ago Brian
Williams profiled the children of the Afghan Child Education and Care
Organization (AFCECO) and its founder Andeisha Farid in Kabul, Afghanistan for NBC Nightly News’ segment Making a Difference (video).

Brian is anchor and
managing editor of the NBC Nightly News
based in New York. Last week, his show, including
the segment Making a Difference, had
9.5 million viewers. The show spikes up
to 11 million viewers frequently.

I had interviewed the
orphanage’s founder Andeisha of Kabul in New York in September and have followed
her progress carefully. I knew immediately
that Brian’s focus would have an enormous impact on her good work.

As founder of Orphans International Worldwide, I am familiar
with running homes for children around the world – and the difficult task of
raising the fund necessary to do so.

What I did not grasp
about the piece on Making a Difference was
what an enormous difference it would
make – with so many contributions that flooded over the Internet to fund the
kids there from Brian’s generous viewers.
He thanked them the following week (video).

I wanted to speak with
Brian about how good that must make him feel – and how this sense of
responsibility must now shape his life – so I asked him to call me, and he did. Brian told me:

I was
really revved to do a piece on this orphanage in Afghanistan. I wanted it to be seen by as many people as
possible – and luckily it was. I was so
grateful – we raised much more for those children than we had thought possible.

I do
pieces on different topics. We were in
Kabul when there was a huge loss of life at the U.N. and I wanted to do a story
after that which was ‘nice and hopeful.’
We had one day to do this feature piece, and it all just came together.

Sitting
there in our rental house in Kabul, I realized I had a personal enough relationship
with our viewers – who I felt could be very generous – to ask them to help
these kids. And they did!

The
cultural differences and similarities in the orphanage were enormous. Little girls are little girls anywhere in the
world. Thank God I have parented two
children, so it was the most natural of moments.

Switching
glasses with them, seeing them draw stars and hearts… The children were so tactile, kind, loving,
affectionate, and gracious.

I saw a
picture of Paul Stevers there on the wall, the founder of CharityHelp International
in the U.S. that provides a bridge between child sponsors and the children
there.

The kids
had a politeness, and order, a discipline – not like in Annie, but an attitude of accepting real responsibility – the way I
was raised. It was so real.

On his blog, Brian had
posted the following after his viewers had been so generous:

I want to
say thank you -- and to express my ongoing appreciation at the amazing
generosity of our viewers. We did a
follow-up on the orphanage in Afghanistan.

I was only
home from work for a few hours when we learned they had already received 500
e-mails from Nightly News viewers -- many of them offering donations and
pledges to sponsor a child.

It is
immensely gratifying, and I’m beyond words in expressing my thanks and appreciation
on behalf of the lovely children we met over there.

Brian Williams received individualized cards
from each of the children in Kabul.

“Although some are
one-time gifts, our experience tells us that many of the child sponsors will
continue to give for the next few years so the benefits of Brian’s efforts are
very substantial and will enable AFCECO to care for many more children,” Paul
Stevers, founder of CharityHelp
International, told me.

CharityHelp
International is the Internet bridge that connects the children to child
sponsors around the world. Orphans
International Worldwide, the charity I founded, relies on CharityHelp to fund
our kids in Haiti, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.

“Security is an enormous
issue in Kabul,” Brian told me. “In
Kabul, importance is measured by the size of your gate and the number of guns
you have. I hope the orphanage there will
be able to spend more on security,” Brian added.

Clearly, the segment Making a Difference is making a
difference. From one night a week, the
segment now airs up to five times a week.

“It was my wife’s idea,
honestly,” Brian shared. “With the
economy sinking, she said, ‘Someone, somewhere is doing spectacular acts of
kindness – go capture them!’ And we
did,” Brian told me.

Making a Difference features mostly ordinary people, although it
has begun to also focus on celebrities using their visibility to also help
humanity.

Quintessential thought leaders
and global citizen Brian Williams on the streets of Kabul.

Brian replaced Tom
Brokaw, one of his mentors, in 2004. Previously,
Brian was the network’s chief White House correspondent and host of The News with Brian Williams on CNBC and
MSNBC.

After studying at
college, Brian took an internship with the administration of President Jimmy
Carter. He holds an honorary doctor of
humane letters degree from one of my favorite schools, Bates College, and an
honorary Doctor of Journalism degree from Ohio State University.

NBC Night News anchor Brian Williams
frequently reports from Afghanistan.

Brian is the most
honored network evening news anchor. He
has received four Edward R. Murrow awards, his fifth Emmy award, the
DuPont-Columbia University award and the industry's highest honor, the George
Foster Peabody award.

Most were given for his
work in New Orleans while covering Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, and all
were awarded to Brian in only his second year on the job.

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly
News with Afghani children in Kabul.

Brian was the first and
only network evening news anchor to report from New Orleans before Hurricane
Katrina hit and was the only network news anchor to report from the Superdome
during the storm. He remained in New Orleans to report on the aftermath and
destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

In 2006, Brian joined
Bono, traveling to three countries in Africa — Nigeria, Mali, and Ghana — to
report on the major issues facing the continent, including HIV/AIDS, poverty,
disease, and crushing debt.

In 1994, Brian was named
NBC News Chief White House correspondent. Accompanying President Clinton aboard
Air Force One, Brian circled the world several times, covering virtually every
foreign and domestic trip by the President until 1996.

On perhaps one of the
most historic trips of the Clinton presidency, Brian was the only television
news correspondent to accompany three U.S. presidents — Clinton, Bush, and
Carter — to Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel.

Brian is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and is also a member of the Board of
Directors of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. He has lectured at Columbia University School
of Journalism and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin,
Texas.

In 2007, Brian was
listed among Time Magazine’s 100 Most
Influential People in The World. He
lives in New Canaan, Connecticut, with his wife, Jane Stoddard Williams.

There is a reason “When
breaking news happens, America turns to NBC
Nightly News with Brian Williams."
America trusts Brian the way we once trusted Walter Cronkite.

“Walter Cronkite was the
architect for what this show has become,” Brian told me. “Walter’s level of professionalism is what I
strive for every day.”

“I have been luckier
than most two have had two North Stars to follow – Walter Cronkite and Tom
Brokaw,” Brian admitted.

Like Walter and Tom, Brian
is the quintessential thought leaders and global citizen – and has thousands of
fans on Facebook
from around the world to prove it.

Today Brian Williams has
an enormous power – and a parallel responsibility – to help humanity.

Luckily for all of us, he
knows this well – and is highly focused on doing all that he can in his
position to change our world for the better.

Jim Luce: Wynton Marsalis Awarded French Legion of Honor in NYC

2009-11-13T08:26:47Z

Wynton Marsalis received
France’s highest distinction last week in New York – the insignia of chevalier
of the Legion of Honor, an honor that was first awarded by Napoleon Bonaparte.

Sitting literally at his
feet during the performance of the Wynton Marsalis Quintet which followed the
ceremony, I witnessed why Wynton Marsalis is one of the most acclaimed jazz
musicians of our generation. I shot my
video from only a few feet away.

Wynton Marsalis received France’s highest
distinction last week in New York. French
dignitaries, including French Embassy Cultural Counselor Kareen
Rispal, participated.

Wynton was joined by his father Ellis on piano.
I spoke with Ellis who is a proud dad.

The French Ambassador,
H.E. Pierre Vimont, captured the evening best with his introduction:

We are
gathered here tonight to express the French government’s recognition of one of
the most influential figures in American music, an outstanding artist. In one word: a visionary.

This
ceremony has only one purpose: to thank you, Wynton, on behalf of the French
people for your contribution to the history of music, the strength of your
vision, and your achievements in the fields of art and education.

I want to
stress how important your work has been for both the American and the French. I want to put the emphasis on the main values
and concerns that we all share: the importance of education and transmission of
culture from one generation to the other, and a true commitment to the
profoundly democratic idea that lies in jazz music.

I strongly
believe that, for you, jazz is more than just a musical form. It is tradition, it is part of American
history and culture and life. To you, “Jazz
is the sound of democracy.” And from
this democratic nature of jazz derives openness, generosity, and universality.

In your
music, in your life, you are dealing with the myths and legends of America. Y our
music itself is an education, a celebration of your national history. With you,
history and music meet for the remembrance of the past.

I sat literally at his feet during the performance
of the Wynton Marsalis Quintet.

We all
have in mind the exemplary Blood on the
Fields, your epic oratorio about slavery which earned you a Pulitzer Prize
for Music in 1997 (which made you the first jazz musician ever to win this
prestigious award). You put forward art
as an imperative necessity of transmitting memory.

To make it
short, your philosophy could be summarized very simply: If you know where you come from, you know
where you are going.

I think we
can say tonight, dear Wynton, that we share many values, and I strongly believe
that it is not a coincidence if you are such a good friend of France.

You have performed
on a regular yearly basis in France since 1991 and have a particular affection
for the town and festival of Marciac. The
City of Marciac considers you the godfather of the festival, they even erected
a life-sized bronze statue in your honor.

France has
recognized your talent and celebrated your spectacular achievements for a very
long time. You won the French Grand Prix du Disque and, among many
distinctions, you were made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1997.

Let me add
to that list of awards the most prestigious decoration offered by the French
Republic: la Légion d’Honneur.

Wynton Marsalis, je vous fais Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur!

The French Ambassador, H.E. Pierre
Vimont, presented la Légion d’Honneur.

Wynton is more than the
world’s best trumpet player. He is also
a celebrated composer of both jazz and classical music, an inspiring educator,
and a tireless advocate for many charitable and humanitarian causes. He has
paved the way for jazz to be fully recognized as a sophisticated art in its own
right.

Wynton co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1987, the first
cultural institution solely devoted to jazz. Under his leadership, Jazz at
Lincoln Center produces up to 2,000 events annually in 15 countries.

Philippe Camus, partner of Lagardère,
Evercore, and chairman of Alcatel-Lucent, spoke.

Wynton himself performs
annually in France and has been a headliner at the world famous Jazz Festival
in Marciac since 1991. This French city
has adopted him as its own and erected a statue in his honor in 1997.

Bill Cosby with his wife Camille Hanks attended
the event at of the French Embassy.

Among the dozens of
celebrities there, I spoke with Bill Cosby about the evening. “During my trips to Europe – especially
France – I have always been happy with the way the French embraced jazz. I am delighted to witness this presentation bestowed
upon such a deserving educator, musician, ambassador in the truest sense,” Bill
told me.

Bernadine Restaurant’s celebrity
chief Eric Ripert also attended the event.

Born in 1961, Wynton
Marsalis started playing the trumpet at the age of 6 and by the time he was 14,
he was performing Haydn’s Concerto for trumpet with the New Orleans
Philharmonic.

Talented and hard
working, he is one of the few trumpeters who excel in both jazz and classical
music. In 1983 he earned the distinction of being the only artist ever to win
Grammy Awards for both jazz and classical records (an accomplishment he
repeated the following year).

In all, Wynton has won
nine Grammy Awards and is the only artist to have won in five consecutive years
(1983-1987). He is also the first jazz musician and composer to have received
the Pulitzer Prize for Music (Blood on
the Fields, 1997).

In addition to playing,
Wynton Marsalis is a prolific composer. Commissions
have included pieces for Garth Fagan Dance, the New York City Ballet, the
American Ballet Theatre, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Lincoln
Center Chamber Music Society, and the New York Philharmonic.

His latest composing
projects include new symphonies for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (November
2009 premiere) and Berlin Philharmonic (June 2010 premiere).

Eager to share his
knowledge and support new generations of musicians, Marsalis is a tireless
teacher and lecturer. Honorary degrees from more than 30 universities,
including Harvard, Yale and Howard have been bestowed upon him in recognition
of his efforts in education.

According to Wynton
Marsalis, what one hears in a great jazz band is the sound of democracy: “The
jazz band works best when participation is shaped by intelligent
communication.”

Through his music and
life, Wynton represents this universal ideal throughout the world, a philosophy
that was reinforced in 2001, when he was named a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and
Messenger of Peace by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In an effort to
revitalize his native New Orleans, Wynton organized major fund-raising efforts
to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina and preserve the city’s cultural base
and jazz community. Thanks to his ties to France, he played a key role in
helping Louisiana jazz musicians obtain residencies across the Atlantic to
continue their craft after the disaster.

With Wynton Marsalis at Cultural Services
of the French Embassy in New York.

The highest award
bestowed by the French government, the National Order of the Legion of Honor
was recognizes outstanding achievement in the military as well as in the public
and private sectors. The Order is made
up of five ranks: chevalier, officer, commandeer, grand officer, and grand croix. Recipients are named by decree signed by the
President of the Republic.

The Legion of Honor may be
awarded to foreign citizens, though such recognition is relatively rare.
American honorees include John Ashbery, Renée Fleming, Barbara Streisand, and
Elie Wiesel – as well as hundreds of World War II veterans.

The ceremony took place
at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York and was co-hosted by
Mr. and Mrs. Philippe Camus, partner of Lagardère, Evercore, and chairman of
Alcatel-Lucent. Philippe has agreed to a
sit-down interview with me about French-American relations.

As Barry Kula, one of the many guests, commented to me
afterwards, “It as an historic and fun night, combining Wynton, his father
Ellis, and the ensemble – as well as Wynton's usual magnanimity, warmth, and
references to music education and cultural connectivity.

Barry expressed what had crossed my own mind: “Music is
indeed the universal language and I couldn't help thinking that if governments
spent more on music education and schools in general rather than war and arms,
what a more wonderful world it could be.”

Photos courtesy of John Lee, New York.

Heavy Rain Prompts Flood Warnings From NC To NY

2009-11-12T08:22:02Z

NORFOLK, Va. — A drenching, wind-driven rain lashed much of the Atlantic seaboard Thursday, flooding streets, closing schools, roads and bridges and causing at least five deaths.

The torrential rains and winds gusting more than 30 mph were the work of late-season Tropical Storm Ida, which quickly weakened once it made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday but still soaked a swath of the Southeast.

Broadway Play Tackles Issues of Death

2009-11-10T14:40:36Z

Ms. Smith, a tall, imposing woman, takes on the character of her subjects by repeating their exact words, complete with regional accents, ums and uhs and stammers.

Michael D. Brown: The Audacity of Hindsight Could Help FEMA

2009-11-09T16:05:38Z

Last Thursday while we were still engulfed in the attack at Fort Hood, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved legislation removing the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Department of Homeland Security, returning it to independent, Cabinet-level status if approved. See H.R.1174. Ironic that a few days after a terrorist attack occurs on U.S. soil a House committee takes action which would enhance the Nation's ability to respond to and recover from a disaster, whether natural or man-made.

Most telling in the announcement of the passage of this bill was Congressman John Mica's statement that "The Department [of Homeland Security] has bled FEMA dry of resources, personnel and authority to manage a large disaster. Elevating FEMA as an independent agency will ensure a clear and direct chain of command from the president." The wisdom of that statement is significant. Congressman Mica and the House Transportation Committee members (Democrat & Republican) acknowledge the inherent ways of Washington by making this bold move.

Senator Lieberman continues to espouse the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act as solving all of FEMA's problems. Nothing could be further from the truth nor more disingenuous as to how Washington works. The post-Katrina act made superficial changes to FEMA's structure and exacerbated the matrix approach to management that hinders DHS and FEMA from operating effectively.

The matrix approach taken by Congress in the post-Katrina reform act had the unintended consequence of further embedding the problems that stymied me during the response to Hurricane Katrina. The best example of the matrixed organization is Abbot & Costello's Who's on First. Play it in your mind and you get the gist of the confusion within DHS, between DHS and FEMA, and between state, local and federal agencies during Hurricane Katrina.

In a matrixed-structured organization under the post-Katrina act, the FEMA Administrator is subservient to the DHS Secretary throughout the year. The FEMA Administrator must work through the huge bureaucracy of DHS to get budget approval, authorization for personnel, funding for projects, and even the attention of the Secretary. The FEMA Administrator during "normal" times (i.e. other than during a disaster) must answer to and be accountable to the DHS Secretary, not the President.

To give you some perspective, the FEMA Administrator and his approximately 2,500 employees must fight for resources, funding, personnel and attention in DHS when his operation at FEMA accounts for only 0.01% of the Department's personnel. FEMA has 2500 employees (give or take) versus 200,000 (give or take) in DHS. The FEMA Administrator's CFO, for example, is accountable to both the FEMA Administrator and the DHS CFO and the DHS Undersecretary for Management. That is a matrixed organization in a nutshell. Multiple bosses, conflicting priorities, divided loyalties.

In Washington wisdom, though, that matrixed structure is to be ignored during times of crisis or disaster. Yes, the boss to whom you've groveled and cajoled for funding and resources suddenly is answerable to you when a disaster strikes because now you report directly to the President of the United States. Suddenly, a cabinet member must take direction from you while you step in and report directly to the Commander in Chief. Most egos in Washington can't handle that kind of whiplash. I know those that stood between me and President Bush during Hurricane Katrina couldn't take that whiplash.

Susan Collins is just naïve when she says removing FEMA from Homeland Security would "ignore the input of first-responders and unravel all the impressive gains made in recent months since we passed our FEMA reform law." No one wants to hear that their baby is ugly, but in this case, Senator Collins, your baby is ugly, and has done nothing to correct the systemic problems in FEMA. Only be removing the organization from the DHS behemoth and giving it a direct line to the President, which worked amazingly well from 1979 until 2005, will we have FEMA back to its heyday.

No one in Washington will admit its baby is ugly because in Washington, you can never admit a mistake, or take a step that might be seen as a reversal. In this case, the House Transportation Committee has the audacity of hindsight and is moving forward. Let's hope Washington for once will correct its mistake and just do what's right.

24-Year-Old Given Months To Live Without Insurance

2009-11-06T16:08:29Z

As part of its Bearing Witness 2.0 project, the Huffington Post is rounding up a few of the best local stories of the day.

Urangoo Baatarkhuyag, a Mongolian immigrant who moved to the United States eight years ago, has been told she will die because she does not have health insurance, reports Jed Boal for local NBC affiliate KSL. Baatarkhuyag, 24, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in September, after graduating from Utah Valley University earlier in the year.

Even though she is uninsured, the UVU Review reported that LDS hospital gave her one month of chemotherapy without charge, which cleared the cancer from her blood and drastically reduced it in her bone marrow. The cancer cells will return, though, according to doctors, and Baatarkhuyag's best hope is a bone marrow transplant, which costs $350,000. Without further treatment, doctors have predicted that she will die in the next two or three months.

Friends have started a website to request donations for her transplant and have raised over $42,000 as of Thursday -- though that is still far too little. They are considering sending Baatarkhuyag to India, where the medical procedure would be much cheaper. "I just keep thinking that even though we haven't been able to raise that much money for her, there's no way they're going to let her die in a U.S. hospital," said Bryan McGowan, a friend of Baatarkhuyag.

*********

A three-year drought in central California has pushed more and more farmers out of work and into food bank lines, reports Rich Rodriguez of KMOH news. The agricultural town of Mendota has an unemployment rate of 38 percent; neighboring Firebaugh is at 24 percent. Food banks have been distributing food on a bi-monthly basis, thanks to an executive order signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that assistance is in high demand. Recipients start lining up at 4:30 am.

With so many unemployed, a grocery story in Mendota now carries just snacks and soda. "I honestly believe this is gonna be the hardest winter the town in history has ever seen," said Joseph Riofrio, owner of the Westside Grocery. "I think a lot of people are gonna leave this area."

*********

The city of Santa Ana, Calif., has started to buy up foreclosed homes and sell them back to low- and middle-income citizens, reports Doug Irving of the Orange County Register. Four and a half million dollars of federal grant money are being used in a new city program that brings homes and condominiums out of foreclosure, renovates them and sells them back to the public at a reduced rate. The goal is to reinvigorate neighborhoods and get as many people back into affordable houses as possible. Last year Santa Ana had 2,600 houses in foreclosure or default, the most in Orange County.

*********

Senior citizens in Richmond, Va., have gone back to school with the help of the Senior Community Service Employment Program, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch, to learn job skills, and how to operate in computer-based offices. The 11-week program, which also helps to subsidize jobs at nonprofit agencies for the elderly, has had almost twice as many participants as last year. Times have changed, the participants said, and jobs are harder to come by. "I don't care if you want to wash dishes these days," remarked one woman, "you have got to have more [training] than you've got now."

HuffPost readers: Seen a compelling local story? Have a neighbor going to bizarre lengths to get through the recession? Tell us about it! Email jmhattem@gmail.com.

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Steve Fleischli: Getting More Out of the Men's Room

2009-11-04T09:46:18Z

The Metropolitan Water District is considering two competing projects to provide Southern California an extra fifty million gallons of freshwater per day. These two projects, however, take very different approaches toward addressing the problem of limited freshwater supplies in this arid region.

For one project, Poseidon Resources wants to build a desalination facility in the San Diego area to tap the ocean for its seemingly limitless supply of water. For the other project, Coastal Restoration Advocates wants to replace almost half a million bathroom urinals in Southern California with waterless models.

Both projects promise the same 50 million gallons of water per day. Yet the projects have very different consequences.

As a basic starting point, if MWD is going to spend ratepayer money on water projects, those projects should protect the public and the environment. Any such project also should complement state priorities, including reducing greenhouse gases, protecting marine life, conserving energy, and promoting water security. So, should California look to the ocean or to the men's room for more water? Simple comparison makes the choice clear.

Poseidon Resources' $550 million Carlsbad desalination plant will require 30 megawatts of new power to force saltwater through a high-tech filter, creating up to 57 MGD of highly concentrated wastewater, which Poseidon proposes to dilute with another 197 MGD of seawater.

Coastal Restoration's waterless urinals, on the other hand, could eliminate demand for 10 megawatts of power - what some call 10 'negawatts' of energy - and reduce the amount wastewater produced in the region by 50 MGD.

Poseidon estimates its water will cost $1,200 per acre-foot (AF), offset by a $250 per AF subsidy from the Metropolitan Water District as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-free state bonds. This overall cost is about twice what water agencies in the region currently pay for water and even this estimate, with fluctuating energy prices and Poseidon's rising construction costs, seems low.

Coastal Restoration estimates its water will require the same MWD investment of $250 per AF - and nothing more. That investment will allow 455,000 waterless urinals to be provided free of charge to schools, government, and commercial buildings - which will maintain the waterless urinals the same as they do existing urinals. Savings from the waterless urinals also will accrue to the schools, building owners, and public agencies through lower monthly water bills for those who participate.

According to experts, Poseidon's desalted water also poses increased health risks from disinfection byproducts and substances like boron, which are in ocean water and not currently regulated under drinking water standards. The water that waterless urinals will save is the same safe and affordable water that is already supplied to our taps, its just not being wasted in the region's urinals - so it can be used for other things.

Poseidon's efforts are also prone to failure. The company's Tampa Bay plant was five years late, $40 million over budget, and has never delivered the promised 25 MGD. Waterless urinals, meanwhile, are a proven technology with thousands currently in service. Even the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles uses waterless urinals - and during a Lakers game those bathrooms capably handle far more foot-traffic than most bathrooms in Southern California.

The idea of tapping the ocean for limitless supplies of freshwater is attractive, but it is not good business when so much freshwater can still be saved so easily.

The Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors will meet on November 9 and 10 to decide whether they should guarantee Poseidon this massive ratepayer subsidy. But if we really need to find more water for Southern California, where should MWD look?

They should start by looking in the men's room. Otherwise, we literally are just pissing our precious water away.

Harry Shearer: One Year Along: freehopeandchange.com

2009-11-03T13:56:09Z

It was maybe March of this year that I first said to someone who asked what I thought of the then-new President that he was in the process of making two major, perhaps historic, mistakes: pretending that Afghanistan had patiently waited for seven years while the United States dithered with Iraq and pretending that the only man-made disaster New Orleans had suffered was at the hands of Bush's FEMA. Now, some months later, regrettably, that verdict stands.

The President put his thumb in New Orleans' eye, calling the federally-caused flooding a "natural disaster" in his first, delayed Presidential visit to the still-recovering city. And his early leak (or was it Biden's leak?) that ending the latest attempt by an outside big power to remake Afghanistan was off the table sent the unmistakable signal that fear of being called "soft" by Republican chicken hawks was pushing Obama's policy towards an historic blunder that would dwarf the Iraq adventure.

Right now, the US Army Corps of Engineers is making choices that may be setting in stone, and mud, the next New Orleans disaster. Right now, the high-level White House meetings are deciding how many American troops will be sacrificed so the administration can't be accused of "losing Afghanistan" before the 2012 election.

Would any of us have expected this one year ago? But don't blame politics; we experience the same disparity between the sales pitch and the actual product every day, don't we? Or haven't you signed up for your "free" credit report from freecreditreport.com?

So, one year after the election, what do you think Candidate Obama would think of President Obama? Tweet your response (our Twitter hashtag is #OneYearLater), or post it in the comments section.

250,000 Children Killed Next Year Due To Climate Change

2009-11-02T13:26:27Z

In a new report Save the Children claims that climate change is the biggest global health threat to children in the 21st century[.]

Reporters Uncensored: The Real Refugees of Kakuma County

2009-10-31T11:34:33Z

Imagine you and your family in Kenya's Kakuma camp, along with seventy thousand refugees. Dust storms darken the sky and dry out your skin and the few scraps of food that aren't sealed away. You do all you can to guard your children from malaria but can't keep them from malnourishment. Your life expectancy is less than 60 years and you won't spend one day of it free from hunger, disease and hopeless poverty. Your children have never left the camp, but then, for one day, you can take them to Oz. With the help of this week's social innovator, the hearts and imaginations of thousands of people around the world have a chance to be freed, if only for an hour or two, from the bleakness of life in a refugee camp.

This week we're profiling FilmAid International, a non-profit organization that aims to bring the healing and educating power of cinema to refugees in the most desperate situations. The organization was founded in 1999 by a group of film professionals to entertain refugees in Macedonia at the start of the war in Kosovo. They began screening movies in refugee camps to restore hope, educate and inspire those who were displaced by the war. In 2001, FilmAid expanded to support refugees from Sudan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Rwanda. In addition, they also had a program helping families in the United States left homeless after Hurricane Katrina.

FilmAid's programs consist of three components. First, the organization partners with other aid agencies to provide video-based educational workshops. Sessions are held in community centers and schools throughout the camps, and involve topics relating to health, gender-based violence, conflict resolution and family planning. They also offer outdoor screenings inside the refugee camps. The films screened are typically local African films related to social, health and environmental issues. They stress positive messages that are meant to provide the viewers with tools for coping with often taboo issues. Finally, FilmAid works directly with the refugees to produce short films on the issues that affect them most. In doing so, they keep a finger on the pulse of communities and provide a forum for public dialogue.

For more on FilmAid, check out our latest show ON DEMAND.

Harry Shearer: New Orleans: The Corps Defends the Future

2009-10-30T15:58:33Z

NEW ORLEANS--I'm preparing to make a documentary film on the causes of the flooding of New Orleans, and where the city goes from here, and so I decided to attend one of the community outreach meetings the Corps of Engineers holds, and advertises in the local paper. So I found myself last night in a church auditorium in the Upper Ninth Ward, the audience about half full of folks, young and old, black and white, waiting for the chance to question reps from the Corps.

The meeting started with about a ten-minute "here's what we're doing, and here's what we're going to do tonight," explaining that the main focus of the meeting were two floodgate projects, but that questions would be entertained on any subject to do with the system. The system, by the way, has had a name change: It's no longer the "hurricane protection system"--that didn't work out so well--it's now the hurricane and storm damage risk reduction system. They even showed a PowerPoint slide emphasizing "residual risk"--i.e., don't blame us next time.

Then came a fifteen-minute video showing the construction process for both projects. This stuff was so good, a woman sitting behind me, when she asked a question, said, "That was like Pixar." Both she and I asked the same question: how much did it cost? The Corps reps wrote down the question, though they didn't know the answer.

Some money quotes from the session: although many commenters to my posts insist that "the Corps only does what Congress tells them to do," one of the Corps reps (Ron. sorry, didn't get a last name) described the post-Katrina process a little more honestly, if opaquely: "We were helping Congress develop language". Later, boasting of the level of protection the Corps is promoting (despite residual risk) by June 2011, he said: "You're not gonna see floodwalls collapsing, you're not gonna see levees failing." Does that mean those things won't happen, or they'll happen out of our sight, or...?

Most interesting, given the drastic criticisms of the Corps' old system in the ILIT and Team Louisiana reports, Ron said of the Corps' critics: "Once they went through the forensics, trust me, a very large portion of the engineering community agrees with our approach."

Me personally, if I were running the Corps' outreach meetings in New Orleans, I wouldn't have one of its spokespeople ever use the phrase "trust me." The audience was politely silent, but it's still a punch line.

Stephen Colbert Mocks Bush's Motivational Speaker Debut (VIDEO)

2009-10-28T12:52:24Z

Hard on the heels of Daily Show host Jon Stewart's report on President George W. Bush's debut as America's Next Top $20-And-Under Motivational Orator was Stephen Colbert's own, acid-laced take on the matter. Colbert dared his audience, "I defy you not to get jacked on the positive sauce" that Bush ladled all over the attendees at this week's "GET MOTIVATED!" seminar in Fort Worth, Texas, some of whom enthused, "He wasn't the best speaker," and "other speakers were better." Such rave reviews allowed Colbert to make the pointed observation, "That is a vast improvement over the last time Bush packed a stadium full of people." Appropriately, an image of the Louisiana Superdome flashed on the screen.

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'Daily Show' Investigates Bush's Motivational Speaking Career

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Flood Evacuees Form New Community As Neighbors

2009-10-27T16:33:40Z

As part of its Bearing Witness 2.0 project, the Huffington Post is rounding up a few of the best local stories of the day.

Thirteen families displaced by flooding in the Southeastern United States in September are now living as neighbors in an apartment complex, reports Mark Davis of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The families, some of whom escaped their old homes only with what they could carry, originally met at the local Cobb County Civic Center, which was operating as an emergency shelter.

They have since formed a tight-knit community, doing favors for each other and cooking meals together. "It was the Lord who brought us together," said Marla Jackson. Many of the families are in their new homes with the help of non-profits like Hosea Feed the Hungry & Homeless, who help with rent and food.

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Rosemary Ponnekanti of the Washington News Tribune writes about musicians in the Pacific Northwest who are giving up their passions for paychecks. "I've been doing this since 1997," said Anne deMille Flood, whose color pencil drawings of local landmarks have made her a local stalwart, "and at the peak in 2007 I'd be selling around 15 originals a year, at around $500 each." Since then her sales -- and her income -- have dropped 60 percent, and she is looking for another job. "I hate to give it up," she said "but...I gave it my best shot. I hope the economy will recover, and I'll get back to it."

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Shannon McGinnis, a single mother of two recovering from lymphoma cancer, earns just $485 a month as a nanny. But her bills are much more than that, and she depends on the Colville Food and Resource Center, reports Sophia Aldous of the Eastern Washington Statesman Examiner. She credits the food bank with keeping her family together: "They're not just a food bank. They help me with the electricity bill, school supplies for my kids...I know they are here for me," she said.

The Food and Resource Center supports over 1,200 people a month -- about half of them minors -- and, like many food banks and shelters, is gearing up to serve even more people during the holiday season.

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In Lafayette, Ind., Amanda Hamon of the Journal and Courier reports that 67 crumbling houses and buildings have been demolished by the city Housing Authority. The department, established in 2006, identifies unsafe buildings and seeks to either refurbish them or tear them down. A rise in foreclosure rates has sent many homes into disrepair, and the city receives several calls a day because of blighted property.

HuffPost readers: Seen a good local story? Heard about a heroic judge, neighbor, or doctor helping people stay in their homes? Tell us about it! Email jmhattem@gmail.com.

Interactive Map: How A 4 Degree Temperature Rise Will Affect The Planet

2009-10-27T08:35:03Z

A map launched at the Science Museum in London has been developed using the latest peer-reviewed science from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other leading impact scientists.

Climate Change Displacing Thousands

2009-10-25T04:19:47Z

Africa is already home to one-third of the 42 million people worldwide uprooted by ethnic slaughter, despots and war. But experts say climate change is quietly driving Africa's displacement crisis to new heights. Ibrahim is one of an estimated 10 million people worldwide who have been driven out of their homes by rising seas, failing rain, desertification or other climate-driven factors.

Paul Brown: US Army Corps can't stop floods in New Orleans

2009-10-24T17:50:27Z

Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, Chief of the US Army Corps of Engineers would not answer my question "Should New Orleans be abandoned?"

But the General, whose job it is to protect New Orleans from future hurricanes, did admit he could not save the city from storm surges. "Protect the city no, reduce the risk yes. We can develop better early warning systems, better evacuation plans, better levees to hold back most of the water but we cannot stop levees being overtopped and the city flooded."

Evacuation and retreat from the sea in Louisiana is the central question concerning the Corps and the rest of the delegates attending the Religion, Science and Environment Symposium in New Orleans.

How to save not just the city but the southern half of Louisiana from the combined effects of man's past mismanagement, subsidence of the delta, and ever increasing sea level rise?

The Mississippi Delta sinks around an inch every 30 months and with sea level rise accelerating water levels across the delta will increase six feet this century. With much of the delta less than three feet above sea level most communities will be drowned by 2050, leaving New Orleans, if it survives at all, a vulnerable island behind its levees.

Man's share in the destruction has been mainly the oil and gas industry's massive canal network. Canals cut through the fresh water swamps and marshes allowing vast quantities of sea water from the Gulf to wash into the delta killing many of the trees, plants and animals that protected the land from storm surges. This is the way America gets 35% of its gas and oil.

The figures of losses in the delta are startling. Chris Macaluso in charge of the newly created Office of Coastal Protection says 2,300 square miles of marsh and swamp have been lost because of salt water intrusion in 50 years. In the four-month hurricane season land disappears at the rate of an acre every six minutes or 25 to 40 square miles a year.

His office is reconstructing some of the barrier islands along the Gulf to protect the remaining wetlands from wave action but what used to be marshland behind them is now open water dotted with oil wells criss-crossed with pipelines. Most of the once vibrant Cyprus forests, which could stop the storm surges, are reduced to dead stumps sticking out of the water.

"We have broken the eco-system. What we are doing to restore it is a drop in the ocean of what is needed." His office is spending $1.5 billion over four years on wetland restoration. Another £14.3 billion is being spent on new levees and defences for New Orleans. Estimates of what it would cost to save the delta's wetlands and its settlements from sinking are estimated at $200 billion in the state governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's "Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast."

This calls for the diversion of the Mississippi, basically breaching the levees that keep the river flowing to the Gulf, so that the sediment spreads over the delta and heals the eco-system by allowing it to re-grow.

To allow river diversions the Corp of Engineers needs to modify its main priority which has been to keep the Mississippi open to navigation at all times. The river carries 11% of the America's trade, with New Orleans as the country's largest port, and is vital to the nation's economic welfare.

The river would have broken out of its existing channel decades ago if not held in a straightjacket by the Corps. Lt General Van Antwerp was candid. "We are having to rethink everything. But even if we get it right, and that is no means certain, there has to be the political will to vote the money - and that is beyond my brief."

If the Corps gets it wrong, or the vast sums of money required are not provided, then the Gulf will move inland and eventually the river will break out. Where will New Orleans and the oil industry be then?