October 12, 2015

Check out this map of Detroit's electric rail system in 1915

from Detroit Metro Times:


Check out this map of Detroit's electric rail system in 1915
Posted By Michael Jackman on Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 3:12 pm




In 2015, we're all very excited about our 3.3-mile streetcar line, since electric rail is largely regarded as one of the biggest boosts you can give to urban development these days. Crews have been hard at work for almost two years now. They now say they'll be ready for passengers in 2017.

But did you know that, in 1915, the Detroit United Railways operated one of the largest regional electric rail systems in the world right here? It had more than 800 miles of track, more than 200 of them in the city limits of Detroit, where one fare would get you across town, and 600 miles in the high-speed interurban lines.The enterprise was valued at almost $50 million. In today's money, that's more than $1.1 billion.

Of course, after dismantling all our electric track more than 50 years ago, we have to build it all up again. And judging by the fact that it's taken M-1 rail about one year to build each mile of track, we'll be all caught up with 100 years ago by ... 2855.

http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2015/10/08/check-out-this-map-of-detroits-electric-rail-system-in-1915

October 12, 2015

While We Sleep, Corporate Execs Strip-Mine America

While We Sleep, Corporate Execs Strip-Mine America
by Fabius Maximus • October 8, 2015


[font size="3"][font color="blue"]But all games have an endgame.[/font][/font]


Nothing shows how America’s reins are held than our out-of-control corporations, enriching their executives at the cost of the future of their businesses — and ours. Here’s another status report on this sad but fixable story.

The Q2 Buybacks Report by FactSet is, as usual, sobering reading. During the 12 months ending in June, companies in the S&P 500 spent $555.5 billion repurchasing their shares. For the first time since October 2009, buybacks exceeded free cash flow (cash flow after capex); they’re borrowing to buy back shares.

For the past two years buybacks have run at the fantastic rate of about $120 billion per quarter — the same rate as in 2006-2007, with tech companies the leaders. In 2014 they spent 95% of their profits on buybacks and dividends (building the future is somebody else’s problem in corporate America).

Investors applaud this as a boost to share prices. Surprising to the naive, a decade of buybacks has reduced the S&P 500’s share count by only 2%. Share buybacks are one part of the triangle trade that transfers vast fortunes from shareholders to senior executives using stock options:

• executives exercise their options when shares rise (i.e., the company sells shares to executives at a discount to current prices),
• the executive sells those shares to the public,
• the company buys back those shares from the public.

Net result: the company has less money, their executives have more, the share count is unchanged. ...............(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/10/08/how-corporate-execs-monsanto-strip-mine-america-with-stock-buybacks-while-we-sleep/

October 12, 2015

Chris Hedges: ‘A Pipeline Straight to Jail’

from truthdig:


‘A Pipeline Straight to Jail’

Posted on Oct 11, 2015
By Chris Hedges


The defeat of the Harvard University debate team by a team from the Eastern New York Correctional Facility in the Catskills elucidates a truth known intimately by those of us who teach in prisons: that the failure of the American educational system to offer opportunities to the poor and the government’s abandonment of families and children living in blighted communities condemn millions of boys and girls, often of color, to a life of suffering, misery and early death. The income inequality, the trillions of dollars we divert to the war industry, the flight of manufacturing jobs overseas and the refusal to invest in our infrastructure wrecks life after innocent life.

I spent four years as a graduate student at Harvard University. Privilege, and especially white privilege, I discovered, is the primary prerequisite for attending an Ivy League university. I have also spent several years teaching in prisons. In class after class in prison, there is a core of students who could excel at Harvard. This is not hyperbolic, as the defeat of the Harvard debate team illustrates. But poverty condemned my students before they ever entered school. And as poverty expands, inflicting on communities and families a host of maladies including crime, addiction, rage, despair and hopelessness, the few remaining institutions that might intervene to lift the poor up are gutted or closed. Even when students in inner-city schools are not the targets of racial insults, racism worms into their lives because the institutions that should help them are nonexistent or deeply dysfunctional.

I stood outside a prison gate in Newark, N.J., at 7 a.m. last April 24. I waited for the release of one of my students, Boris Franklin, who had spent 11 years incarcerated. I had ridden to the gate with his mother, who spent her time reading Bible verses out loud in the car, and his sister. We watched him walk down the road toward us. He was wearing the baggy gray sweatpants, oversize white T-shirt and white Reeboks that prisoners purchase before their release. Franklin had laid out $50 for his new clothes. A prisoner in New Jersey earns $28 a month working in prison.

Franklin, with the broad shoulders and muscular chest and arms that come with years of lifting weights, clutched a manila envelope containing his medical records, instructions for parole, his birth certificate, his Social Security card and an ID issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles, his official form of identification. All his prison possessions, including his collection of roughly 100 books, had to be left behind. .....................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_pipeline_straight_to_jail_20151011

October 10, 2015

TYT: The REAL history of Columbus Day

Published on Oct 6, 2015

Monday, October 12th is Columbus Day, which we have celebrated in this country since the eighteenth century… and that’s probably long enough. When you find out the actual facts of what Columbus did when he got to America, you’ll find one of the darkest chapters in American history. Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola (Think Tank), hosts of the The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

"Second, Columbus wasn't a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. "They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no," he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.”*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html

October 10, 2015

Unarmed black woman beaten and tackled by Florida cops for filming arrest of her husband

A black woman who was punched and tackled to the ground by two white Jacksonville policemen for filming the arrest of her husband claims the cops stole her phone with a recording on the incident, reports NewsJax4.

According to Kelli Wilson, she went down to a local convenience store to record the arrest of her husband and retrieve their car when she was assaulted by the two cops who demanded her name and told her to put her phone away and stop recording.

“I was beaten, and then falsely arrested, my phone was stolen, my car was taken. It was a traumatic experience. It was definitely an experience you never think you would be going through,” said Wilson.

Although police confiscated her phone, video of her arrest was captured by surveillance cameras that showed the unarmed woman talking to the police before they charged, attempting to grab her phone with one officer seen punching her while the other one held her arms.

According to Wilson, one of the policemen demanded she stop filming and she asked him “why?” ...............(more)

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/watch-unarmed-black-woman-beaten-and-tackled-by-florida-cops-for-filming-arrest-of-her-husband/

October 10, 2015

DC Metro Drops Paper Fare Tickets

For the first time, a customer who pays for their Metro trip at King Street, Huntington, or Franconia-Springfield stations will receive a SmarTrip card — not a paper fare card — from the 25 upgraded vending machines that went into service in October.

Metro has begun upgrading more than 450 existing fare vending machines to dispense SmarTrip cards rather than paper farecards. The rollout began at Virginia stations along the Blue and Yellow lines earlier this week and, by Friday, all stations from Crystal City to Huntington and Franconia-Springfield will be completed.

Metro plans to discontinue all sales of paper farecards, including bulk sales, when the last machine on the system is upgraded by January.

Customers will be able to use any remaining paper farecards to enter and exit the rail system until early March. After that, riders holding paper farecards will still be able to transfer the value from paper to SmarTrip at any rail station or Metro sales office through June 2016. ...................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12124488/dc-metro-drops-paper-fare-tickets

October 10, 2015

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee: 14 Years, 2,350 Lives, Billions of Dollars & No End in Sight

Oct. 7


“Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Afghanistan War – our nation’s longest war – and sadly, there seems to be no end in sight. Despite a war-weary public, calls continue to keep more U.S. troops in Afghanistan for many more years.

This war has already cost our nation too much. It has sacrificed the lives of 2,350 of our brave servicemen and women, including six in the first seven days of this month. Additionally, this war has taken the lives of thousands of Afghans and servicemen and women from our coalition and NATO partners.

Similarly, this war’s price tag, totaling more than $715 billion, continues to undermine our national security and prevents investments in important domestic priorities. In fact, every hour this war costs taxpayers $4 million.

In 2001, I opposed the authorization for this war because it empowered any President to wage endless war without the Congressional oversight mandated by the Constitution. Fourteen years into this war, this endless war continues and Congress continues to abdicate its Constitutional responsibility.

Since then, I have been working with my colleagues from both parties to pass H.R. 1303, which would repeal the limitless Authorization for Military Force (AUMF).

It is past time to end this costly and bloody war and restore Congress’s constitutional duty to debate matters of war and peace.”


https://lee.house.gov/news/press-releases/14-years-2350-lives-billions-of-dollars-no-end-in-sight

October 10, 2015

'Doing the hardest work in America': Bernie Sanders woos Hispanic voters

from the Guardian UK:


'Doing the hardest work in America': Bernie Sanders woos Hispanic voters
At Tucson rally, Democratic hopeful defends the undocumented – ‘part of the fabric of this country’ – and declares gun violence must be brought to an end


With a Latino congressman’s endorsement, a boy’s heart-rending story and the mellifluous sounds of a mariachi band, Bernie Sanders began a push to woo Hispanic voters at a rally in Arizona on Friday night.

As well as immigration reform, the Democratic presidential hopeful touched on gun control in the wake of last week’s massacre in Oregon and two more fatal shootings on Friday on university campuses in Houston and northern Arizona.

Despite his history of opposing gun regulation, Sanders called for stronger background checks and an end to the easy availability of assault weapons. “We are tired of condolences and we are tired of just prayers. We are tired and we are embarrassed in picking up the paper or turning on the TV and seeing children in elementary schools slaughtered and young people on college campuses shot,” he said.

“I think the vast majority of the American people want us to move forward in sensible ways that keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them and cut down on these senseless murders that we see every week.” ..............(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/10/doing-the-hardest-work-in-america-bernie-sanders-woos-hispanic-voters

October 9, 2015

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots
"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed."

Alexander C. Kaufman
Business Editor, The Huffington Post


Machines won't bring about the economic robot apocalypse -- but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

Essentially, machine owners will become the bourgeoisie of a new era, in which the corporations they own won't provide jobs to actual human workers.

As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital -- such as stocks or property -- accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up. .......................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-hawking-capitalism-robots_5616c20ce4b0dbb8000d9f15

October 8, 2015

We mourn for Oregon shooting, but gloss over bombing a hospital: The brain science behind empathy

from Salon:


We mourn for Oregon shooting, but gloss over bombing a hospital: The brain science behind empathy
A psychologist explains why Americans grieve more intensely over the Oregon college shooting than foreign crises

SCOTT TIMBERG


The last week or so has seen a number of painful events: The shooting at a community college in Oregon, which has drawn an enormous amount of grief and empathy. We’ve also seen global tragedies, including the bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan and the latest chapter of the Middle Eastern refugee crisis, neither of which has received the same amount of attention in the United States.

Is there a way of making sense of the disparate ways we — especially if “we” are American, or other members of the First World — connect with these things? Why do we, whoever we are, respond more intensely to some tragedies than others?

Salon spoke to Art Markman, a cognitive psychologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Markman is the author of “Smart Thinking” and host of the KUT radio show “Two Guys on Your Head.”

We caught up with Markman outside of Austin. The interview has been edited slightly for clarity.

Let’s start with the week’s news. Why do we respond so differently to various tragedies? What summons our empathy? What makes Americans connect with some events and not with others?

The thing to remember is the way we understand people around us is by trying to simulate what it would be like to be in that situation ourselves. A lot of times that’s our best way of trying to predict the reaction someone’s going to have when we’re interacting with them. And so, the power of these stories, which in some ways is like the power of movies and other [narrative] is that we are projecting ourselves into that situation… The position of a mother or a father or a person who is there – and feeling those emotions. Feeling the fear or someone trapped by a gunman, feeling the sorrow of someone who has lost a child. That mechanism, which helps us to navigate our social relationships, plays a huge role in our ability to understand these situations. And that’s where empathy comes in.

That’s why Stalin is reported to have said that one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic. And the reason that works is that you can’t empathize with a million people. But if you can look into the eyes of someone, and project yourself into their situation, you can feel what they are feeling. ....................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/08/empathy_where_does_it_come_from_and_where_does_it_take_us/