Kmareka.comKmareka.comSounds like America but less repressive -- a place where social workers and citizens speak out Articles
What?s There to be Bitter about?
2008-04-14 14:00:00 Some pictures are worth a thousand words. And some words paint an astounding picture. Consider the following article from today’s New York Times: Despite Tough Times, Ultrarich Keep Spending Who said anything about a recession? Sometime between the government bailout of Bear Stearns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that America lost 80,000 jobs ... More About: Bitter
Homeland Security in the Year 1692
2008-04-14 01:44:00 Imagine living in fear of an enemy who is covert and ruthless. An enemy who hates us for all that we hold dear. An enemy who hides among us, using our freedoms and institutions against us. Our civilian legal tradition is helpless and impotent against such an enemy. More About: Security , Homeland Security , Year
Reader?s Digest Special Report on the FDA
2008-04-13 16:23:00 I’m not a regular reader of Reader ’s Digest , but this special report on the FDA provides a good examination of all the ways that the agency has become so compromised that they are barely doing the job they were set up to do. From the article: Recent headlines have uncovered one shocking lapse after another ... More About: Report , Special , Special Report
The Bitter Truth
2008-04-12 17:10:00 Some twenty years ago, back when I was living in the Ocean State, I was going through a rough patch, of sorts, and so sought the counsel of a kind therapist (who would later inspire me to pursue a career as a clinical social worker) named Daisy. One day, while at my dead-end job ... More About: Politics , Elections , Truth , Barack Obama , Psychology
Mayor Proposes Budget ? and ?Engineers? No Tax Increase
2008-04-11 14:31:00 (Sorry for the pun, folks, but I thought I’d try a little humor in my first-ever thread. Thanks to Kiersten for the opportunity to become a contributor.) So here’s the news: Mayor Napolitano has proposed a city budget that includes no tax increase, taps the surplus for about $2.7 million, offers $1 million for schools, and ... More About: Elections , Education , Finance , Budget , Engineers
Letter from the Krell Family Think Tank
2008-04-10 16:04:00 A new diarist over at the RIFuture blog has an extended response to Justin Katz’s most recent editorial in the Projo. From Mr. Krell: On Saturday, 4/5/08, the Belojo printed an editorial by Justin Katz of Anchor Rising. The title was ?RI?s economic clock runs down.? To add insult to injury, Anchor Rising was described ... More About: Politics , Family , Finance , Letter , Tank
The Drive-Thru Question Lives On, or Not ? See Update
2008-04-10 15:14:00 UPDATE: According to one of our commenters who received an email from Cindy Fogarty, attorney for the neighbors opposing the drive-thru, at around midnight the zoning board upheld the neighbors’ appeal and revoked the building permit. The Projo apparently did not have the full story. ORIGINAL POST: It sounds like the neighbors of the proposed Dunkin’ ... More About: Question , Drive , Update , Lives
Fear of Eggs
2008-04-09 23:46:00 I know that all those bleeding-heart, anarchist hippie chicken farmers are going to claim that there are lots of things that kill you and it could be that the doctors who ate lots of eggs had other stuff going on. That?s the kind of relativist thinking that makes life too complicated and gets in the way of CERTAINTY. More About: Health , Eggs , Science and Technology , Nutrition , Fear
Going into Private Practice
2008-04-08 22:03:00 After 12 years of practicing as a licensed clinical social worker in a variety of settings including hospitals, social service agencies, schools, and homes, I am very excited to announce that I have gone into private practice. Currently I am a provider for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, and I hope to be ... More About: Mental Health , Practice , Private , Private Practice
Jesus Would be Really Mad
2008-04-07 20:45:00 While it is a great strength of our democracy that we allow freedom of religious practice within the boundaries of law and respect for others, there are some who have no respect and use religion as a cover for bigotry and disgraceful behavior. More About: Jesus , Iraq War , Law and Justice , Gay Rights
Advocate for Fair Share Education Funding Formula
2008-04-05 19:18:00 Senator Hanna Gallo (D-Cranston) has submitted legislation that would provide an estimated $12 Million dollars in increased funding for the Cranston schools. As many of you know, the Cranston schools are facing an unprecedented crisis in funding for our large school system. Now is the time to do something about it! Here is a summary ... More About: Education , Finance , Formula , Funding , Share
Dr. King?s Speech, Beyond Vietnam
2008-04-05 17:40:00 Forty years since we have heard his voice, forty years since the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King was murdered. If he had lived, he would not be the sainted figure who ?had a dream?. He would be reviled and slandered now just as he was when he was alive. Common Dreams has posted a long ... More About: Vietnam , Speech
Nurses Accused?Update
2008-04-05 16:50:00 In an earlier post, ?The Right to Quit an Abusive Employer is Under Attack?, I cited a news story about Filipino nurses who are facing criminal charges of patient abandonment for quitting their jobs. Keytwo, from Allnurses.com sent me an update… A Suffolk County prosecutor is challenging probes by two state agencies that found patients were ... More About: Update , Nurses
More Trouble with the ?F? Word
2008-04-03 18:59:00 The President is fond of using the ?F? word. I?m not talking about Family or Fundamentalism. I?m talking about Faith. It?s so much softer and vaguer, so much more soothing to talk about ?faith-based programs.? If we called them what they are, religion-based programs, we?d all wake up. ?Which religion?? we would ask. ... More About: Word , The F Word
A Few Bad Apples
2008-04-03 04:46:00 One defining characteristic of the Bush administration is that ?the buck stops there.? Whether it?s ?a few bad apples? caught torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, or the head of FEMA doing a ?heckuva job?, the President and his closest advisers deny responsibility for any of the appalling failures and crimes that have taken place ... More About: Apples
Faster, Harder, Deeper, Longer
2008-04-01 15:04:00 Words to live by, eh? That was the mantra I learned at a lecture given last year by a paramedic at the Rhode Island Medical Reserve Corp. He was reviewing the new standards for CPR. Recent evidence shows that more and harder compression gets more oxygen into the lungs and improves survival odds. Health care workers renew their CPR certification every two years on average, and last time I took the class I got a perfect score on the test. But I’ll confess something. It makes me nervous. I’m afraid I’ll forget something. I wonder how well I’d do in a real cardiac arrest. I don’t work in critical care, and I don’t get to practice. If I do CPR, it will probably be a real emergency on the street or in a home. So any dumb memory aid I can grab onto I’ll use. Like the BeeGee’s song, ‘Stayin’ Alive’… “You want the chest to go down about 2 inches. I weigh 160 pounds, and when I do this I put about half my weight into it,” he said. The pressure shou...
Mathematical Challenge re: Population Growth
2008-04-01 13:55:00 Skimming ‘The Nation’ article, ‘Missing: The ‘Right’ Babies’ by Kathryn Joyce, and reading the flaming op-ed letters her article provoked, I become confused. There are arguments, mostly from the political and religious right, that women in developed nations are failing society by not having more children. Women are getting too smart and planful. With increased access to education and birth control, birth rates are going down. The developed nations are facing a demographic winter, where there won’t be enough young people to pay into the social security that us boomers will be collecting. We need to continually increase the population of young people in order to support the old people. This is the point where I get confused. If the only way for each nation to survive is to increase its population, won’t we eventually run out of room? Isn’t six billion people enough? Will ten billion be better? What happens when we reach the point of maximum survivabili... More About: Growth , Challenge
Carcieri: Head Start “Biggest Waste of Federal Money”
2008-03-31 16:08:00 That’s the assessment from our Governor here in Rhode Island — that Head Start for preschoolers is “the biggest waste of federal money.” A bigger waste of money than, say, building a highway and not testing the concrete? A bigger waste of money than starting an unnecessary trillion dollar war? A bigger waste of money than giving more and bigger tax breaks to the richest 2% of the state’s population? Speaking less rhetorically and more from experience, I have seen more than one child literally saved by their enrollment in Head Start. I am thinking specifically of a child with teeth rotting out of her head and no one would have done anything about it if the Head Start social worker hadn’t made sure that child got medical and dental care. This is just one rather extreme example — there are so many ways in which problems recognized and addressed in Head Start improve a child’s chances for a better future. But let’s hear what the... More About: Money , Waste
They Should be Grateful
2008-03-30 23:21:00 From Austin Cline at ‘Jesus’ General’ comes a post so fine I have to link to it here. It takes apart point by point the idea that anyone should be ‘grateful’ for being let in the servant’s door. It’s not just that blacks should be grateful to whites for their ancestors being enslaved (because it means they grow up here rather than Africa). Women should be grateful to men for having been disenfranchised (because at least they don’t have to wear burqas, but those sluts really should cover up more). Atheists should be grateful to Christians for being despised (because that’s better than being beheaded, but they should learn to sit down and shut up). Immigrants should be grateful to whites that there is a country they can try to sneak into (even if it means risking their lives). The poor should be grateful to the rich that they have a chance at any jobs at all (even if it means living paycheck to paycheck, without health insurance). I depend on ‘Jesusâ€...
Soldiers Losing Hearing, Losing Silence
2008-03-30 15:12:00 Two bad things about losing your hearing — the loss of sound and the loss of silence. A lot of us who are older, especially if we listened to Lou Miami and the Cosmetix at The Last Call, have tinnitus. I noticed it bad on a vacation in the woods. No more silence, just a constant static that is much worse when the ambient noise level is down. I would give a lot to make it go away, but I’m lucky. It doesn’t interfere with my life, it doesn’t bring back bad memories, it hasn’t gotten worse and I’m old. At least it didn’t start in my 20’s. AP SAN DIEGO - Large numbers of soldiers and Marines caught in roadside bombings and firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home with permanent hearing loss and ringing in their ears, prompting the military to redouble its efforts to protect the troops from noise. Hearing damage is the No. 1 disability in the war on terror, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and some experts say the true toll could take d... More About: Soldiers , Silence
The Long, Strange Saga of Lillian Rivera
2008-03-28 16:05:00 Commenters on this blog have been wanting to know more about the pay-out to Lillian Rivera , a police officer on leave from the Cranston police department. Today, David Scharfenberg delivered a detailed account of her disability and injury claims against the city of Cranston. From the Projo: CRANSTON ? A disputed sexual-harassment charge is ... More About: Strange , Long , Saga
The Violation of Britney Spears
2008-03-28 01:56:00 Even grey-haired people like me can have a teachable moment. Working as a nurse in elder homecare I am privy to confidential information. I am complicit in the leveling of acres of trees as my employers generate endless paperwork for HIPPA. I explain privacy rights to patients as their eyes glaze over and they sign forms that they will never read. Then they tell me about their gallbladder operations and their sons who will be coming up for parole next summer. I know who is overdue to get her toenails cut, and who keeps four cats in an apartment that is ‘no pets allowed’. This is about as exciting as it gets for me. I am a well of secrets. I’ve been very blase about it all, and this story didn’t really get my attention… Hospital Workers Fired for Snooping on Spears The University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center where singer Britney Spears was hospitalized earlier this year is firing at least 13 employees and suspending six others for peeking into the ...
Budget Crisis Meetings for Cranston Schools
2008-03-26 23:56:00 This message comes from our school committee chairman, Michael A. Traficante, and the school committee clerk, Andrea Iannazzi. Some have probably already received it from their PTO listserv, but in case you missed it: Due to the school department’s budget crisis, the members of the Cranston School Committee and school administration have set aside two dates to brief all PTO and individual parents on the proposed school budget for 2008-2009 prior to presenting it to the Cranston City Council on Tuesday, April 22, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. at Cranston East. The purpose of the budget briefings is not only to educate your membership and individual parents on the proposed budget but also, of equal importance, to hopefully gain your support and encourage your presence on April 22nd when the budget is discussed before the Cranston City Council. The first budget briefing will take place in the Cranston High School East Auditorium on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. for the following sch... More About: Schools , Budget , Meetings , Crisis
New Englanders Go into Survival Mode
2008-03-26 20:13:00 Boston.com has an interesting article today talking about the ways that New Englanders are hunkering down and getting ready for a long, cool economy. It’s been particularly difficult for regular families to handle steep increases in oil and gas bills, not to mention increases in everything else from house insurance (how is our value going down but our insurance going up?) to food ($4.95 for a gallon of milk) to electricity. But my mother, who is in her 80’s, likes to remind me that we really don’t need a lot of the stuff we buy these days. And, as noted by Margaret Isham, 52, an artist in Providence interviewed for the article, scarcity can have the positive effect of breeding respect for what you do have, particularly the simple gifts in life such as good friends, a fun hobby (my current kick is making bread), or relatively good health. Scarcity also breeds innovation, as we discover newer and healthier ways of doing things. A great example of this is the plann... More About: Mode , Survival
Christian Brotherhood
2008-03-26 13:58:00 I attended a white, Southern, fundamentalist church during the Vietnam War years. Having heard preachers who poured out enough fire and brimstone to get the whole church moaning, I was not impressed with all the fuss about Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. In my church I heard the minister say things that were bellicose, callous and misogynistic. By that church’s interpretation of Revelations, the Holy Land was destined to end up as a glass-bottom parking lot. Or maybe a nice, flat landing strip for the Second Coming. If you went trolling through the sermons preached in those years you would have found plenty of sensational statements, especially when they got speaking in tongues. But in all fairness, they spent most of their time telling their congregation to live right and follow the Bible. I left that church not because of what the minister said, but for spiritual differences. I’m just a natural pagan is all. Contrary to the shocked, shocked impression s... More About: Christian , Brotherhood
Testify for Building Schools on Safe Land
2008-03-25 15:40:00 There will be a hearing this Wednesday, March 26, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm in Room 135 of the State House, on a bi-partisan bill to stop building schools on contaminated land in Rhode Island. The bill is controversial (as evidenced in this post by Alex Moore on RIFuture.org and the ensuing discussion) in ... More About: Education , Building , Environment , Schools , Science and Technology
Naturally Grey
2008-03-25 15:18:00 I started to go grey in my thirties when I was still kind of buff. It was a statement then. But when the middle-age spread started I pulled back and made a drastic transition from grey to whatever shade of brown was on sale at the discount store. Not that I don?t love my ... More About: Grey , Naturally
4000
2008-03-24 15:28:00 For four years now I have been standing on South Main St. in Providence with the ?No Time to be Silent? vigil for peace. I hold a worn-out sign that has the day?s numbers of Americans killed in Iraq, taken from the New York Times, ?Names of the Dead? column. I first started reading the ... More About: Iraq War
Garabedian Suggests Eminent Domain Seizure
2008-03-21 14:18:00 Even though he probably won’t win this one, council President Garabedian is impressive in his tenacity. He just won’t let go of the fundamental issue regarding the Cullion Concrete plant — that the original building permit was granted wrongly. He’s like a bulldog going after the same bone again and again. You ... More About: Politics , Environment , Domain , Eminent Domain
Children, Disabled, and Elderly to Lose Health Insurance
More articles from this author:2008-03-20 20:54:00 It’s good to know in our difficult financial times, the right people are being asked to make up the difference. This article from the Associated Press has more details: SACRAMENTO, Calif.?Financially strapped states are looking to take away government health insurance and benefits from millions of Americans already struggling with a souring economy. An Associated Press ... More About: Family , Education , Health , Children , Finance 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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