In March of 2011, a Brazilian Senator named Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy handed a letter to the President of the United States at a dinner in Brazil. The letter was from members of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (US BIG), and the intention was to introduce Obama to a smart, efficient and just economic idea [...]
Boy, was I relieved to hear the good news when Obama spoke to us about the debt crisis. There are no poor people in the United States anymore! There were a lot when he was campaigning in 2008, and he talked about poverty often. The 2010 census results said that 14.3% of Americans live at [...]
Congress has once again disappointed the American public with its spineless refusal to put weight behind its words. Today it voted to "oppose" the war in Libya while continuing to fund it. Um, guess what? That is the same as supporting it. I am thoroughly disgusted by the state of foreign (and domestic) affairs in this country. [...]
In New York City there is a Fatherhood Initiative. In 2010, the mayor of the city created a service program meant to help fathers be more involved with their children, particularly fathers who no longer live with their children because they are no longer in relationships with the women they fathered children with. One thing [...]
Yesterday I learned that back in March, a U.S. soldier, Jeremy Morlock, was sentenced to 24 years in prision for his role in murdering Afgani civilians. The three victims were killed for entertainment. The soldiers, including Jeremy Morlock of Washington state, planned skirmishes that could later presumably justify using deadly force. Photos they took as souvenirs [...]
Dear Friends: The coffee house Professor Java in Albany promises to help patrons to escape reality. Today I really need to escape it! I just found out a few things. For one, when I got into the car in Delaware County at 11:25 to drive up here, Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner was still claiming that someone [...]
Mr. James Mulva of Conoco Phillips and Mr. Marvin Odum of Shell just love going to conferences to talk about how great it is going to be to pull natural gas out of the ground in upstate NY. They say WE are going to benefit. They say we're going to get a lot of jobs [...]
Not many Americans realize that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote and talked about the economy, not just about non-violence and racial peace. He knew that there could be no harmony without people having enough money to meet their basic needs. That is why a few months before his death he was talking about economic justice [...]
It seems to me there was a time when our elected officials only stopped to pat themselves on the back after accomplishing something good. Now they pat themselves on the back just for avoiding something bad. It is time to raise our expectations of our elected officials; otherwise, they will continue to do nothing and [...]
Today was my last day as an employee at one of NYC's public hospitals. You probably remember that a few days ago the Daily News told you that the president of these hospitals, Alan Aviles, makes $360,000 a year. Alan Aviles also gets a $7,000 a year car allowance; and he got a 20 percent raise [...]