CATWOMAN VS LADYBIRD

When Eartha Kitt Condemned Poverty and War at the White House


It was supposed to be a genteel luncheon with the first lady dedicated to discussing crime policy. The chanteuse had other ideas.

Eartha Kitt c. 1970
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

By: Livia Gershon
March 13, 2021

If you think Americans are divided today, consider 1968, a time of enormous conflict over war, racism, and poverty. As Janet Mezzack writes, that January, Eartha Kitt brought all those conflicts into the sedate setting of a White House luncheon hosted by the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson.

A Black cabaret singer, actor, and celebrity, Kitt had been invited to a “Women Doers’ Luncheon” focused on crime, an issue of growing importance to the Johnson administration at the time. Mezzack writes that the speakers and guests included leaders of local anticrime groups, volunteers with community organizations like Head Start, judges, politicians’ wives, and teachers. After hearing from the speakers, Kitt spoke up, drawing on her authority as someone who had “lived in the gutters” and was involved with youth organizations in poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. She suggested that the luncheon’s speakers had missed a key point.
Kitt said that a teenage boy who was aware that men with criminal records weren’t sent to war had little incentive to avoid illegal activities like smoking marijuana.

“The youth of America today are angry,” she said.

She pointed to causes including high taxes, low levels of support from government welfare programs, and…the war that the Johnson administration was prosecuting in Vietnam. Kitt said that a teenage boy who was aware that men with criminal records weren’t sent to war had little incentive to avoid illegal activities like smoking marijuana.

“You take the best of the country and send them off to a war and they get shot,” she said. “They don’t want that.”

Mezzack writes that Betty Hughes, the wife of New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes, immediately rose to respond to Kitt, noting her family’s military service and insisting that “anybody who’s taking pot just because there is a war in Vietnam is some kind of a kook.” Johnson also responded to Kitt, saying that she was praying for peace but in the meantime believed that reformers should keep “our energies fixed on constructive aims.”

The day after the luncheon, Johnson issued a formal statement saying she was sorry “the good constructive things which the speakers on the panel said were not heard—only the shrill voice of anger and discord.” Kitt, meanwhile, told reporters that her remarks were unplanned, but “I think I am speaking for millions of Americans across the country and the world.”

Newspapers around the country published front-page stories about the incident, and the White House was flooded with responses, most of them supporting the first lady. Some came from mothers of men fighting in Vietnam, praising their sons’ sacrifices. President Johnson’s (white) pastor, the Rev. Dr. George R. Davis, sent a telegram to the White House apologizing “for any member of [the American] family including Negroes who are ill-mannered, stupid and arrogant.” The next Sunday, protesters interrupted Davis’s sermon and handed out fliers defending Kitt.

Ultimately, Mezzack writes, the incident worked out for the Johnsons, drawing attention to their anticrime agenda. And while antiwar activists and some Black Americans viewed it as a symptom of the administration’s lack of interest in their concerns, a majority of politically engaged Americans apparently came down on the Johnsons’ side.



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"Without Manners You Are Nothing": Lady Bird Johnson, Eartha Kitt, and The Women Doers' Luncheon of January 18, 1968

By: JANET MEZZACK

Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4, Modern First Ladies White House Organization (FALL 1990), pp. 745-760

Wiley on behalf of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress

Covid fallout 'undermining nature conservation efforts'

Helen Briggs - BBC science correspondent
Thu, March 11, 2021


Baby monkey poached in Indonesia

Covid-19 is taking a "severe toll" on conservation efforts, with multiple environmental protections being rolled back, according to research.

Conservation efforts have been reduced in more than half of Africa's protected areas and a quarter of those in Asia, said the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

And 22 countries are rolling back protection of natural areas.

Protected areas encompass some of the world's most precious ecosystems.

They include pristine forests, wilderness areas and natural habitat that supports endangered species.

IUCN Director General Dr Bruno Oberle said the new research revealed "how severe a toll the Covid-19 pandemic has taken on conservation efforts and on communities dedicated to protecting nature".

He added: "Let us not forget that only by investing in healthy nature can we provide a solid basis for our recovery from the pandemic, and avoid future public health crises."


Fears of rise in poaching amid pandemic poverty


A glimmer of hope for gorillas?


Ivory from shipwreck reveals elephants' decline.

The research is published in a special edition of an IUCN journal dedicated to areas of the globe protected for nature.

In one paper, researchers looked at government policies on economic recovery put in place between January and October last year that had an impact on the funding and protection of areas for nature.

Road built through the rainforest

They identified some positive examples, with 17 countries, such as New Zealand, Pakistan and eight countries within the EU, maintaining or increasing their support for protected and conserved areas.

In contrast, 22 countries had rolled back protections in favour of unsustainable development including road construction or oil and gas extraction in areas designated for conservation.

Rachel Golden Kroner of Conservation International is a co-chair of the IUCN taskforce looking into the impact of Covid-19 on protected areas, and lead researcher on the study.

She told the BBC: "We found that more funding and more of the economic stimulus has gone towards activities that undermine nature rather than that support it, globally. So we're not yet on the whole moving in the right direction."

In other papers, researchers found:

Conservation efforts in Africa and Asia were most severely affected. More than half of protected areas in Africa reported that they were forced to halt or reduce field patrols and anti-poaching operations as well as conservation education and outreach. A quarter of protected areas in Asia also reported that conservation activities had been reduced.


The pandemic has affected the livelihoods of protected area rangers and their communities. A survey of rangers in more than 60 countries found that more than one in four rangers had seen their salary reduced or delayed, while 20% reported that they had lost their jobs due to budget cuts. Rangers from Central America and the Caribbean, South America, Africa and Asia were more severely affected than elsewhere.

Herbs & Verbs: How to Do Witchcraft for Real

Like for real real.

A frontispiece from Grete Herball, a 1526 English herbal manuscript.
via Wikimedia Commons

By: Hillary Waterman
October 25, 2017

Magic is first and foremost a technology, a primeval tool that humans stumbled upon eons ago for accessing an invisible realm that they sensed held the key to their well-being. Magic gave people an avenue to attain what their hearts desired—protection, divination, healing, luck, vengeance and, most of all, a sense of empowerment. It’s a measure of comfort in a cold, dark world.

Although the world’s magical practices are diverse, appearing at first to be a kaleidoscopic array of random symbols and incoherent mutterings, if we dig a little deeper, we find common constitutive elements. Try to discern which of the following is not an incantation:


A. Abracadabra

B. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

C. As the moon wanes, so may I decrease…

D. Nasagwagusa, isawagusa
inai gogona
inai gogona
narada nabwibwi…

B is nothing special, just an old-timey physician’s prescription for minor complaints. It accomplishes nothing, save for foisting responsibility back onto the patient. In contrast, A, C, and D are special purpose magical language, used to make things happen in the world.
Abracadabra is the Swiss Army Knife of incantations, reached for in cases where the caster offers no particular spell.

Abracadabra is an ancient magic word of perhaps Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic etymology (no one seems to know, which adds to its mystery). It’s the Swiss Army Knife of incantations, reached for in cases where the caster offers no particular spell. It’s often the first magic word a child learns, and has become ubiquitous in pop-culture depictions of magic. In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Avada Kedavra is the dreaded Killing Curse, of which Harry himself is the only known survivor. Abracadabra has even been co-opted by top-hatted, cape-draped performing magicians and featured to comic effect in a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon.

C is a charm for inducing weight-loss from a paperback booklet of magic spells that caught my eye at the grocery store checkout as a chubby pre-teen. The instructions were to utter the words on the full moon while burning a white candle. As I was not allowed to burn candles in my room, nor did I have the wherewithal to get my hands on special herbs for the draught that would activate the spell, I was never able to test its efficacy.

D is authentic magic. It’s an excerpt from a Trobriand Islands spell for growing yams. The words are uttered over a tufa whetstone called a nasagwagusa, which is used to hone the knife with which a woman will harvest the yams when they mature. The stone, a talisman, is then pressed against the cut seedlings as the rest of the verse is recited. Yams are central to the Trobriand social economy, and constitute women’s wealth and status in the society.



Language has power in the social world—on that we can agree. People use words to hurt, conceal, soothe, and dominate, to evoke emotions in others. More than that, in certain contexts and conditions, the right words effect real change. Words can alter the legal standings of individuals (“I now pronounce you husband and wife”), transfer ownership of goods (“That’ll be $8.99…”), mitigate personal injury (“I apologize”), or establish a legal context (“I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”). In linguistic terms, this kind of language is called performative, language that is, in itself, action. This specialized linguistic form is one common ingredient of magic, where the power is in the words themselves.

Common to all kinds of magic are:
Actors—a practitioner, a subject, and an agent (a spirit or energy source)
A decontextualizing of the language and actions from everyday life and resituating them within a special and powerful—and abstracted (often mythic)—context
A special-purpose language or speech register
Rituals and taboos
Use of herbs and talismans
Altered states of consciousness induced by chanting, fasting, or herbal draught

In “The Language of Magic in Two Old English Metrical Charms,” the medievalist L.M.C. Weston analyzes the poetic language of The Nine Herbs Charm, a healing spell dating to the tenth century C.E. West also looks at Wið færstice, a popular charm for relieving a stabbing pain. Weston calls them “magico-medical texts… [in which] ritual and poetry combine… to create and enforce an altered consciousness, in which and through which magic can occur.” They use performative language in Old English verse, magical numbers (multiples of 3), and a characteristic rhythm combining the alliterative structure of Old English verse with counter rhythms that index its special status as magical. There is a lot of repetition.

In Wið færstice, Lines 6, 12, and 15 (all multiples of 3), are practically identical in their refrain:

Ut lytel spere, gif her innie sie
Ut lytel spere, gif her innie sy
Ut lytel spere, gif her innie sy

In subsequent verses, says Weston, “The healer speaking the words over an herbal potion and knife (spere)… becomes a warrior under a shield, engaging in archetypal battle with vaguely identified, supernatural enemies.”

In abstracting away from the particular battle depicted in the poem to a mythic realm, the healer draws on the power of that realm, collecting it in order to discharge it, producing the desired transformation (healing). It is, says Weston “magical in purpose and poetic in method.”
Spells have two distinct phases, the first one concentrating on gathering in power, the second on releasing it.

Spells have two distinct phases, the first one concentrating on gathering in power, the second on releasing it, with focused intent, in a particular direction. In the case of Wið færstice, this is marked by a change in verb tense from the first to second half of the charm, which signals a shift from potential power to present use, also using the subject “I” to indicate the healer’s agency. The recipient of the charm is also reframed, from the herbs in phase one to the patient in phase two.

The Nine Herbs Charm calls for an assemblage of herbs: chamomile, mugwort, lamb’s cress, plantain, mayweed, nettle, crab-apple, thyme, and fennel. These are crushed and mixed into a salve. The charm is sung three times over each ingredient and again over the patient and chanted as the salve is applied. If properly executed, the Nine Herbs Charm protects the patient from illnesses believed to come from toxins in the air.

Incantations combining specialized language, plants, and symbolic objects are hardly unique to the Anglo-Saxon world. In Papua, New Guinea, the Trobriand Islands peoples have long been known for their reliance on magic. In “Magical Conversation on the Trobriand Islands,” the psycholinguist Gunter Senft deconstructs the texts of thirteen magic spells, showing how their magic works.

Trobrianders have spells for black magic, for weather, healing, agriculture, fishing, dance, beauty, love, sailing and canoes, and anti-witch (or shark) magic. Magic pervades their cosmology. They employ a special register of their Austronesian Kilivila, which they designate “biga megwa” or “the language of magic.”

Incantations are understood as magical conversations with only one speaker. The magician speaks, or, they say, “whispers” and the addressee, the interlocutor—a plant, animal, a topographic feature, or spirit—acts in the desired way, to bring about a desired effect. A number of conditions must be met. The magician must strictly observe cleansing rituals and food taboos. The correct magical formula must be repeated for the prescribed amount of time with no mistakes or omissions.

For weather magic to bring sunshine, one native magician named Kasiosi explains, he must first slice a ginger root and place the slices in a paper basket with a tiny slit. While he removes a bit of ginger with his fingers, he recites a 144-line magical formula. He chews the ginger, spits it out, and recites the formula again. This may be repeated as many times as he pleases. The name of this spell is magaurekasi; Kasiosi does not know what the name means. Magic words often have no meaning in the mundane world; in fact, this is a common feature of magical language.
Trobriand magic, much like the Old English charms, relies on “speech-action.”

Kasiosi’s incantation first addresses the clouds and rain using a special second person plural form not used in ordinary speech. It orders them to retreat, invoking the names of the former owners of the magic. Trobriand magic can be transferred from one person to another, even bought and sold. In this way, Kasiosi draws on their power and collects it in for himself. He names all the paths along which the bad weather should retreat, along the village path, away from his house and the village, toward the sea. The order bulitabai is repeated no less than fifteen times.

In the second half of the formula, he orders the rain to “disperse,” bulegalegisa, nine times, and to “disappear,” bulilevaga/bulilevaga twelve times. “If we look at the formula as a whole,” says Senft, “we see that the various orders or commands are weighted and seem to follow a certain pattern.” The stanzas follow a formula, A-F, with ordered combinations of commands, invocations and assertion of the desired effects.

Trobriand magic, much like the Old English charms, relies on “speech-action,” ritualized in formulas between esoteric specialists, and special addressees. For the Trobrianders, magic is woven into the fabric of their everyday lives. Senft argues that it is also a “cultural phenomenon,” with the implicit goal of diffusing social tensions by enacting “clearly defined conventions and rules.”

These days, the Trobriand islands face the forces of globalization—Senft did his fieldwork there in the 1980s—and the islanders don’t much rely on magic anymore. And Saxon charms are but a relic of early medieval pagan practice. Yet some ancient mysticism and superstitions have worked their way into contemporary life and belief systems. One can collect magic spells on Pinterest, join a coven online, or use aromatherapy to help fall asleep. Magic survives, and people still find the idea of it, well, enchanting.

THE LANGUAGE OF MAGIC IN TWO OLD ENGLISH METRICAL CHARMS
By: L.M.C. Weston
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Vol. 86, No. 2 (1985), pp. 176-186
Modern Language Society

Magical Conversation on the Trobriand Islands
By: Gunter Senft
Anthropos, Bd. 92, H. 4./6. (1997), pp. 369-391
Anthropos Institut

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Marxferatu: Teaching Marx with Vampires

For a younger generation trying to understand Marxism, the best way in may be: vampirism.


By: Matthew Wills
October 30, 2018

Bram Stroker’s Dracula, published in 1897, is usually seen as the birth of the undying vampire industry. But what about Karl Marx? True, Marx didn’t write vampire fiction. But he was fascinated by the metaphor of capitalism as vampirism. For instance, in Das Kapital, Marx describe his subject as “dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”

Students come to college with more knowledge of popular culture vampires than awareness of Marx.

Perhaps influenced by the European fascination with vampirism, Marx circled back to vampirism throughout his work. But vampirism wasn’t just a visceral literary device for him, it was key to his understanding of capitalism: the blood of labor being sucked by capital. And this, thinks political scientist Jason J. Morissette, is a way to teach Marx to a generation of college students raised on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Twilight series, and True Blood.

Morissette reasons that students come to college with more knowledge of popular culture vampires than awareness of Marx. Moreover, Marx’s “language is dense, the arguments are sophisticated, and the early industrial era during which Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels wrote seems like ancient history.” Morissette also notes that “a growing number of college students enter the classroom prepared to actively resist any attempts at ‘Marxist indoctrination’ by their ‘agenda-pushing’ professors.”

Morissette argues that using vampirism as a window into Marx’s thought is an excellent way using a contemporary cultural phenomenon to shed light on the past. As an example, he discusses the exploitative and conflict-producing relationship between what Marx called “dead labor” or capital, and “living labor,” or workers:

Motivated solely by profit, factory owners emerge as a form of economic vampires, improving their bottom line through longer hours, lower wages, and poorer working conditions. Capitalists are, in effect, draining away the value of their workers’ labor to enrich themselves—just as supernatural vampires drain their victims’ life force to grow stronger.

The figure of the vampire is the ultimate individual: predatory, inhuman, anti-human, with no moral obligation to others. Of course, this selfishness leads to alienation. One of the great themes of vampire fiction is the tragedy of the vampire’s inability to connect with life except in a murderous way, or to live for centuries in what is the ultimate gate community. The only escape is the stake through the heart.

Does it work? (The vampire pedagogy, not the stake through the heart.) Morissette stresses that “reconciling the Marxist critique of capitalism with dominant trends in contemporary popular culture” is only an entry point to getting students to think about the ideas involved. It’s necessarily an “imperfect representation of Marx’s ideas,” such as class conflict, alienation, and false consciousness but it’s a start for those who have “grown up immersed in both classical and contemporary vampire fiction.”

Business is booming for the $24 billion plasma industry - but it may be putting vulnerable donors at risk

Julia Press,Robin Lindsay
Thu, March 11, 2021, 

The US supplies two-thirds of the world's plasma, and it's one of the few countries where donors get paid.

In fact, thousands of Americans rely on plasma donation as a main source of income.

The pandemic has increased demand for plasma, and desperate volunteers may be putting themselves at risk to continue giving.

For thousands of Americans, donating plasma is a lifeline. In the 90 minutes it takes to donate, they make five times the federal minimum wage.

Americans supply two-thirds of the world's blood plasma. The industry is worth over $24 billion today, according to the Marketing Research Bureau, and that number could nearly double by 2027, as global demand for plasma-derived medicine rises by 6% to 8% each year.

Plasma is the yellowish liquid that makes up more than half of blood volume. Hospitals use it in transfusions to treat burns and liver failure, relying on unpaid donors. Biopharmaceutical companies also use it to manufacture life-saving drugs. Unlike those going toward transfusions, plasma donations destined for medication do not need to be labeled as voluntary or paid.

That's led to a boom in private, for-profit plasma centers across the US, with the number of centers tripling over the past 15 years. According to analysts at Fortune Business Insights, two-thirds of these centers are owned by one of three companies: CSL Plasma, Grifols, and BioLife.

Even before the pandemic hit, global demand for plasma far outpaced supply. That gap only worsened in 2020, as a mix of social distancing, cleaning requirements, and donor reluctance caused global donations to drop 15%, according to the Marketing Research Bureau. Meanwhile, plasma has been in high demand, as antibody transfusions show promising results in treating COVID-19 and private companies use plasma from COVID patients to develop potential drugs.

With no synthetic substitute for plasma, drug manufacturers rely on a steady stream of human donors to make up their supply. Treating just one patient with plasma therapies for a year takes between 130 and 1,300 donations.

"The bottom line is if the US didn't compensate donors, there would not be enough plasma and lives would be lost globally," the president of the Immune Deficiency Foundation wrote in a February 2019 statement.

But the burden is falling on vulnerable donors, many of whom rely on plasma compensation as a source of income.

"There's nothing wrong with giving plasma," said researcher Analidis Ochoa. "There is a problem when you feel that there's no other option."

Plasma centers attract donors in need of money.

Stephen Craib, 42, makes his 15th plasma donation to the NHS Blood and Transplant Convalescent Plasma Programme in London. Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images/Getty Images

Liz Savage visits a CSL Plasma center in Glen Burnie, Maryland, twice a week.

"I could pretend that I do it because it helps people and I'm glad that it does help people," she said. "But I only found out about it because it pays you money, and I only find myself doing it when I need money."

Savage has used plasma money to supplement her income throughout her life - as a college student in Idaho, a young adult in Tennessee, and now, as a mother in Maryland - to pay for family expenses like her children's new school clothes.

"I've tried DoorDash, I've tried, you know, little things here and there, but this is consistent. There is a need for it," she said.

Savage's story is a common one. A study from the Center for Health Care Research and Policy found that 57% of donors at one Cleveland center reported at least a third of their income that month would come from donating plasma. Researchers like Ochoa have found that plasma centers tend to be concentrated in states with lower minimum wages and cities with more people living under the poverty line.

"These are the areas where people who are most in need of income live," she said.

According to CSL Plasma, the company selects new locations "based on population density, availability of property, and local zoning laws." BioLife said it "looks for areas with a large population where it doesn't have a presence, real estate availability, and the amount of skilled staff nearby." Grifols declined to comment.

Regular donors told Insider they spend their plasma money on gas, rent, phone bills, food, and student loans. While some expressed a desire to help others as a motivating factor, many confessed that compensation was their primary influence. Even for those with other means of income, plasma donations are a popular way to make cash quick.

"There is at least a third of our church who donate," said Raquel Marruffo, who lives in Arizona. "All of them have jobs. It's just extra income."

Incentives to donate have only grown during the pandemic. Centers that usually offer between $35 to $50 per visit have paid an average of $65 per donation, according to the Marketing Research Bureau. That's in addition to referral bonuses, rewards programs, and incentives for those who donate twice a week or eight times a month.

Plasma donors have earned as much as $65 per donation during the pandemic, during which demand has grown. Reuters

Demand for plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients was so great that at times, they could make as much as $200 in a single visit. That inspired students at Brigham Young University-Idaho to intentionally try to contract the virus "with the hope of getting the disease and being paid for plasma that contains COVID-19 antibodies," according to an official notice released by the school.

BioLife Plasma said it "compensates individuals who donate plasma in recognition of the time, commitment, and effort required," and CSL Plasma emphasized that donating is a choice donors make freely, regardless of motivating factors. "In some instances, the compensation provided to donors provides a much-needed supplement to other sources of income," a CSL representative told Insider.
Paying donors increases the world's plasma supply.

The ethics debate is so involved, Georgetown associate teaching professor Peter Jaworski has focused his career on it. He falls firmly on the side of paying donors.

"There is no country in the world that is self-sufficient in plasma for plasma therapies unless it pays donors," Jaworski said.

In the Czech Republic, legalizing paid donation led to a sevenfold increase in liters donated in three years. In 2017, Italy - where donors can take a paid day off work, but are not compensated - needed 545,000 more liters of plasma than it collected, whereas Germany - which allows paid donation - had a surplus of 704,000 liters.

But the American system still outpaces that of its pay-for-plasma peers because of its comparatively lenient restrictions on donation.

Through a process called plasmapheresis, only the liquid plasma is removed from a donor's body, and since the human body replenishes plasma within 48 hours, that allows for much more frequent donation. That means while US donors have to wait eight weeks between blood donations, plasma can be given up to twice a week.

According to the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association, only 14% of US donors made over 50 donations in 2017. Still, without much research on the health effects of donating 104 times a year - the US legal limit - researchers like Ochoa worry that the American system could put donors at risk.

"Our concern is that people who are vulnerable are giving their plasma to make ends meet," said Ochoa. "And we don't actually know what the long-term repercussions of this is."
Patients who rely on plasma-based therapies are bracing for a shortage.

Christina Brown is one of many Americans who rely on plasma-based medicine every day. Insider

When Christina Brown was in college, she got sick a lot.

"I had 15 UTIs in one year," she said. "Five bouts of bronchitis, two different pneumonias, a bunch of sinus infections."

She was diagnosed with common variable immunodeficiency, meaning her body doesn't make antibodies it needs to protect her from illness. Now, she injects herself with 100 milliliters of a plasma-derived drug each week.

"It's literally saved my life in every single way," Brown said. "I'm able to have a life and to be alive."

When she read the Immune Deficiency Foundation's warning of an impending plasma shortage, Brown's heart sank.

"I knew this meant people were going to die and I could be one of them," she said.

It takes seven to 12 months for plasma to go from a donor to the drug store shelf, so as the pandemic's drop in plasma supply catches up with production, patients like Brown are bracing themselves.

"I'm getting refills the day that I can get a refill, so maybe I can have an extra bottle or two on hand, because this is going to happen," Brown said. "It's not an 'if,' but a 'when' and 'to what extent' are we going to have this shortage."

For patients like Brown to access the life-saving drugs they need, global plasma donations have to rapidly increase. But as the system currently exists, that can't happen without drug companies relying on the desperation of some donors.

"The fact that they are providing a need to low-income Americans, I think is undeniable," said Ochoa, who believes both private industry and public policy can do more to protect donors. "That is the government that can step in to provide a safety net that is more adequate to the needs of Americans, particularly during difficult times."

Read the original article on Business Insider

STATEHOOD OR INDEPENDENCE


COVID and economy woes walloped Puerto Rico — but statehood may help bring it back

Reggie Wade
·Writer
Sat, March 13, 2021

Puerto Rico — buffeted by natural disasters, a debt crisis and most recently, COVID-19 — is struggling under the weight of a hobbled economy that relies heavily on tourism.

However, the so-called “Island of Enchantment” may yet see better days, as the Biden administration, and a chance to become fully recognized as a U.S. state, could help restore a much-needed sense of normalcy after a rough stretch of years.

In the U.S. Congress, where Democrats currently hold a slim majority, key lawmakers are united in their desire to bolster Puerto Rico’s future — but exactly how that gets done is up for debate. One option currently being discussed with more intensity is a bid for statehood, an option that some have floated for Washington, D.C. as well.

Last year, New York Democrats Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spearheaded an effort to advance the island's bid to determine its future. In a November referendum, Puerto Ricans voted to become a U.S. state, the latest in a years-long effort to clarify the island’s relationship with America.

Earlier this month, Puerto Rico’s sole representative in Congress, González Colón (R-PR) and Congressman Darren Soto (D-FL 9) introduced the Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Act, which would pave the way to make Puerto Rico the 51st state.

To be certain, Puerto Rico’s economy wasn’t always defined by crisis. For decades, U.S. tax incentives made the island a draw for subsidiaries of most U.S. companies that operated within its borders, turning into a manufacturing hub for big pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Roche (RHHBY), Pfizer (PFE), and Novartis (NVS).

However, legislation passed in 1996 phased out those incentives within a decade, hastening a decline that made the economy far more reliant on tourism.

Edwin Melendez, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies and a professor of urban policy and planning at New York’s Hunter College, faulted a lack of investment in Puerto Rico for its most recent economic downturn.

“It’s not a decline because the companies packed up and left. It’s that the companies stopped investing in Puerto Rico,” Melendez told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview.

He noted that Puerto Rico’s pattern of economic decline was briefly interrupted when The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funds were injected as a stimulus. However, the reprieve would be short-lived: In the years that followed, two hurricanes, an earthquake, a rolling debt crisis and COVID-19 would turn life on the island upside down in the years that followed.

COVID-19 wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico much later than it did for many other parts of the U.S. However, in August, the island recorded an average of 419 daily hospitalizations. At present, the island nation has had 135,552 cases and 2,066 deaths.

Clinical Epidemiologist Roberta Lugo tells Yahoo Finance that Puerto Rico’s Government and Department of Health efforts to fight the COVID-19 have been slow and “full of stumbles.”

Lugo, who was on the island during its first wave, notes that the Puerto Rican government’s slow reaction time caused severe problems.

“We experienced poor decision making, and the economic sector had more weight than the scientific community. I can describe the emergency response as reactive rather than proactive,” she said.
Eat or get eaten

Representative Nydia Velasquez (NY) speaks during a press conference with activists from 'Take Action for Puerto Rico' demanding support from the Federal Government to rebuild Puerto Rico after two years of Hurricane Maria in Capitol Hill, Washington D.C. Wednesday, September 18, 2019. (Photo by Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The fumbled response to the pandemic underscores why a growing number of lawmakers believe full statehood would help Puerto Rico solve many of its problems, including better service delivery and better overall economic conditions.

One of those is New York Democratic Rep. Richie Torres, who backs statehood as a path to opening the floodgates of money and opportunities for the island desperately in need of both.

“If you do not have a seat at the table, then you’re probably on the menu. Statehood would provide Puerto Rico a seat at the table,” Torres told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview.

Becoming a U.S. state “would mean billions of dollars in new funding for Puerto Rico, both directly and indirectly. Directly from programs affected by statehood and indirectly from political representation, conferred by statehood,” he explained.

“If Puerto Rico had two senators and five members of Congress, it would be in an infinitely stronger position to claim its fair share of federal funding — there’s no substitute for direct representation,” he said.

“Representation matters … There are 29 programs that make up 86% of federal funding for states and statehood would mean greater funding for Puerto Rico and 11 of those programs,” such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and education, Torres added.

Torres believes that Biden’s approach to Puerto Rico’s future will be infinitely better than that of former President Donald Trump, who openly sparred with the island’s leadership after Hurricane Maria devastated the economy there in 2017.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Biden is going to treat Puerto Rico much more fairly than his predecessor ever did or could — but ultimately the status quo is failing Puerto Rico miserably,” said the congressman, who compared it to a colony.

“Puerto Rico is subject to the control of the United States without the ability to vote; that is the definition of colonialism” — which can only be corrected by statehood, Torres said.

Reggie Wade is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ReggieWade.

#DEREGULATION

Texas utility sues power grid operator over 'excessive' cold snap charges

FILE PHOTO: A neighborhood experiences a power outage after winter weather caused electricity blackouts in San Marcos

Gary McWilliams
Fri, March 12, 2021

(Reuters) - The largest city-owned utility in Texas on Friday sued the state's grid operator alleging it levied "excessive" power prices during a February deep freeze, and seeking to bar the grid from issuing a default that could affect its credit rating.

High prices for emergency fuel and power during a severe cold spell left Texas utilities facing about $47 billion in one-time costs. Those costs have led to two bankruptcies and knocked two other electric providers off the state's power grid because of payment defaults.


"We are fighting to protect our customers from the financial impacts of the systemic failure" of the state's grid operator, said Paula Gold-Williams, chief executive of San Antonio's municipal utility, CPS Energy.

CPS, which has some 820,000 electricity customers, faces about $1 billion in extraordinary charges for natural gas and electricity during a five day deep freeze last month.

COLD WEATHER CRISIS

The lawsuit alleges

 https://www.cpsenergy.com/content/dam/corporate/en/Documents/2021-03-12%20CPS%20Energy%20Original%20Petition%20w%20Ex%20A(117202625_1).PDF

 grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) mismanaged the cold weather crisis, and overcharged CPS Energy and others for power and services. It asked a Texas state court to prevent ERCOT from declaring it in default and to prevent ERCOT from charging CPS for other grid users' defaults.

An ERCOT spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit.

More than $3 billion in charges that ERCOT issued to grid users were in default as of Friday, a grid official said.

Credit rating firms this week cut their outlook on the utility's debt and warned of further downgrades as size of the costs become clearer.

Fitch Ratings lowered some ratings and placed a negative outlook on CPS Energy's long term debt while S&P Global said it could further cut debt ratings "one or more notches."

ERCOT officials hiked power prices by about 400 times the usual rate to $9,000 per megawatt for five days last month in an effort to bring in more power. State officials this week called on ERCOT and the utility regulator to cut those charges for high-price power for the 32-hour period after the grid emergency passed.

'EXCESSIVE' POWER COSTS

CPS Energy's lawsuit called ERCOT's handling of the crisis "one of the largest illegal wealth transfers in the history of Texas." It brought the complaint "to protect its customers from excessive and illegitimate power and natural gas costs," according to the lawsuit.

Just Energy Group this week filed for bankruptcy as result of high power charges. The state's largest and old cooperative, Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc, also filed for bankruptcy this month, citing $1.8 billion owed to ERCOT. Texas' rural cooperatives pool their power and service purchases to gain efficiencies of scale.

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Ted Cruz Mocked Again Over Cancun Trip As Texas Panhandle Faces Tornado Warning


By Lauren Dubois @l_dubois

03/13/21

Ted Cruz faced a lot of backlash after it was revealed he has flown to Cancun for a trip with his family as Texans struggled with freezing cold temperatures and power outages following winter storms, and now, with a new natural disaster and weather threat approaching the region, the senator is once again receiving heat for his previous actions.

As news of a weather system that could dump snow on Colorado and bring rain and a moderate risk of tornadoes to the Texas panhandle and Western Oklahoma began to circulate, Cruz, who was seen flying to Cancun during the state’s winter storms, quickly found himself ridiculed over his past behavior.

Cruz had gone to Cancun during the storms as his constituents struggled to survive in the freezing conditions, and quickly claimed he was only going down for a night to drop off his daughters who wanted to go. It was later revealed that he had planned to stay for a few days and his wife had also texted neighbors and friends to get them to go along with the family on their trip.

The current storm system has a threat of severe thunderstorms and potential tornados to areas of the panhandle, after a tornado already touched down in Lubbock, Texas on Friday night. According to the National Weather Service, parts of the area are under a Tornado Watch until 6:00 p.m. Central Time.

“A major storm system will bring heavy snow and blizzard conditions to parts of the central Rockies and High Plains through early Monday,” a statement from the NWS reads. “Scattered severe thunderstorms are expected across the Oklahoma and Texas Pandhandles, northwest Texas, and western Oklahoma this afternoon and evening. A few tornadoes, some strong, and very large hail are the main threats.”

According to Weather Nation, the Amarillo area is under the highest risk, which is a moderate one, while Lubbock and areas west heading into Oklahoma are under an enhanced risk. Slight risks extend up into Kansas and as far south as Sonora, while Wichita, Kansas and Del Rio are under marginal risks. General risks extend as far east as Austin and Dallas.

The Tornado potential is as high as 15% in Amarillo, with one small 30% chance near Abilene. A 30% chance of hail is also possible near Amarillo.

WOKE CAPITALI$M 
Social Capital
Mike Brady: 

Why Social Justice Isn’t Just Right

 – It’s Profitable!

IS COMPASSIONATE CAPITALI$M

By Chris Benguhe AND RaeAnne Marsh
02/25/21 IBT

After being at the helm of Greyston Bakery for several wildly successful years, Mike Brady is moving on to a broader arena. Photo: Greyston Bakery.

Mike Brady, successful business leader formerly of pioneering Greyston Bakery, believes being nonjudgmental in hiring is the right thing to do – and discusses how it creates a win-win-win for the employer.

As we continue to grow this Social Capital section, we turned our attention in January to kindness as a characteristic of successful business leaders making a difference in the business world. I t’s a key trait that is too often overlooked in importance when it comes to leadership skills nowadays. Does it sound out of place in business leadership? Too cutting-edge to be practical? Is it impossibly hard to find genuine examples of it?

Mike Brady is proof that it exists. After being at the helm of Greyston for several wildly successful years, he is moving on to a broader arena.


Mike exemplifies kindness in leadership -- leaders making decisions that follow the golden rule, treating people how we want to be treated, with humanity and respect.

In fact, Mike is so into this role for leadership that he interviewed us in-depth on our agenda regarding Social Capital before settling in to talk about his favorite subject: non-judgment. It’s a philosophy he practiced at Greyston, leading it to become the gold standard. As he is fond of explaining: “No questions asked, no background checks, no interviews, no references.” He remains a strong advocate for trusting in the power of people to be successful and giving everyone an equal chance at that.

In this interview, he shares his incredible journey of growth opportunities to “move the needle” on things he cares about within the context of the business world. “My core strength is being an entrepreneur. How can I use that strength in a different arena, trying to do good while doing well?” he asks – and shares what he has done and found along the way.

He makes very clear his commitment to being an example and a resource to help other business leaders create win-win-win dynamics throughout the supply chain, helping them understand where the value creation of this approach is.

As he explores the next steps for himself, personally, he discusses the tremendous opportunity he sees for the “S” in the ESG (environmental, social, governance) equation, which makes him all that much more appealing to us as and our Social Capital movement. His journey now is to find his footing in that space, working with organizations committed to social justice and helping them understand how they can create value. Their success furthers the opportunity to create equal access to jobs, which, he says, “will address a lot of the inequalities the American workforce is experiencing.”

VIDEO INTERVIEW

 https://www.ibtimes.com/mike-brady-why-social-justice-isnt-just-right-its-profitable-3150394

Africa Set For Growth With Rising Poverty, Debt In 2021: Forecast


By AFP News
03/12/21 

Africa's economy should return to growth in aggregate across the continent in 2021 after a coronavirus recession, the African Development Bank said Friday, while warning that poverty and public debt would continue to rise.

The 2.1-percent contraction of the pan-African economy in 2020 was the first recession in half a century, but should give way to expansion of 3.4 percent this year, the AfDB said in the 2021 edition of its African Economic Outlook report.

At 3.1 percent, the International Monetary Fund's forecast was less optimistic than the AfDB, whose mission is to fund investment in African countries and offer advice and technical assistance to development.

The development bank predicted the strongest rebound for economies like Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritius that depend on tourism, at 6.2 percent -- although their GDP fell the furthest last year.


Meanwhile oil and raw materials exporters like Algeria, Nigeria, Angola and South Africa should enjoy growth around three percent, and the continent's most diversified economies like Ethiopia and Ivory Coast rise by 4.1 percent, having already suffered a softer 2020 blow.

The AfDB report also highlighted that 39 million more people could slip below the extreme poverty threshold of $1.90 per day this year, up from an estimated 30 million last year.

The coronavirus hobbled African economies in 2020 but experts predict a return to growth this year Photo: AFP / JOHN WESSELS

A total of 465 million people in Africa could be affected by extreme poverty, one-third of the continent's population, in a setback after two decades of steady reductions.

Meanwhile "the pandemic shock and ensuing economic crisis have had direct implications for budgetary balances and debt burdens," the AfDB warned.

Deficits roughly doubled last year, to around 8.4 percent of GDP, while the average debt-to-GDP ratio on the continent is expected to surge by between 10 and 15 percentage points, to around 70 percent.

By December, 14 of 38 countries analysed for debt sustainability were judged "in high risk of debt distress", with 16 seen as moderate risk and just two at low risk.

"Serious debt challenges might be looming, and disorderly defaults and lengthy resolutions could become a major obstacle to Africa's progress toward prosperity," AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina wrote in the report.

"We need to address Africa's debt and development finance challenges, in partnership with the international community" and with private creditors, he added.

But Adesina also urged leaders to enact "bold governance reforms to eliminate all forms of leakages in public resources, improve domestic resource mobilisation, and enhance transparency".