By: Jim Cooper and Alan I. Leshner, The Washington Post, September 9, 2012
“Mitt’s De-Pressurized Brain”: Keep This Man Away From The FAA
I’m still not sure exactly what to make of Romney’s comment about airplane windows. I’m sure you know by now that he was talking about his wife’s brush with aviation malfunction last week when he said:
“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were. When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound.”
I have a very clear memory from my childhood. I had always assumed–I was five or so–that airplane windows rolled up and down, as in a car. Like all children I loved rolling down the car window and feeling the wind on my face, and I remember thinking, wow, wouldn’t that be cool, imagine the wind smacking you in the face at that speed.
When I got on my first airplane, a little propeller plane ferrying the family Tomasky from Morgantown up to Pittsburgh, I bounded into the window seat, looked around, and with great frustration asked my mother where the hand crank was. She laughed at me. Dad explained the general principle of the pressurized cabin, demonstated so pointedly to American movie-going audiences just a few years before in Goldfinger. And boy did I feel stupid.
Or is Goldfinger a myth? I think of Executive Decision, the awesome 1996 film that I would name as the movie I could watch a million times if NPR asked me (that is, you’re not supposed to name a truly great film, but something a little quirky; I watch ED every time I see it’s on cable). The bomb blows a big hole in the side of the craft, and stuff goes all over the place and a few people are sucked out, but after a while, Kurt Russell does manage to stabilize her, and she lands intact, hole and all. Who out there knows?
Jim Fallows, a highly experienced pilot, as I’m sure you know, wrote the other day that he has heard that Romney is afraid of flying. I have some limited sympathy with this. On the one hand, it always sort of astonishes me that this little metal tube is mightier than nature, and I can’t quite believe it will prove to be so. On the other, I am aware that this truth is demonstrated roughly 50,000 times a day (or more) across the world, every day, and I relax. So I think that’s pretty weird for a man who’s undoubtedly flown all over the world on little corporate jets.
I guess this probably has nothing to do with his fitness for office, on which he’s already disqualified himself several times anyway, but it’s possibly the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard a supposedly smart grown adult say, that you should be able to open airplane windows. It’s like…what? Like thinking that you should be able to jump off a tall building and live. Yeah–someone get to work on that!
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, September 25, 2012
“Improving The Quality Of Life”: It’s Time To Get Serious About Science
Some policymakers, including certain senators and members of Congress, cannot resist ridiculing any research project with an unusual title. Their press releases are perhaps already waiting in the drawer, with blanks for the name of the latest scientist being attacked. The hottest topics for ridicule involve sex, exotic animals and bugs.
The champion of mocking science was the late William Proxmire, whose Golden Fleece Awards enlivened dull Senate floor proceedings from 1975 until 1988. His monthly awards became a staple of news coverage. He generated good laughs back home by talking about a “wacko” in a lab coat experimenting with something seemingly stupid. Proxmire did not invent the mad-scientist stereotype, but he did much to popularize it.
The United States may now risk falling behind in scientific discoveries as other countries increase their science funding. We need to get serious about science. In fact, maybe it’s time for researchers to fight back, to return a comeback for every punch line.
Toward that end, we are announcing this week the winners of the first Golden Goose Awards, which recognize the often-surprising benefits of science to society. Charles H. Townes, for example, is hailed as a primary architect of laser technology. Early in his career, though, he was reportedly warned not to waste resources on an obscure technique for amplifying radiation waves into an intense, continuous stream. In 1964, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov.
Similarly, research on jellyfish nervous systems by Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien unexpectedly led to advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment, increased understanding of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and improved detection of poisons in drinking water. In 2008, the trio received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this initially silly-seeming research. Four other Golden Goose Award winners — the late Jon Weber as well as Eugene White, Rodney White and Della Roy — developed special ceramics based on coral’s microstructure that is now used in bone grafts and prosthetic eyes.
Across society, we don’t have to look far for examples of basic research that paid off. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, then a National Science Foundation fellow, did not intend to invent the Google search engine. Originally, they were intrigued by a mathematical challenge, so they developed an algorithm to rank Web pages. Today, Google is one of the world’s most highly valued brands, employing more than 30,000 people.
It is human nature to chuckle at a study titled “Acoustic Trauma in the Guinea Pig,” yet this research led to a treatment for hearing loss in infants. Similar examples abound. Transformative technologies such as the Internet, fiber optics, the Global Positioning System, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer touch-screens and lithium-ion batteries were all products of federally funded research.
Yes, “the sex life of the screwworm” sounds funny. But a $250,000 study of this pest, which is lethal to livestock, has, over time, saved the U.S. cattle industry more than $20 billion. Remember: The United States itself is the product of serendipity: Columbus’s voyage was government-funded. Remember, too, that basic science, the seed corn of innovation, is primarily supported by the federal government — not industry, which is typically more interested in applied research and development.
While some policymakers continue to mock these kinds of efforts, researchers have remained focused on improving our quality of life. Scientific know-how, the engine of American prosperity, is especially critical amid intense budgetary pressures. Federal investments in R&D have fueled half of the nation’s economic growth since World War II. This is why a bipartisan team of U.S. lawmakers joined a coalition of science, business and education leaders to launch the Golden Goose Awards.
Federal support for basic science is at risk: We are already investing a smaller share of our economy in science as compared with seven other countries, including Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Since 1999, the United States has increased R&D funding, as a percentage of the economy, by 10 percent. Over the same period, the share of R&D in the economies of Finland, Germany and Israel have grown about twice as fast. In Taiwan, it has grown five times as fast; in South Korea, six times as fast; in China; 10 times. In the United States, meanwhile, additional budget cuts have been proposed to R&D spending for non-defense areas. If budget-control negotiations fail, drastic across-the-board cuts will take effect in January that could decimate entire scientific fields.
Columbus thought he knew where he was going, but he didn’t know what he had found until many years later. He was searching for the Orient, but he discovered something even better: the New World.
Let’s honor our modern-day explorers. We need more of them. They deserve the last laugh.
“A Not So Distant Nightmare”: Women Will Get Pushed Off The Fiscal Cliff
Remember that time when Congress almost defaulted on our debt? It may seem like a distant nightmare, but we’re still living with repercussions from the debt ceiling showdown. In order to get Congress to lift the ceiling a year ago, President Obama struck a deal that will cut $2.4 trillion in spending over ten years and formed a Congressional committee that was supposed to recommend ways to cut another $1.5 trillion from the deficit. If the committee failed to come up with the cuts, sequestration would kick into gear, with $1 trillion in cuts evenly split between defense and non-defense spending come January 2. The latter never came to fruition, so we’re now on a collision course with the former.
These automatic cuts, known as sequestration, have (unsurprisingly) become a political hot potato. They’ve even trickled into the campaign trail. But if the cuts move forward, the pain won’t just be political. They’ll hurt everyday Americans—but not across the board. Women are going to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden. While the defense lobby has been loudly pushing back on the $500 million to be slashed from its budgets, the $500 million cuts from domestic programs could be devastating, especially for women.
Education will take a big hit, which impacts women in more ways than one. Immediately of concern will be the fact that 100,000 children could get bumped from Head Start’s rolls, out of a total of 962,000. That’s because the automatic cuts will take a $590 million chunk out of federal spending on the program. That comes on top of a huge decline in state financing for the program over the past decade or so—it fell 45 percent, or $122 million. While there have been concerns raised about whether Head Start’s effects actually stay with enrollees, working mothers need more childcare options when they head to their jobs, not fewer. Less than 60 percent of 3-to-5-year-olds are enrolled in an organized childcare or early education program, and just about half of low-income children are. Those numbers can only go down after these cuts take effect.
Speaking of childcare, working mothers who rely on options other than Head Start will also suffer. Assistance for 80,000 kids will dry up after the cuts take effect. The recession has already hammered this spending at the state level. While federal funds had flowed in to support these programs through the stimulus, by the end of 2010 the money had dried up. That meant that thirty-seven states pulled back on assistance in one form or another last year, making families worse off than a decade ago, according to analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.
Women will also, of course, share some of the pain from cuts to other programs like AIDS drug assistance and substance abuse treatment programs. And while these cuts sound bad now, they could actually get worse down the road. While there’s now a “firewall” between defense and non-defense spending to make sure both are equally cut, that disappears after two years. NWLC has warned that this could mean a bigger share of the cuts fall on the non-security programs at that point.
The spending cuts will trickle down in other ways. It’s not just mothers who will find their struggles increasing. Women are the majority of the public sector workforce—and they’ve lost more than their share of those jobs as federal and state spending has been slashed during the recovery. These cuts will only push that trend along. Cuts to Head Start alone will eliminate 30,000 teacher, aide and administrative positions.
Other public sector workers could be hit. If (and when) federal spending is cut from state and local budgets, many may have to eye even more government layoffs. Just after the debt ceiling deal was announced, mayors and governors were already bracing for the cuts to impact their budgets. Budget restrictions at the federal level also mean many agencies will likely have to turn to furloughs, hiring freezes and layoffs.
The sequestration cuts may have morphed into an election-year football, but they have real consequences for Americans who are already struggling to get by. And women, who have really suffered from the sluggish recovery, are going to be hit fastest and hardest. While figures in the millions and billions are hurled like insults from side of the aisle to the other, it’s worth keeping in mind how drastic the real-life consequences will be and who will feel them.
By: Bryce Covert, The Nation, July 30, 2012
“Can This Campaign Be Constructive?”: Republicans Should Offer Specifics Or Shut Up
What might a reasonable, constructive presidential campaign look like?
To ask the question invites immediate dissent because we probably can’t even agree across philosophical or political lines what “reasonable” and “constructive” mean.
But let’s try an experiment: Can we at least reach consensus on the sort of debate between now and November that could help us solve some of our problems? I’ll let you in on the outcome in advance: Ideology quickly gets in the way of even this modest effort.
Start out by defining goals everyone could rally around. We need to get the economy moving faster and bring unemployment down, an all-the-more-urgent imperative after last week’s disappointing jobs report. We want all Americans to share prosperity and to reverse the trend toward widening inequality. We want a sustainable budget where, in good times, revenue more or less matches expenditures. And we want an education system that prepares members of the next generation for productive and rewarding lives.
Notice a few things about this list. It does not include social issues. Many Americans on both sides of politics legitimately believe that matters such as abortion, gay marriage, gun control, contraception and religious liberty (I could mention others) are of absolutely central concern. Some of them would reject my agenda at the outset. I’d defend it by insisting that the vast majority of Americans, whatever their views on any of these vexing subjects, want to get to certain basics first. They know the social issues won’t go away.
Conservatives might rebel against the way I frame our objectives. In talking about the budget, I do not even bring up reducing taxes. That is because I think the evidence shows that if we are serious about balancing the budget, government needs more revenue. The brute facts of (1) the steady rise in the costs of health care and (2) the aging of the baby boomers mean that we can’t just hack our way to a balanced budget without eviscerating programs such as Medicare and Social Security that most Americans want.
Thus a challenge to conservatives: If cutting taxes is really more important to you than fiscal balance, why not just say so? Why pretend that balance matters when your real goal is a sharp reduction in the size of government? Alternatively, if we could agree that revenue is needed, let’s argue about the right mix between spending cuts and tax increases, and about which taxes to raise.
And can politicians and commentators stop hiding behind vague promises of “tax reform”? Offer specifics or shut up about tax reform. Let’s also agree that slashing programs for poor people — and I’m one who thinks we should spend more — won’t come anywhere close to resolving our fiscal difficulties.
Job creation is at the heart of the campaign, and it is the issue about which we will have the least clarity. To me (and, I would say, to most non-ideological economists), it is perfectly obvious that rolling back government, both here and in Europe, has been exactly the wrong thing to do in a time of high unemployment. To save words, I refer you to a pile of fact-rich Paul Krugman columns.
The unemployment numbers would be much better without the massive loss of government jobs, and private-sector job growth would, in turn, be higher as those public workers spent money. It would be helpful if conservatives who disagree would offer evidence for why they are so certain that government austerity will make things better.
I’d like to hope we’ll get somewhere on education, but as for rising inequality, many on the right don’t even think it’s a problem. So let’s debate over whether greater inequality impedes faster growth or promotes it. Again, I think the evidence shows that when inequality gets out of hand (see 1929 and now), it’s a drag on the whole economy. Forgive me for noting that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less. But let’s have it out. Arguing in a serious way about the single question of economic inequality would make all the other nonsense of the next five months endurable.
What I do know is that if we don’t use this campaign at least to define the problems we face, we will end up wasting the $2 billion or so this campaign will cost, and a lot of time.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 3, 2012
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