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- Mats K
- Oslo
- Norway
This conversation is closed.
Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?
Most of the agriculture and industrial jobs are already phased out by machines. Over 70% of jobs and labor is currently to find in the service sector, but also this sector is being phased out and replaced by automation which means decreased purchasing power of the general public. Just take a look at this: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/08/20/Will-Robots-Cause-Mass-Unemployment-in-China.aspx#page1
Let's make an example as well. What exactly happens when people get automated by machines? They loose their jobs and need welfare to support themselves until they get a new job, if they ever do. But, where does welfare come from? It comes from tax payers. And do people on welfare pay taxes? They don't. So, what happens when everybody is on welfare due to automation and nobody pays taxes? This example is the reality in Michigan and the government there have been on the brink of shutting down due this exact issue. And we are beginning to see this never-ending spiral go out of control in the rest of the world. The trends are definitely there, but where's the solutions?
Is an economic collapse, in fact, an imminent event and a mathematical certainty, looking at the trends in Michigan and China? And is there a way out of this, looking at it in an economical perspective?
mike mclean
Sep 25 2012: I find automation a good thing and if leads to the end of the current system so be it.
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ronald davis
Sep 10 2012: I worked with computers all my life. Automation definitely decreases jobs. The people who own the machines will NOT share the wealth. They will simply keep the profits for themselves and toss the displaced workers aside.That is what the 99% do.Sep 17 2012: Perhaps unskilled workers will be paid to think. Perhaps automation will allow us to simply think, exercise and educate ourselves in sustainable behavior. It could be that economic innovation will provide the foundation for a truly humane global commerce policy, one that taxes each market transaction and distributes it according to real-time humanitarian needs.
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Sep 17 2012: I would say that for automation to do this to our society we would first have do develop better energy sources. Right now all economy is based around energy and for us to transition into a money less society energy need to be free and abundant....
I think we all dream of that day ;)
shawn disney
Sep 19 2012: Noa: You're quite right, but it is no dream. A perfectly safe, cheap, Green form of limitless energy production has already been invented and demonstrated, and right now, the Chinese are developing it further. I mean the forgotten nuclear powered airplane engine project from the Cold war: the Thorium LFTR power plant. Look it up on Youtube.
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Sep 19 2012: Cool, that sounds really good! But also a little dangerous having China sitting on all that energy?Sep 27 2012: I agree - the USA had a Thorium test reactor in the 1960's - why didn't it get developed further and provided cheap, sustainable, safe (no need to have a pressurised dome), with little radioactive waste? Answer - because the politicians wanted a Uranium/plutonium reactor to make BOMBS with! How's that for joined up thinking?
Energy is the answer to nearly all the worlds problems - so we need to get on with developing both Thorium and solar massive energy installations (both are sustainable and 'green')
jpSep 20 2012: You can't pay people in energy, especially if its cheap, then its not worth much. You have to pay people in money.
Money is of course, nothing special, just a medium of exchange that allow for dissimilar commodities to be valued according to a agreed upon formula.
It can be anything but the source must be controlled. If money were leaves, we would all be millionaires, but each individual leaf would be valuless because it grew on a tree.
So, if you are going to pay someone, they must do something of value to gain that pay.
If you are just going to put people on the dole, then you are creating a debt that must be paid back in the future by people who do work, or you can print more money and make each exisitng curency unit that much less valuable.
Every extinct civilization in th past has gone this route and crashed hard.
We are actually running the automation experiment in real time in our economy. We went from agrarian to industrial, to automation to globalization.
Global trade is just ofshore automation using cheap people rather than cheap machines but it has the same effect.
Automation taken to its ultimate conclusion leaves us with a population that has nothing to be paid for. You end up looking like Greece, where everyone is a cab driver or a barista.
Sep 20 2012: When you boss pays you a paycheck and you buy gas for your car, part of your paycheck was the energy that got you back and forth to work. So value of the paper money is equated in energy, food, cloths, comfort.... Indirectly, if paper is equal to those objects and conditions, you are being paid not only in energy, but solid forms of matter.
Gas is energy.
Really cheap energy and automated machines could create an environment where we just don't have to work anymore. Once your belly is full and the cloth is on your body, what do you care? Suddenly it's time for fun, games, education, parenting, hanging around with Socrates.
If money becomes worthless, we will just have to exchange our company with one another.
That could be much more fun than slaving away at the grind each and every day.
The only reason Greece needed money was to pay the soldiers to protect them. The slaves did all the work. If automated machines became like slaves, we could live like them. If there was nothing to be protected from, why would we need money?Sep 20 2012: "You can't pay people in energy, especially if its cheap, then its not worth much. You have to pay people in money."
No, you need energy to make/provide useful goods and services, you might as well pay people in units of energy. Money without energy is useless, energy without money works fine.Sep 27 2012: Ok, there is a really serious discussion point here - we see the economy / society from a very limited point of view. The real underlying issue (once the bots are doing everything in say 50 to 100 years or so), is RESOURCES ... call it the move from Capitalism to Resourcism.
Resources with continue to become scarcer (until we leave for the stars) and it is the share-out of these finite resources (including nice bits of land on which to live and play) that will be the main issue for the human race - this means new politics - and no-one is thinking about how we move on this yet, even though our children or certainly grandchildren will be faced with this move directly during their lives. Payment is likely to be made (as no one is working) by a 'share' of the resources, these are likely to be swappable and finite as they will reflect precise physical resources (so no inflation et al)
see - Capitalism vs Resourcism and new political structures
JPSep 20 2012: Noa: Luckily for all of us, just about every country in the world is "sitting on all that energy", if they would only wake up. Unlike oil and coal, Thorium is so plentiful, that it would not be worth fighting about. See Thorium Energy Alliance for more details, or Youtube. Right now, in the US, Thorium is a waste product they would pay you to take away.Sep 25 2012: That hasn't been my experience. I used to work in the IT center of a company that made automation products. At first, we were considered skilled for being mainframe operators. Then, as they expanded their IT system to include several server farms, the comm network, databases and apps, etc, we had the added responsibility of monitoring that as well as the mainframe, but we also got classed as unskilled labor, script followers. Unskilled labor aren't paid to think in the business world. They are paid to execute orders and follow rules.
Eventually, the whole dept was outsourced and all but four of us lost our jobs at the height of the recession. I'm still trying to find a job that will allow me to keep my house, but I fear that is not going to happen. The bank is going to get the house and I'll have to file for chapter 7 to avoid paying the difference of what they end up selling it for and what I mortgaged for.
Helen Hupe
Sep 11 2012: It means that we grow with the times. Somebody has to make the machinery, make the and design the software, etc.We have to have a different set of skills.
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Barry Palmer
Sep 4 2012: Suppose we automate the jobs no one wants to do, and let humans do the jobs that are interesting, creative, and fun. We could find ourselves enjoying sports, movies, hundreds of tv channels, more music than we could possibly listen to in one lifetime, building space ships, learning lots of things in universities, libraries and on the internet. Does this seem familiar?
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Sep 8 2012: Only problem is... We already have that, and there's still 10% unemployment.
Sep 8 2012: That is a problem, and IMO it will get worse before it gets better.
But eventually people will adapt to new jobs, largely in entertainment and service. The bad news is that many of these jobs will not be very challenging. The good news is that most of these jobs will not be onerous. A carpenter once explained that if you find yourself doing hard physical work, you are not using the right tool. And when we are not doing our jobs, our leisure time will be much more fun, like here at TED.
shawn disney
Sep 9 2012: Barry: the real problem is that there has never been and never will be any mechanism to guarantee that everyone who wants to work will find a job available. Except, that is, for the Nepotism factor: people who can afford it want to find jobs for their friends and relations, if only to keep them out of trouble. Now with automation and robots, we have to consider what to do with all the "unemployed", the number of which can only increase if Industrialism is doing its job, which is to put "Labor" out of work.. It is a common feeling that people who don't contribute anything to the economy don't deserve much sympathy, unless they are handicapped in some way. Well, we are going to have to get used to the idea that the non-existence of "jobs" is a handicap. Wealthy people have always gotten a pass on all this; no one accuses them of being lazy, etc. So I guess what it comes down to is that we as a society will have to get used to practicing Nepotism for everyone, without feeling remorseful.
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In former times, it would be possible to say that we "can't afford" this. But since the invention of unlimited cheap Thorium Power, it is clearly in the cards that such a limitation in only political. The real idea of Socialism is not that far from Nepotism: you want to take care of the people you care about, un-economic or not. And as Proudhon said "Property is Theft", an extreme statement, but which doesn't imply confiscation, only fairness.Oct 1 2012: Automation will lead to economic efficiency...
Oct 1 2012: for some time that is a true statement... but i guess the question has to do with the extreme scenario... when all manufacturing jobs are replaced by machines... who is the consumer for the products? even if their manufacturing is done at 99% efficiency?
Oct 1 2012: still holds
Oct 1 2012: Indeed Krisztian, economic efficiency still holds, but doesn't the consumer base shrink with automation?
John Smith
Oct 1 2012: "Indeed Krisztian, economic efficiency still holds, but doesn't the consumer base shrink with automation?"
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No, Murray Rothbart and Ayn Rand will rise from the dead and magically create new jobs for all those people.Oct 1 2012: nope. consumers don't go anywhere. don't buy keynesian crap. not the cart pushes the horse.
Oct 1 2012: I was not thinking about Keynesian crap. I was in Mexico when computer manufacturing moved from the USA there, and I was also there when the same manufacturing moved from Mexico to China. In both cases, for a period of time, there was a shift from manufacturing to services, but the number of people employed was always less after the manufacturing sector was replaced with the service sector.
If anything, automation would tend to shrink the service sector too... I trust that the human ingenuity is tremendous... but I don't buy on the idea that it can keep creating new economy sectors foreverOct 1 2012: if you focus on short term changes, you might come up with the idea that the sun is lower and lower every day, since it goes down every day.
the fact is still this: every job taken over by machines were replaced by other jobs. we have no reason to believe that it will ever stop.
Oct 1 2012: The invisible hand, uh?Oct 1 2012: exactly. supply and demand always clears on an undisturbed free market.
Oct 1 2012: like in the case of (insert country name here)...
I promise you, I am willing to be proven wrong, i just have never seen proof of the invisible hand in actionOct 1 2012: As Andres said: the question at hand here is not productivity, it's what happens to the people who used to be workers.
Leslie Bray
Oct 1 2012: People who used to be workers find employment in providing new products and services. Human needs are infinite. All parties gain. Consumers gain by increased spending power, Businesses gain by staying in business, Price competition drives price to lowest possible that still makes the process of providing the good or service worth while. Profits above the minimum can only be achieved through Innovation (Joseph Schumpeter) Innovation leads to the creation of new products and services that leads to new employment opportunities.
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Oct 1 2012: There you go!
Steve Saylor
Oct 1 2012: As long as we stay in our current economic system, automation leads to collapse. No jobs or income? Then we can't sustain the "vicious cycle of consumption". If we change our economic system, automation can free us, can end the starvation and wars. We can manage our resources intelligently (a resource based economy), and get rid of all the occupations and careers which are no longer relevant. We believe that our current system is "real", and has to continue. But it's just a fictional money game that has run its course. Watch "Money In The Future" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NAxSYF1SAk
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Oct 1 2012: interesting video. I thought I was the only guy thinking that the world could / should progress towards this kind of world.
I do disagree with the later parts but it's a nice conceptual video. I don't want to believe that the monitairy system is evil (like the video somewhat shows).
Oct 1 2012: ... it NOToptional - the future won't exist for most people (ie the rest die) unless we follow this path - no other conceivable options, to understand why see the 'story' (always an interesting perspective looking back from the future).
Capitalism – Level 2 history notes Nov 25th 2199
cheers JP
Andy Kelly
Sep 27 2012: Everyone relates automation to labor, and yes, it is part of the picture. But it needs to be equated to efficiency. Labor reduction is a small part of the justification of a new machine, let's say, in a manufacturing environment. You have quality consistency, space reduction, and less downtime. You also still have the employment of programmers and operators. Point being, just because there is a reduction in labor does not mean it harms our economy. It puts our businesses in a better position to be competitve. Therefore, the business improves and grows creating economy.Sep 25 2012: This is a tricky subject for me. I can understand the negative consequences of automation. I think you did a great job of highlighting the issue here Mats...so thank you for that.
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As you stated Mat...about a displacement to the service sector. These are generally low paying jobs with little possibility for advancement. This result is concerning as we would ultimately like an employment climate that gravitates towards more high paying careers.
However, if the service sector is booming the jobs must be filled. The fact that people are finding employment is a positive. We obviously want a more progressive state for our society. However, I think we sometimes get confused with the real issues.
The current problem is really about education, government policy, and peoples general attitude. None of this is the fault of anybody in particular. I don't think it is healthy to blame anybody for our current state.
If progression is our target then moving forward is the only positive state.
I don't like to post things like this without solutions. Doing so would probably just make me look like a preacher.
1) Let's talk about education!
I think there's much debate about degree over certification or trade. This disparity is an illusion and we need not pay attention to it.
That being said...what you should pay attention to is what you are good at. What are you really good at?
I think it's important to focus on such things because if you don't realize what your good at....come on...how do you realize your potential?
Once you have a subject that makes you feel good inside...go to it. If you utilize passion your every move will be full of energy and desire. This is a necessity...don't look past it as a "hippie concept" :)
As far as degree over certification...just do what's necessary. If you want to be a doctor...guess what?
Just my opinions.
Great post Mats.
neil cheney
Sep 24 2012: The economy has already collapsed! Automation has speeded up the process!!
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John Smith
Sep 14 2012: "Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?"
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It will most likely bring us to the brink of collapse, but doesn't necessarily have to push us over it. Automation is a blessing and we screw that through our current economic system which is the actual problem. A smart society would take advantage of automation by making people work less hours for the same wage to make everyone happier. A stupid society let's half the people work just as many hours as they used to, fires the other half to let them die in the gutter and translates the gain in efficiency into mulit million executive bonuses. It's clear which category our current society falls in, but it doesn't have to stay like that forever.Sep 14 2012: It is a natural evolution of our species to develop technology and utilize it. People who do not recognize technological automation as a exponentially increasing real thing, need to wake up. As if we are going to stop at the scientific calculator or the iphone. Not only that, but productivity is inverse to employment, so it's irresponsible for us not to try and mechanize and automate wherever possible. Instead, we have an economic system that inhibits this progress by requiring people to perform obsolete tasks, essentially modern day slavery. As for technology creating new jobs, what is everyone going to be working at Facebook just to keep this stupid labor for income 'game' going. Where are the Da Vinci's and Einstein's of our time? I'll tell you, they are serving Subway sandwiches and poking people on Facebook! So to answer your question, will automation lead to an economic collapse? Yes, the collapse is coming, if it hasn't hit already. You look in the news and what do you see everyday, 500 jobs cut here, 3000 jobs cut here.. This is a downward spiral because less people working means less people buying things to keep the economy going. Eventually the majority of people on this planet will be unemployed because corporations are liable to one thing only - profit. Once that happens, a globally conscious effort will need to be made by every individual to change to a more sustainable and humane economic system. Hopefully one without money or credits.Sep 13 2012: We should also consider the fact that automation has also led to the creation of new jobs as in the software development industry, and not forgetting the jobs that has been created by the internet and online platforms(design/content etc).
Maybe automation leads to a metamorphosis of jobs and not necessarily loss of jobs.
Bill Miller
Sep 13 2012: The ultimate purpose of automation is to save money -- and eliminating labor costs is the major area of savings. If automation didn't produce a net reduction in labor costs, no one would bother to do it.
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Sep 13 2012: The much migger impact of automation is to make human life better, and in some cases to make it more secure. Would you rather harvest crops by hand, mine with hand tools, fly to space with analog systems, and clean up radioactive waste yourself? There many more such examples, but when automation comes into play most of them are handles by machines efficiently and securely.
Sep 14 2012: That's not how it works currently: the multi billion multinational corporation that has to decide whether or not to implement some form of automation doesn't give a rat's ass about making human life better, so in practice automation only happens when it reduces costs.Sep 19 2012: John: But the whole history of the Industrial Revollution for 400 years shows that it DOES reduce costs.Sep 14 2012: There will certainly be jobs created for mechanical engineers and programmers, which are highly skilled professions. A handful of college graduates will replace hundreds of uneducated laborers. This might not lead to collapse, but will certainly widen the gap between rich and poor.Sep 12 2012: No. Because machines do not have magic in them, they are made by designers, engineers, computer scientists who work hard to make them happen. I believe it is nature of human civilization to make some type of jobs obsolete and to bring new ones into life. Even if machines we have are reducing the need for human factor in industrial jobs, there more types of new jobs that require human knowledge and thinking.
Metro MG
Sep 13 2012: While this sounds good on paper, it doesn't hold up in reality. One technician can easily fix several machines in a day. By this logic, the number of computer scientists that exist will always be greater than the number of computer scientists required to keep the machines running.
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Sep 13 2012: Technician is not necessarily a computer scientist, and fixing machines is very small part of what people have to do with them. Engineers and scientist are needed for many more purpuses that just maintaining existing architecture. It's ok if you think in terms of individual products, but know that behind each product there is hard work of hundreds of people. More specifically in software industry, each great project requires continious collaboration of thousands of individuals to keep up the developnent to fulfill ever changing demands. That is what happens in reality.
Sep 14 2012: I hope, but do not think, that you're right. If it takes a hundred day laborers to work a field, a dozen technicians can do it. Once that system is refined, it scales to other fields easily, instead of needing to find more unskilled workers by the truckload.
Regardless of the demand for programmers and roboticists, the uneducated poor will never have a chance to join these elite. Free, universal, quality education is still a pipe dream. As efficiency goes up, we might have enough food for everyone (I doubt it), and we certainly won't have enough work.Sep 11 2012: Automation will succeed if and only if the government assumes the initial development of structures and education. In an fully automated society education will be the main resource humans would fill. If we build new cities that are autonomous, with energy and resources, Arts and Science would be our main focus. What do we learn at College? You get a BS or a BA, there is our answer, Education!
Mats K
Sep 11 2012: How would this fit in the current socioeconomic system though?
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Sep 11 2012: That is the problem, our current socioeconomic system is wrong. The Chinese would of been the conquerors of the world but the Emperor recalled the ships when they reached South Africa. Why? So the money would be used to feed the Nation. If we build a whole city with fish farms, indoor gardens and the like, we will benefit in the long run. If the government taxes us for the "poor" well wouldn't it be better to make a productive city for those that need. That would be a start. Once that is in motion our production levels rise. Eventually money as we know it should disappear and a Resource society should arise!
Sep 11 2012: The problem is that the government isn't going to take any initiative nor will the corporations who finance them (and the media) allow anyone to take the initiative. They'll continue to find a way to profit from the situation. It's really up to the people in general to take the initiative to rearrange their own lives to become more community minded and teach essentials like permaculture to their own children and neighbors. The corporate run media isn't going to advertise consciousness for us. We each have to pitch in and do a little ourselves. Finding movements that promote a permacultural lifestyle helps, not joining just one, but all movements that promote sustainability. Using social media to raise consciousness, using the web, and just practicing it in your daily life and 'being the change you want to see in the world' so your friends can see for themselves that the old system is obsolete. Eliminate your debts, don't go into debts, do without what you can't afford and adopt a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to repair, recycle and repurpose waste is a start. Trade with those who are out of work before you buy something new or go to a corporate run service. Use craigslist to find and offer work. Use food or things you own or services instead of currency, before you buy from Waltard. We use old Silk Yogurt containers to store food rather than buy new Tupperware. We haul recyclables to town when we go. We barely have a full trashcan for the trash guys even when we skip a week's pickup. Compost your food scraps. My girl helps at a food pantry in exchange for food that would normally get thrown out. Did you know that Kroger now composts their old produce rather than give it to the local food pantries? How wasteful is that? But that's the corporate mindset. We have to do this ourselves. The government is a joke and we're all the butts. They will continue to spoonfeed hope while accomplishing nothing.Sep 9 2012: It will definitely change the economy. It will eliminate jobs that less educated people would be applying for, and in my opinion, the best way to fix that is to make college free.
We have free education up until the end of high school - and we're given just enough education to be slaves... to shut up and flip the burgers and mop the floors. Why is it we have to pay thousands of dollars to get 4-6 more years? Imagine the benefit to society overall if everyone had a full college education. Right now, only the wealthy can afford it. So only the wealthy get jobs. If you take out a student loan, you don't get enough to finish. When you do you start your career in horrible debt. Most scholarships are only for a year or two.
The coming technological unemployment mandates free higher education. That education can come in the form of recorded classes online. Colleges spend outrageous money on their lavish buildings. The cost of running free online courses is minimal in comparison - and the benefits are priceless.
Imagine someone becoming a doctor because they care about healing the sick, instead of becoming a doctor so they can buy a yacht (not always the case - but tell me it doesn't happen). I learned my business on my own - no schooling - just the library and the internet. Imagine if the knowledge found here was organized into something the average person didn't have to stumble through for 10 years to find! How much would that really cost when you compare it to paying out unemployment benefits with money that isn't being earned because there are no jobs to tax?
scott lee
Sep 9 2012: I see 2 main problems with increased automation.
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One is runaway productivity, as Tres English explained earlier in the thread.
The other is centralization of wealth. Excessive wealth centralization is dangerous for the economy. People often argue that jobs will move to the service industry, but if all the wealth is moved to a tiny fraction of the population, how many jobs could there possible be to serve them? I don't see any solution to the dilemma. Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, but over the last 40 years people have had to work more and more to get by. There was a time when a single income family could own there own home and raise 4 kids. Now both parents have to work, people put in more overtime, go into student debt just to get a job and are no farther ahead.
Something needs to change so that when robots do the work for us we can celebrate and relax, instead of having to work harder to get by.
Sep 9 2012: today we have bill gates. but walmarts and tescos all around the world does not sit tight waiting for bill gates to finally walk in. people cooperate with each other, work for each other.
you have a total unrealistic view of the world or of the future. wealth does not concentrate in few hands. maybe it does in percentage. but the total sum of wealth in poor people's hands also increasing. that is the direct consequence of markets: in an exchange, both parties benefit. in a capitalist future, there might be some super rich that makes trillions of dollars. but the average fella also will have more than today.
Sep 9 2012: I'm glad you brought up Walmart, since it is a perfect example of my point. People who work at walmart don't make enough money to support their families. Poor people in north america are not better off than they were 40 years ago. They are poorer if you account for inflation and have to work more to survive.
Sep 9 2012: how much they make?Sep 9 2012: I know someone who works at walmart, he makes just over 10 dollars an hour in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.
Sep 9 2012: poor guys. i make 15. senior computer programmer with 10 years experience, budapest, hungary.
scott lee
Sep 9 2012: I don't know what the cost of living is in budapest.
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Let me ask you this, could you support a wife, 2 children, buy a home, pay for the kids education and have enough to retire? That's what my father did with a grade 12 education. This is what I mean when I say that the middle class is in fact not richer than a generation ago.
Sep 9 2012: now wait a second. nobody said you are richer than a generation ago. i said the free markets bring progress. you don't have that now. not since the "progressive" era gradually destroyed it. this fall in real wages is a very nice example why we don't need government interventions. you will see more of it.Sep 9 2012: The state of affairs reminds me of a turn of the 20th century communist prescription to capitalism's future. "You can't fix a problem with thinking that allowed the problems to start."" New evils must be fought with new innovation" Who are you, Krisztian, to say someone has a total unrealistic view of the world? How does wealth justify the suffering and injustices classes of wealth creates? People's whole value system and goals in life have a dollar sign attached or some material object to be cyclically consumed and not the real intrinsic value of quality, thoughtful consideration to posterity, and self-fulfillment we all owe ourselves before we die. The average fella is gonna keep taking whatever the government will give him as he's getting workied more and more to maintain profits in the face of automation until we experience economic meltdown or continued wars from failure to adapt.
Sep 9 2012: it is kind of a pity that these false statements are around for 150 years refuted. so what do i do? give up, for if 150 years was not enough, we have no hope? depressing. or should i just open up any web page refuting marxism, and copy-and-paste stock answers to these stock questions? or should, as i used to, try to find some entertainment value for myself in trying new ways to shine light on things. but i find less and less satisfaction in it.
Sep 9 2012: "but i find less and less satisfaction in it."
Tired of talking to yourself?
Me thinks that some are awake and most ain't...Sep 9 2012: Only a couple problems with your history lesson. The internet wasn't available until recently. Since change in technology is happening exponetially, the current economic model can't keep up. I'm all for free enterprise and capitalism but it's current condition is riddled with corruption and in the fact can't keep up with the imbalance of collapsing demand due to the death of competition.
l aresu
Sep 10 2012: i do agree so much with you scott, and your fears are mine and many many million people around the world. if you don't have read it already have a look at jeremy rifkin's "the end of work" that deals exactly with this topic and gives a gleam of hope. i'm worried as you're about an excess of automation as i don't believe that there is a solution with mass-employment in view of the loss of so many working places. my parents have greatly enhanced their living conditions compared to the condition of my grandparents. they'd got better salary, incredibly more rights (as payed vacation, they were payed if they got ill ecc..) while i belong to a generation that's swimming in a swamp, with little or no guaranties at all, nor for working conditions nor for retirement, it's the first generation since many decades where the sons get it worse than their parents.Sep 3 2012: Yes automation will contribute to the next collapse. The question is who benefits and who suffers from the collapse.
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The benefits will always fall to those individuals whose fortunes remain through limited liability and/or taxpayer bailout money. These are the players in "national" and "global" economies. After the collapse they seize the opportunity to exploit the newly expanded and increasingly desperate work force. Isn't globalization beautiful!
A more pressing question is where does all this leave local economies?Sep 3 2012: We will find something new where human involvement will be needed.....
This fear was always there through out the history as human civilization evolved....


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A Retro-Inspired Wedding Video by Kiss the Bride Films (Saturday Cinema)
There's nothing we like more on a Saturday than to kick back and relax, and we're adding entertainment (and lots of love) with this highlight reel with a retro vibe. We love Mayra and Aja's "hacienda glam" style (the metallic color palette is stunning!) for their NYC wedding. Check out how their whole wedding day went down:
> See Photos From Mayra and Aja's Bright Fiesta Themed Wedding

subset: commoncrawl


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On October 18, fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett will be making a rare appearance at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.The man who once said "I wouldn't pay more than a couple of quid to see me, and I'm me" will be promoting his fiftieth book Snuff. This time around, fan favourite Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh Morpork City Watch is caught up in a murder-mystery while on holiday.
http://bricksandbooks.co.uk/2011/an-eve ... pratchett/


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From May 1st 2008 to Dec 31st 2010 we have collected many books in three languages.
La Rosa Donation Counter
Total Donations to date: 3,076
Over two thousand books donated since Dec 2008!!!
- 2,791 English for their English program
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Donate a Book Now!
"Thank you for helping us repeatedly exceed our goals for donations! As a result we have now expanded the program to five schools. We are hoping to maintain this level of donation throughout the new year."
Our objective for the book donation program is to:
- To obtain significant literature and school supplies suitable to benefit the more needy schools in the Alajuela District.
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- The goal for Oct 1st 2010 is 1,000 more books, CDs, DVDs etc…
The "one wall" library for 702 students at Maurilio Soto Alfaro School. This school has Spanish and English program.
School Eligibility Requirements:
To receive donations the recipient school MUST be:
- A public school, not private.
- To have demonstrated need for the type (language) of books being donated.
- To demonstrate both the ability/storage and the interest to maintain the books in a proper and safe manor.
Progress to date:
Two schools in the Montecillos district, five kilometers from our Hotel in La Garita received the following books:
Escuela José de San Martín (Barrio San José)
- 400 English for their English program
- 25 Spanish for general use
275 books donated on 2011:
- Various Languages
Liceo San José de Alajuela Grade 7-11
- 50 English books (young teen level)
- 3 French for general use
Gregorio José Ramírez School Grade 1-12
- Various Languages
- 150 English for their English program
- 25 French for their French program
- 20 Spanish for general use
- They received a large box full of pens, paper, erasers, glue, rulers, crayons, workbooks etc…
- 122 English for their English program
- 18 Spanish for general use
- 0 French as this school has no French program
- 400 English for their English program
- 25 Spanish for general use
- 300 English for their English program
- 80 Spanish for general use
195 books donated on Nov 28th, 2008:
Maurilio Soto Alfaro School Grade 1-7
School supplies donated on May 2009:
140 books donated on Nov 28th, 2008:
Escuela Ambiente Lista El Roble


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Long time Vette contributor Dave Walters (Q&A) has owned, repaired, restored, raced, driven, and judged countless Corvettes since his love affair with Chevy's flagship sports car began more than 30 years ago. Like most Corvette enthusiasts he has developed a particular passion for rare, high-performance models and for unrestored, original specimens. He calls especially sweet examples of either-cars that have not been butchered, cobbled together from cast away junk, or misrepresented as something they never were-"The Truth."
Dave's collection includes a number of super-nice Corvettes, each of which is, of course, the truth. While each of those cars has a story to tell, and is special in its own way, this Ermine White '67 coupe is undoubtedly the most special, hence the most truthful of all. That's because it was originally built with option L88, which found its way into only 20 '67 Corvettes. The surviving members of that elite group, including Dave's documented coupe, are in effect the holy grails of Corvette collecting.
What exactly is the L88 option and why is it so desirable to collectors? In short, RPO L88 is the option code Chevrolet chose to designate a package of ultra high-performance components that transformed an otherwise ordinary Corvette into an absolutely ferocious production class road race machine.
The heart of the package was the engine, a potent 427 that produced well in excess of 500 horsepower. It was built around the same four bolt main cast iron block used with the L71 427/435, but that's where the similarities ended. For starters, L88s got a special forged crankshaft that was cross-drilled for better oiling and Tuftrided to improve surface hardening.
Forged aluminum pistons topped with massive power domes were linked to the crank via forged steel connecting rods. At their small ends the rods wore full floating piston pins, while at the big ends more durable Moraine 400 bearings took advantage of the harder crank surface.
The camshaft used solid lifters to eliminate valve float at very high rpm. The cam's specifications more closely resembled a race unit than anything Chevy had ever sold for street.
The valves were as large as possible given combustion chamber design; the intakes measured 2.19 inches and 1.88 inches on the exhaust side. The valves were made from steel, but the cylinder heads they rode in were cast at Winters Foundry from aluminum alloy. This dramatically reduced weight, slicing more than 60 pounds off the normally too heavy nose of a big-block car.
An aluminum intake manifold with rectangular shaped ports matched the identically shaped induction ports in the heads. The intake was essentially the same as was found on '66 L72 427/425-horse engines with one notable exception-when destined for an L88 the intake plenum was cut out. By removing this divider beneath where the carburetor sat engineers gave up some low speed driveability but gained slightly better high rpm performance.
The carb was a Holley unit, set up to move 830 cfm of air. Again, it was very similar to the one utilized on the previous year's L72 engine with one major difference-on L88s the carb did not include a choke mechanism. Though this made cold starts something of a chore, it was entirely in keeping with the fact that the L88 was never intended for daily driving chores.
Crowning the magnificent powerplant was a totally unique air cleaner arrangement. The air filter itself was actually retained in a fiberglass housing bonded to the underside of the hood. It mated with a steel base fastened to the carburetor. Relatively cool, clean air was ingested by the hood through openings cut into its rear at the high pressure area beneath the windshield cowl. The outside air was then channeled through a fiberglass tunnel integral to the hood, passed through the air cleaner element, and sent into the carb.


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New York Yorkie™ Barbie® Accessory Pack
The Barbie® Fashion Model Collection presents New York Yorkie™, an accessory pack that's perfect for urban outings with a girl's best friend! The adorable Yorkshire terrier — Miss Honey™ — comes with a sueded brushed tricot tan and white dog carrier and a matching tan collar. Chic accessories for Barbie® doll include a purse, bracelet and sunglasses, a printed charmeuse scarf, ankle boots, stiletto heels, strappy sandals, and a sueded brushed tricot belt with a golden buckle. Everything a stylish canine lover needs for a jaunt with her precious pooch!
For the adult collector.
Production doll may vary from the photo shown above. Mattel reserves the right to modify the fashion/fabrics, sculpt, hair color/style, and accessories. Doll cannot stand alone as shown.


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Find hotels in Atoka using the list and search tools below. Search for cheap and discounted hotel and motel rates in or close to Atoka, TN for your personal leisure or group travel. We list the best Atoka Tennessee hotel/motel rooms. Review the Atoka hotel list below to find the perfect lodging. We also have a map of the Atoka hotels. Booking 5+ Rooms? Find Atoka Group Hotel DealsThe Atoka center point is approximately 7 miles from Millington Regional Jetport Airport and 14 miles from Memphis Motorsports Park.
Atoka Hotels & Accommodations
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Subtotal: $26.45
Items in Cart: 5
Ornately crafted, this gorgeous pair shimmers with open filigree detailing. This stunning pair of earrings is crafted in 18K yellow gold embraced sterling silver and feature gorgeous scrollwork and bead detailing. The earrings measure 1-3/4"L x 1/8"W and secure with butterfly backs.
About the Design:
Referred to as "half bali" design that is commonly worn and created with other designs such as flower, leafs, and swirls. The ornate work and outer beads are called 'jaali bali', inspired by a crescent moon over the Taj Mahal on a clear midnight sky.
From the Jaipur Jewelry Bazaar™ Collection. Made in China.
Earring Back Types
Butterfly Back: A double looped piece resembling a butterfly that fits over a post. Variations on this design are called push back clasps. The basic post and butterfly back are usually used for stud earrings and lighter weight drop earrings.
Hinged Snap Backs: This clasp features a hinged post that snaps into a groove on the back of the earring. It is commonly found on hoops. Sometimes the hinged post is curved to provide more room to fit around the ear, sometimes called a saddleback.
Hook Backs: This earring backing is simply a long, bent post that fits through the piercing. Hooks have several variations, most notably the shepherd's hook and the French hook. While thin wire hooks reduce the weight of long earrings, making them more comfortable, they aren't as secure as other clasp styles.
Lever Back: A hinged lever snaps shut against the curved post to form a closed loop around the ear lobe. This clasp is very secure and good for large or medium sized styles that drop just below the ear.
Omega: Also called French clips, this clasp has a straight post and a looped lever. The hinged lever closes around the post and is held against the ear with pressure. The omega clasp is the most secure clasp, especially for the larger, heavier earrings.
Screw back: This backing is a slight variation of the standard post and butterfly nut back. Instead of pushing on the back, the nut twists onto the threaded post. A screw back post design is often preferred for expensive diamond stud earrings that require increased security.
Vermeil Plating:
Pronounced "vermay," vermeil is an electroplating process in which 14K gold or higher is coated over sterling silver. Officially designated by the jewelry industry, items may only be sold as vermeil if they have a minimum thickness of 100 millionths of an inch (2.5 microns) of gold over the silver. Regular gold plating is less than 2.5 microns.
The "vermeil" technique of plating sterling silver with gold originated in France in the 1750s. It differs from "gold filled" or "gold plated" in terms of the thickness or thinness of the microns over sterling silver. "Gold filled" pieces have a much thicker layer, between 15 and 45 microns, which is mechanically bonded to the base metal with heat and pressure. Vermeil is a more expensive version of "gold plated". It does not wear off as quickly as gold plating does. However, over time, vermeil wears off and therefore will require re-plating.
Gold/Platinum Embraced Silver or Bronze:
Our platinum and gold embraced collections feature layers of platinum or gold over sterling silver or bronze for a lustrous, radiant finish everywhere you look and touch.
To care for your plated jewelry items:


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Budget wars, activism, uprising, dissent and general rabble-rousing.
Activists are participating in hundreds of nationwide protests on Monday against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
The State Department released a long-awaited environmental review of the pipeline Friday that found the project would have a "negligible impact" on climate change, a decision that bolsters the case for the controversial project.
The pipeline would ship 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
<>Environmentalists and advocates were quick to point out that the State Department's inspector general is conducting an inquiry into whether the contractor tasked with the study, Environmental Resources Management, failed to disclose recent work it did for TransCanada, the company proposing to build the pipeline, which would be an obvious conflict of interest.
"The release of the new report will be a green light to escalate our efforts," May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, said to the Los Angeles Times. "This fight got started at the national level when 1,253 people got arrested in front of the White House. We expect many more people will take part in civil disobedience and take to the streets before this fight is over."
Hundreds of No KXL protest vigils are scheduled to take place all across the country on Monday. The events are organized by CREDO, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, 350.org, The Other 98%, Center for Biological Diversity, Oil Change International, Bold Nebraska, Energy Action Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Hip Hop Caucus, Overpass Light Brigade, Environmental Action, League of Conservation Voters, Waterkeeper Alliance, Friends of the Earth, Forest Ethics, Forecast the Facts and others.
"This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to send the message to President Obama that Keystone XL fails his climate test and he must reject it," the consortium said.
Furthermore, farmers and ranchers in Nebraska who opposed the pipeline are planning to run for seats on a state board that regulates power stations that are needed along the project route, the AP reports, and national activists say they have recruited more than 75,000 volunteers willing to participate in civil disobedience.
"We've said from the beginning that we will support the landowners and what they want to do and what they think is best for their property. I think you'll see some landowners driving really slow on their county roads to block the [pipeline] trucks," said Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska.
In addition to Monday's protests, activists plan to stage "pipeline meet-ups" throughout February to encourage people to raise the pipeline issue with candidates in the 2014 elections. Activists are also waiting on a decision from a Nebraska judge on a lawsuit challenging a state law that allowed the project to proceed. That ruling is expected by late March.
According to Kleeb, 115 landowners in Nebraska are still refusing to sign agreements with TransCanada and would also be willing to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience if the company tries to lay pipe through their land.
"We will make sure folks know that we have not gone away, that we are still fighting this pipeline," Kleeb said to the AP.
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One of Monday's scheduled protests is being organized by Olympic Climate Action in Port Angeles, Washington. In a statement, the group quoted NASA scientist James Hansen as saying extracting the fossil fuels in the Alberta tar sands means "game over" for the climate.
"We are for a sustainable world, one where all people, both now and into the future, have access to a decent livelihood. There is work to do conserving energy and producing it more sustainably. We cannot let the oil age preclude a future for our descendants," the group said in its statement.
"It's really an overwhelming problem. Coming together as a group is more successful than sitting around worrying about it," said Ed Chadd, a founding member of the action group.
Read Next: Zoë Carpenter on the controversy surrounding the Keystone XL environmental review.
Nationwide, school districts are closing schools and laying off teachers in great numbers as part of sweeping budget cuts. Children in Philadelphia and Chicago have seen many of their schools shuttered and are now forced to commute longer distances, sometimes through dangerous gang territories, to reach the schools that remain open.
The Anchorage School District just announced the latest round of austerity measures, including plans to cut 219 positions (administration, support staff and classroom teachers) for the next school year. The plan includes laying off 159 teachers: forty-seven from elementary schools, thirty-five from middle schools and thirty-three from high schools and alternative schools. Another forty-four positions are being terminated because of a projected decline in enrollment.
Over the past four years, the district has reduced its work force by about 419 positions, not including the newly announced cuts. District administrators are working with a $566 million operating budget for the 2014–15 school year, $23 million short of the funds the district says it needs.
And the budget shortfall is likely to worsen, with an estimated budget gap of $9 million in the 2015-2016 school year, Alaska Dispatch reports, adding that the district's money troubles allegedly stem from flat funding and rising healthcare costs.
Funding shortfalls have been the new norm the past five years. A $25 million budget deficit for the current school year was closed by spending some of the district's budget reserves and making cuts to support staff and classroom supplies. Teaching positions were not included in the cuts for the 2012-2013 school year.
District officials blame active medical and retiree medical expenses for bleeding the district dry.
"It's not uncommon for employees' health care costs to see increases in the double-digit percentages on an annual basis," Mark Foster, the district's chief financial officer said. In order to compensate for exploding healthcare costs, the district is asking employee unions to pay even higher portions of the cost.
Alaska Dispatch notes that, while Governor Parnell is quick to boast about the strong state of Alaska's economy and tout state plans to invest in a gas pipeline project, he fails to mention the billion-dollar deficits the state faces, and the tax system that previously "plowed billion-dollar surpluses from oil production taxes into the treasury."
"Parnell and the Republican-led Legislature slashed that tax regime early last year in favor of a tax cut worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the state's major oil producers, BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp," reports Alaska Dispatch.
Meanwhile, Superintendent Ed Graff says the budget cuts are the "best we can offer our students with limited resources."
The district claims teacher positions are being cut due to declining student enrollment, a trend that's projected to continue into the next year.
Graff notes that the staff reductions are unlike anything he has seen in twenty-three years with the district.
In order to offset the loss of teachers and in an attempt to balance classroom sizes, the district is proposing shifting high schools from a six-period to a seven-period schedule.
The budget also calls for the elimination of high school swimming classes (which won't affect after-school swimming and diving, according to the district), a $1.3 million cut in supplies and materials and a $170,000 cut from high school sports, savings generated in part by outsourcing girls' hockey. The district also said it is looking at raising student activity fees by 10 percent. It will match federal reductions to JROTC programs, to the tune of $140,000.
Tam Agosti-Gisler, the school board president and a former teacher, says she's received a slew of angry calls from teachers.
"They see this as a devaluation of the incredibly difficult work that they do," she said. "But we're always looking out for the best interests of our students. I think that's always been the case for educators."
Tim Fitzpatrick, an Anchorage parent with a daughter in kindergarden, moved to Alaska from Philadelphia, a city infamous for poorly funded public education and school closings. Fitzpatrick told the Anchorage Daily News, sending his children to public schools in Philadelphia was, "just not an option," and while he's happy with his daughter's education in Anchorage so far, he's concerned the cuts announced Tuesday are a bad sign of things to come.
"If our schools aren't one of our main priorities for the state, I'm not sure what is," he said.
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Andy Holleman, president of the Anchorage Education Association, recently announced to educators, "We're at the beginning of a multi-front battle that will play out over the next four months…. Our top priority is adequate funding, as that solves the most problems, and has the greatest positive impact on students. As it stands, funding is shrinking the opportunities and resources (educators being the most important one) available to students."
"Members of the public are waking up to the severity of the changes…. Despite the marvellous PR job being done by certain folks, Alaska still has money and they still have choices," Holleman adds, "One of their choices over the past four years has been to sideline education. As the legislature convenes in an election year, we are not powerless in this fight, but it will be a fight."
Read Next: Greg Kaufmann on members of Congress meeting with the poor.
Around thirty-two people were arrested Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, including Representative Charles Rangel and nine New York City Council members, when they blocked a bridge to LaGuardia Airport during a rally for liveable wages and an MLK Day paid holiday. In total, close to a 1,000 people attended the protest that was organized by Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union.
Before the march to the bridge, Representative Rangel told the crowd: "No one should be one pay check from homelessness. We have a new mayor now, Bill de Blasio, and I am certain that he will be spearheading our fight for better wages."
"I'm ready to get put in jail today so that everyone will know that we're going to fight for decent wages, we're going to fight for sick pay [and] we're going to fight for pensions," Rangel added.
The workers are not employed by the airlines or the Port Authority but rather by companies that contract out for things like food service, custodial work and security.
"Some employees have to go to food pantries to support their families. Thousands live in poverty," said Hector Figueroa, president of Local 32BJ-SEIU.
"The City Council stands united to support you, airport workers, in your demands for dignified work and respect," Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito told the crowd. "We have seen a mobilization across this nation of fast-food workers, car wash workers, now airport workers. We will ensure that we stand with you."
Many of the workers say low wages force them to rely on government assistance to feed their families.
"I find it nonsense that I have a full-time job and I have to seek public assistance," said Andrew Lloyd, a cabin cleaner at JFK Airport. "I have to do overtime just to support myself and my family." Mr. Lloyd said he and his coworkers work full weeks and extra shifts but receive no paid sick days or vacation time.
Prince Jackson, 56, of Jamaica, Queens, said he works as a security guard at Kennedy Airport, making $8 an hour, but has not received a raise in four years and is not entitled to paid sick time.
"Martin Luther King Jr. was a friend to the workers in his day, and the workers of today would like to be able to commemorate his memory by fighting for our rights as employees," Jackson said to Newsday.
Those arrested included New York City Council members Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans), Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica), Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn), Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn), Inez Dickens (D-Manhattan) , Mark Levine (D-Manhattan) and Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan); and union officials Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ SEIU; Shirley Aldebol, a vice president of 32BJ; and union members, Andy Cabrera, Johnnie Peterson, Hazel Ingrahm, Fadila Mikullo and Ian Zehnder.
"The new day has come in the city of New York," Public Advocate Tish James said at the protest. "And this new day is consistent with the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King to lift all people out of poverty."
In an email statement, Port Authority officials said the agency "supports making Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday for airport workers" and planned to "continue to have discussions with the union, airlines, and other airport stakeholders regarding this issue."
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Earlier in the month, dozens of airport workers from Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports, and their supporters, gathered outside Port Authority headquarters to demand better wages and improved working conditions.
"I make $8.50 an hour and I'm a 47-year-old man with three kids," said Kennedy Airport guard Michael Carey, who lives in East New York, Brooklyn. "Do the math. I can't support my family on that salary."
Jackson told Amsterdam News that Dr. King devoted his life to standing in solidarity with struggling workers.
"Dr. King died supporting sanitation workers who were working under deplorable conditions and making what today would be $11.41 per hour," he told the paper. "Forty-six years after Dr. King's death, I earn $8 an hour. Most airport workers earn just $8 per hour. We also work under deplorable conditions."
Read Next: John Nichols on MLK and economic equality.
Hundreds of Moral Monday demonstrators gathered on the steps of the Capitol this week to protest Governor Nathan Deal's refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 400,000 people in Georgia will be denied Medicaid coverage by state leaders.
"Healthcare and access to healthcare—preventative services as well as treatment—is a civil right, a human right, and a moral right," Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society and a physician at Grady Hospital, said to WABE 90.1 FM.
While Deal argues that the state can't afford Medicaid expansion, while protesters counter that the federal government would pick up the vast majority of expansion costs. Twenty-two other states have also rejected the expansion.
A coalition of religious and progressive activists staged the first Moral Monday Georgia protest.
"Make them hear you," North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber told the crowd. "Don't make a deal with injustice. Do what is right."
In South Carolina, progressive groups held a "Truthful Tuesday" protest at the State House to also protest that the Legislature's failure to enact the expansion in addition to the failure to provide high-quality education to all children, and a failure to protect voting rights.
"Whatever North Carolina has done in terms of advocating for moral and ethical laws, our state needs to do the same thing," said The Reverend Brenda Kneece, executive minister of the South Carolina Christian Action Council, a group that represents sixteen denominations and 4,000 congregations. "This rally on Tuesday … is the opening day of the (legislative session), and we want on that day to speak truth to power."
The "Truthful Tuesday Coalition" consists of the South Carolina Christian Action Council, the South Carolina chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, the South Carolina Education Association, the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP and the South Carolina Progressive Network. (photo courtesy of TruthfulTuesday.net)
Kneece encouraged protesters to "wear black as a sign of mourning for the hundreds of lives which will be lost as a result of our state's failure to expand Medicaid this year," The State reports.
"It's to really put lawmakers on notice regarding the need to expand Medicaid and protect voting rights and to fully fund public education," says George Hopkins, a College of Charleston history professor and Charleston chapter president of the SC Progressive Network. "Hopefully on Wednesday the 15th the headlines across the state will read 'Citizens Descend on Columbia' to demand legislators take action on these issues."
The Republican-controlled Legislature last year rejected billions of dollars in federal money that would have expanded the state's health insurance program for the poor, arguing that expansion would cost the state close to $1 billion in the long term.
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This year, Republican leaders are pushing a bill that would make it more difficult for people to sign up for federally subsidized health insurance policies. That bill, H.3101, is before the state Senate.
The Island Packet:
Addressing the anti-Obamacare protesters, state Rep. Bill Chumley, R-Spartanburg, praised H.3101 as a "nullification" bill, saying it would render Obamacare "null and void" in South Carolina. But state Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, the author of an amendment the Senate will debate in the coming weeks, said South Carolina cannot nullify federal law that has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Anitra Johnson, a military veteran from Goose Creek, told the crowd she was rejected on the federal marketplace because she did not qualify as impoverished, under federal guidelines, The Island Packet reports. She claims she would have been eligible had the state Legislature agreed to expand Medicaid.
"This is the new face of poverty," she told the crowd. "Take a good look. I don't live in a Third World country. I'm right here."
Read Next: John Nichols on a reform agenda for progressive politics.
The Moral Monday protests that began in North Carolina in 2012 in response to extreme right-wing policies are spreading to Georgia.
Over the past year, droves of activists in North Carolina have descended on the state legislature building to demand that lawmakers reverse some of their more brutal policies such as cutting unemployment benefits, refusing to expand Medicaid, and rolling back voting rights. Thousands of people showed up for North Carolina's Moral Mondays to disrupt the legislative session with acts of civil disobedience, resulting in the arrests of more than 900 individuals.
Now Moral Mondays are coming to Georgia.
Progressives from across the state will gather during the legislative session beginning on January 13 to express their concerns about what the Atlanta Progressive News calls the "extremist veto-proof Republican-led Legislature that is working in concert with a like-minded Gov. Nathan Deal."
Georgia progressives' complaints will sound familiar to the North Carolina Moral Mondays crowd: Governor Deal's failure to expand Medicaid, efforts to put restive voting measure in place, and education spending policies that divert funds from public schools to private schools.
Moral Monday Georgia describe themselves as "a multiracial, multi-issue coalition of citizens working for positive change for the public good."
"Georgia has gone hard right at a time when income equality is at its height, unemployment is high, we have the creation of an economy designed to provide low paying, dead-end jobs, and we need an effort to respond to that," said State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), who will be speaking at the rally. "Moral Mondays is exactly that kind of effort."
Speakers in addition to Fort will include Rev. Timothy McDonald III from First Iconium Baptist Church, Georgia NAACP President Francis Johnson, North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber, and Georgians directly affected by lack of access to Medicaid. Barber started the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina.
Tim Franzen, from the Quaker social justice organization American Friends Service Committee, as well as Occupy Atlanta and Occupy Our Homes, told The GA Voice he is very excited that Moral Mondays is coming to his home state.
"We've been really inspired and it's like nothing we've seen since the civil rights movement. It has forced people in North Carolina and all over the country to look at state budgets not as a random shopping list but as a list of our moral priorities," he says.
Franzen added he's distressed by Governor Deal's decision not to accept federal funds for the Medicaid expansion.
"It's the ultimate insult to hardworking people, to struggling folks who are working their butts off at a fast food joint or Wal-Mart, and here's an opportunity where they can get free healthcare," he says. "We're talking about real lives here, real beating hearts that are going to die because of ideological stubbornness. We find it unacceptable, both morally and fiscally."
But organizers caution that the first Georgia Moral Monday won't be on the same scale as the North Carolina protests, and might not feature arrests. Rather, the January gathering will set the tone for future actions.
Franzen told The GA Voice, "We hope the governor will come to his senses and do what is morally right, and if not then people might fill up the jail."
"These opportunities for educational outreach will bring together a remarkable cross-section of people representing different groups, causes, and identities, coalescing around a common agenda of fundamental human rights and equality," the Atlanta Progressive News explains.
Reverend Timothy McDonald from First Iconium Baptist Church in East Atlanta wants members of his congregation to join the Moral Monday protest.
"Georgia is one of those states, and we aren't surprised, who doesn't want to extend Medicaid. It would help over 600,000 Georgians, and it would bring in all kinds of money, federal money, into our state."
After the service, McDonald said expanding Medicaid would greatly help his churchgoers.
"There are people in our congregation and probably every congregation who don't have any kind of health care".
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 400,000 people in Georgia will be denied Medicaid coverage by state leaders.
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"The fact that Governor Deal would turn down Medicaid money is a shame and a crime before God. Folks under the Gold Dome say that [Medicaid] is a Grady problem or an Atlanta problem. Let's be real—what they are saying is that Medicaid is a black problem, but it's about hospitals statewide," State Senator Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) said at a recent rally outside of Grady Hospital, the largest hospital in Georgia.
"There are six hospitals in the Piedmont Healthcare System. One in Pickens County, one in Henry County, and one in a rural county in North Georgia. Some of these hospitals are in counties that are not predominantly African American or Democratic. Some are in Republican, rural and suburban counties. This is not an Atlanta problem, but a Georgia problem," Sen. Fort said.
He added: "Every year, a thousand people die for every one million people who don't have health care. Don't take my word for this, the Harvard Medical School did this research. Because of Governor Deal's partisan politics, the six hundred and fifty thousand Georgians who do not have health care, six to seven hundred of them will die next year."
Read Next: William Greider on the "Supreme Court gap" in healthcare coverage.
The Institute for College Access & Success, an independent nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California, recently released its eighth annular report on average student loan debt in the United States, and its findings are dire. College graduates who borrowed for bachelor's degrees granted in 2012 have an average student loan debt of $29,400, the highest average student loan debt ever on record.
Overall, seventy percent of college seniors graduated with debt in 2012.
"The graduates of 2012 left school and entered repayment at a time of high unemployment," said Debbie Cochrane, research director at the institute. "In many ways, these graduates were hit from both sides."
"They went to college during a recession when their family's ability to pay for college was likely reduced. Now they are graduating from college and may be experiencing substantial challenges getting a job to repay the loans."
Lynn O'Shaughnessy, an expert on college issues, says the trend isn't likely to reverse itself anytime soon because the price of higher education continues to rise, while incomes remain flat.
"College costs have always gone up higher than inflation, but the problem we face now is that family incomes are stagnant and they can't afford it anymore, if they ever did," said O'Shaughnessy, author of the book The College Solution and a blog of the same name. "It used to be much more affordable."
Students in certain states are hit particularly hard. For example, average debt is higher for graduates from Pennsylvania ($31,675). Seventy percent of graduates from Pennsylvania public and nonprofit colleges have student loan debt, compared to 41 percent of students graduating from Nevada colleges. The average student debt in New Mexico is just under $18,000.
Mike Morrill, Executive Director for Keystone Progress, an activist network, explains the long term effects: "Even if you are able to get a good job it means that if you're graduating with $30,000 or more in debt, that means it's going to be a long time before you get rid of that debt. It makes it harder for you to buy a house, harder to start a business."
The Times Herald reports that college expenses in Pennsylvania have become outrageously high over the past decade, fueled in part by the "easy money" of student loans and government financial aid. Schools maintain extremely high principals (the cost of tuition) and offset the costs to students, who are expected to take out loans that could potentially permanently bury them in debt.
And student debt, like subprime loans, is a huge moneymaking scheme from which the government is making a pretty penny. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi reports that the federal government is poised to make $185 billion over the next ten years on student loans.
Before Christmas, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) released a slate of proposed reforms aimed at lowering student debt, including a student borrower's bill of rightsthat would put more emphasis on getting servicers to offer students affordable repayment plans, and a provision that would require schools with lots of struggling borrowers to compensate the government for loan repayment losses.
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Businessweek reports the penalty proposed in the Protect Student Borrowers Act of 2013 would affect schools at which at least a quarter of students take out loans, a threshold that would include most institutions. Community colleges would be exempt, along with historically black institutions, according to Inside Higher Ed.
Read Next: Betsy Reed on de Blasio's innovative education policy.
About 150 protesters took to the streets in Durham, North Carolina, following the death of teenager Jesus Huerta, who was cuffed behind his back when the teenager shot himself in the head, according to police.
Relatives of Huerta had hoped for a peaceful vigil on Thursday, but supporters gathered in the center of town to light fire crackers, and according to the Raleigh News & Observer, a protester threw at least one bottle at police. Heavily armed police countered by launching canisters of tear gas into the crowd and arresting at least one person.
Launching tear gas canisters is an incredibly dangerous crowd dispersal technique, even though law enforcement has traditionally touted the strategy as non-lethal. In October 2011, 24-year-old former Marine and Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was nearly killed by police in Oakland when authorities fired what protesters believed to be a tear gas or smoke canister that fractured Olsen's skull.
Huerta's bizarre death occured on November 19 after officer Samuel Duncan arrested the teen for trespassing. It was then that Duncan cuffed the teen's hands behind his back and placed him into the patrol car. Somehow, according to police Chief Jose Lopez, the teen then managed to pull out a gun and shoot himself in the back of the head.
"I know that it is hard for people not in law enforcement to understand how someone could be capable of shooting themselves while handcuffed behind the back," Lopez said in a statement. "While incidents like this are not common, they unfortunately have happened in other jurisdictions in the past."
Lopez is right that handcuffed young man have shot themselves in other jurisdictions. In fact, it's a bit of a disturbing trend.
Twice in six months, young men managed to shoot themselves in the head last year while in the handcuffs in the back of police cars, after having been searched for weapons. In August 2012, police in Jonesboro, Arkansas, claimed that Chavis Carter, 21, committed suicide while in the back of the patrol car. Carter was handcuffed at the time and had already been searched for weapons. But somehow during the search police missed Carter's concealed handgun, and the teen, who was found to be on amphetamines and sedatives at the time, reached around his back to shoot himself in the right side of his head, despite being left-handed.
In December 2012, police again managed to overlook a very large gun when searching a high schooler who was being detained by police after a friend reported him as a suicide risk.
"As he was searched and handcuffed and put in the back for his protection, and he was being transported to a facility where he could be taken care of, he managed to retrieve a hidden gun and shot himself," said Jonathan Frey, a school district spokesman.
The deputy constable who took him into custody searched him but overlooked the weapon, Galena Park ISD officials said.
"I know he was searched," Frey said. "He may have had it hidden really well. All I know is that when he was in police custody, in the back of car with handcuffs on, he somehow managed to retrieve, apparently, a hidden gun and shoot himself."
Huerta's family remains skeptical about the police department's official statement.
In a press release, the family asks: "How did Jesús end up dead in the parking lot at police headquarters in these circumstances? Searched. Handcuffed behind the back. How is it even possible to shoot oneself?"
Evelin Huerta, Jesus' sister, issues a statement calling on Lopez to resign over the incident:
"The actions of the Durham Police Department last night, led by Chief Lopez, were a tried and true tactic to intimidate and spread fear into our community," she said. "The Durham Police cannot be trusted to investigate my brother's death, and we need a federal investigation."
At the end of November, hundreds of Amazon employees in Germany began staging a series of wildcat strikes. On Monday, hundreds of workers again walked off the job in an effort to put pressure on the company during the busy days before Christmas. The Ver.di union says Amazon workers receive lower wages than others in retail and mail-order jobs. According to the the union, "The Amazon system is characterized by low wages, permanent performance pressure and short-term contracts."
These complaints will sound familiar to American Amazon employees, who testify about constant performance pressure, on-site injuries, indifferent managers, long hours and low pay.
Back in February, Amazon.com was under attack in Germany for alleged mistreatment of workers following a television documentary that showed immigrant employees living in cramped housing under surveillance by security guards in neo-Nazi garb. Workers were promised €9.69, but upon showing up for work, learned they would only be compensated €8.52 ($11.37) per hour.
Amazon later said it canceled the contract with that security company whose guards were accused of harassing workers, searching their rooms and frisking them to make sure they had not taken food from the dining room, Businessweek reports.
German workers now plan to stage a one-day warning strike at Amazon logistic centers in Leipzig, Bad Hersfeld and Graben, and on Monday some of the strikers plan to rally outside the retailer's Seattle headquarters in hopes of drawing in local union workers as well as sympathetic members of the public, the New York Times reports.
The Times notes there appears to be a "backlash developing" against successful tech companies like Amazon for driving up housing prices, contributing to income disparities and expanding a generally obnoxious bourgeois attitude among "tech bros." For example, young Internet entrepreneur founder Peter Shih posted online a list of ten things he hates about San Francisco in August that included homeless people, the "constantly PMSing" weather and "girls who are obviously 4s and behave like they're 9s."
Amazon sales in Germany are skyrocketing. Last year, they rose by 21 percent, and the country is the firm's second biggest market after the US, responsible for about a third of all overseas sales, the BBC reports. And while this is certainly a labor dispute over the familiar terrain of living wages, the Times notes there is also a bigger question of whether the warehouse workers should have control over their workplace. (Employees known as "pickers" assemble Amazon orders. These jobs are extremely physically demanding, and pickers are constantly monitored, and are not provided job security).
"The workers are treated more as robots than human," Markus Hoffmann-Achenbach, an organizer for Ver.di at the Amazon warehouse in the city of Werne, said by email. He was on his way to Seattle to participate in the demonstration.
"As a worldwide company," Mr. Hoffmann-Achenbach added, "Amazon should treat their workers fairly and with respect in every country. The solidarity of American unions and Ver.di, the united services union of Germany, is a sign that social movements are not bounded by national borders and that in times of globalization the workers worldwide stand together as one."
Nancy Becker, an American who has been an employee of Amazon in Germany since 2001, is also traveling to Seattle for the rally.
"I'm coming to Seattle to dare Jeff Bezos to try working as a picker for a single week," she said. "I'm sure he would not survive."
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This is the first time the union has taken a Germany wage dispute outside the country to a corporation's doorstep, according to Mechthild Middeke of Ver.di.
While Middeke stresses what's happening in Seattle is not a strike, she adds it is an act of solidarity involving a number of US unions, including the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union, two of the largest unions in the United States.
"Employees at Amazon deliver excellent work every day, and for that they rightfully demand the assurance and protection of retail and mail-order sector wage agreements, as well as healthy working conditions and respectful treatment," the union said in a statement.
Read Next: Jessica Weisberg on Justin Timberlake's dancers unionizing.
Over the summer, the Chicago Board of Education held a vote whether to shut fifty-four schools. Ultimately, the board voted to close fifty schools, a controversial decision that drew criticism from the city's teachers union, parents, and students. Of the students affected by the closures, 88 percent are black, 10 percent Hispanic, and 94 percent come form low income households.
The city, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismissed concerns that the closures are a form of racial discrimination by promising students would have access to better facilities in what are called "welcoming schools." Though some students and parents expressed concern that children would have to walk longer distances, oftentimes through dangerous parts of the city in order to reach their new schools, officials promised all the hassle would be worth it because the old, "bad" schools would be gone.
President of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) Karen Lewis was skeptical from the beginning:
"Closing 50 of our neighborhood schools is outrageous and no society that claims to care about its children can sit back and allow this to happen to them. There is no way people of conscience will stand by and allow these people to shut down nearly a third of our school district without putting up a fight. Most of these campuses are in the Black community. Since 2001 88% of students impacted by CPS School Actions are African-American. And this is by design."
Lewis added, "These actions unnecessarily expose our students to gang violence, turf wars and peer-to-peer conflict. Some of our students have been seriously injured as a result of school closings. One died. Putting thousands of small children in harm's way is not laudatory."
But while the solution was tough, Emanuel insisted it was necessary:
"If we don't make these changes, we haven't lived up to our responsibility as adults to the children of the city of Chicago. And I did not run for office to shirk my responsibility," he said.
Emanuel was out of town when schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett made the closures announcement.
Now, Chicago students and parents are beginning to fully comprehend the consequences of the closures and "welcoming schools," and unsurprisingly, their real-life experiences are vastly different to city officials' claims. Some Chicago families complain of overcrowding and an overall lack of support during the transition.
Devion Allen, an eighth grader, used to attend Lafayette Elementary, a school Allen describes as being "like a family." In an interview with the AP, Allen said, "It's not fair" in response to the city's plans to turn the empty building into an arts high school operated as a contract school, publicly funded but privately run.
Allen now attends a "welcoming school," The Choplin School, which is so overcrowded that the staff has been forced to give up on promised transitional provisions like a computer lab, the library, and art and music rooms. The AP also reports that the school's psychologist, occupational therapist, and speech pathologist are working in windowless, unvented spaces that were formerly storage closets.
Sometimes, students are tested in these spaces.
The environment in the "welcoming schools" mirror the very complaints officials made of the original "bad schools" that they argued needed to be closed. Classrooms are still overcrowded and resources are scarce.
Special education students also have suffered, say teachers and student advocates. At least one school that has dozens of new special ed students, the Courtenay Language Arts Center, has yet to set up a behavioral health team to assess those children's needs in a faster, more organized way, staff members say.
And teacher Michael Flynn says his school is using a room not much larger than one of those closets as a special education room for 13 children because there's simply no other option.
"There's not enough space. There's not enough resources," said Flynn, a longtime seventh-grade literature and social studies teacher at the James Otis World Language Academy, a welcoming school northwest of downtown Chicago. Despite the school's name, the world languages teacher was among those who lost a classroom because of the space constraints and, instead, travels from room to room.
These kinds of findings aren't new. University of Chicago research published in 2009 (pdf) found that previous closures in Chicago also didn't do anything to better students' education. In fact, the closures didn't boost reading and math scores unless students transferred to higher-achieving schools, but a very small percentage of them actually ended up at those schools.
"Only 6 percent of displaced students enrolled in academically strong schools, while 42 percent of displaced students continued to attend schools with very low levels of academic achievement," the report read.
The opposition to the education reformers in Chicago, and all across the country, continues. Students and teachers from more than sixty cities are slated to participate in a day of protest Monday that is being billed as the largest unified opposition to educational reforms that organizers say have devastated families and communities.
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The Root:
From Baltimore to Philadelphia to New Orleans to Chicago, parents, students and teachers will protest against mass school closings, the growing practice of turning over management of public schools to private companies and other measures that disproportionately hurt low-income students of color, organizers say. The day, which will feature dozens of coordinated events, is being organized by a coalition of labor, civic and civil rights organizations.
"The Day of Action is important because young people are under attack when it comes to public education," Murphy, a high school senior who hopes to attend Howard University or Bowie State University next year, told The Root. "We have found that the educational decision-makers do not value the thoughts and opinions of young people. That creates a critical gap when it comes to making decisions about our future."
Fast-food workers in New York City are expected to walk off their jobs Thursday, one year after their first strike, joining a 100-city strike wave. Organizers say actions will take place all across the country as part of the movement for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.
In New York City, there are more than 57,000 fast-food workers, and the median wage is $8.89/hour, the lowest of any occupation in the city.
With support from union groups such as the Service Employees International Union, the fast-food protests have dramatically grown over the course of the last year. The early protests in New York City in November grew to thousands of protesters waging actions in seven other cities during the summer. An August strike spread to more than fifty cities, including areas in the South that have historically been hostile to union actions.
This Thursday, there will be more new strike locations in Charleston, South Carolina; Providence, Rhode Island; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Mary Coleman, known to her co-workers as Ms. Mary, works at a Popeye's in Milwaukee for $7.25 an hour. Coleman, 59, lives with her daughter, who has a heart condition, and her two grandchildren. She also relies on food stamps to make ends meet and says she would gladly trade in her Qwest card for higher wages. Thursday marks Mary's fourth strike. Previously, she walked off the job on May 15, August 1 and August 29.
"I'm tired of working for $7.25," Coleman says. "I can't take care of my household, I can't even take care of myself."
Little amenities many individuals take for granted, such as deodorant, are unaffordable for Coleman on fast-food low wages.
"Every day struggles are being able to keep food on the table, being able to get the necessities that's needed for every day living…. And then if you need to go to the doctor, you can't afford that either."
Coleman says she is inspired by the organizing of low-wage workers in other states.
"I'm very excited about it, and it lets me know people can come together and do what's right," she says.
Some workers Coleman's age might consider protesting a job for younger people, but she felt compelled to join the strikes, if only to show apathetic youth that change is possible.
"If we sit back and leave everything to the younger generation, we'll never get anywhere," she says. "At this point, it seems like a majority of the younger generation thinks that their voices don't matter. I want to let them know that their voice does matter."
Danielle, 23, is a fast food worker at Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits in Charleston who will be going on strike
Danielle has worked at Bojangles for four years, started as a cashier and is now a manager making $11 an hour, and though she makes more than entry-level position workers, she still can't survive on her wages. Over the past year, Danielle's mother, father, and grandmother have all passed away, so she is now struggling to support herself.
She walks five miles every day to work, and because she's on her own, says she has trouble paying her bills on time. Sometimes she receives her paycheck and sees it isn't even enough to cover rent.
"I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck. I can't live like that," says Danielle.
Like many fast-food workers, Danielle says she isn't scheduled for enough hours, but works hard while she's at the restaurant, and yet she isn't fairly compensated for her labor. However, she too draws inspiration from the wave of strikes and walkouts occurring at major big-box stores and fast-food chains all across the country.
"It makes me feel good because people are opening their mouths and going on strike, and saying we want a raise. We've been busting out butts and we finally want a raise. I'm glad to be one of the people going on strike because this is ridiculous," she says.
Danielle adds she doesn't fear retaliation from her employers for going on strike.
"I know my rights as a manager. They can't fire me for opening my mouth. I earned [my paycheck], I'm a hard worker."
Brooklyn KFC worker Naquasia LeGrand, 22, will be going on strike for the fifth time this week. While she doesn't have children, LeGrand does have an extended family that she helps support, and even though at $7.70/hour she earns slightly above New York's minimum wage ($7.25), LeGrand says the fifteen-hours-per-week cap at KFC makes it impossible to earn a living wage.
"I have to pay for my Metro card, I have to pay $100 for my phone bill, I do try to put food in the house…. Sometimes I can't even feed myself," says LeGrand, who has been working at KFC for two years.
The lack of resources finally drove LeGrand to participate in her first strike: "I realized that we needed a change. I thought about the future. Are we going to be living off $7.25 in twenty years?" she asks.
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LeGrand says she feels under-appreciated by an industry that makes lavish profits off the hard labor of workers like herself. To the naysayers and critics, who say fast-food jobs are low skill, and therefore deserve low pay, LeGrand says these businesses could not profit without workers.
"Why do you think these corporations are an over $200 billion a year business? Off our hard work. [The CEOs] aren't working. They're just collecting all the money."
LeGrand has participated in the fast-food strikes since they began in November, and hers is a unique perspective, since she's witnessed the movement grow and flourish, an evolution that mirrors her own transition from skeptic to passionate activist.
"In the beginning, I was afraid. I was skeptical. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't even know what a union was. People say, 'You're not gonna get $15 [per hour].' But I would tell people to look at what's going on. Look at where we started in New York City. On November 29, 2012, it was 127 workers who decided to walk out on their jobs to make a statement and say we want $15 [per hour] and a union. Now, [this week] 200 cities are about to have actions. This is spreading around the whole country."
Take Action: Support the Fast-Food Strikes
Last week, Allison Kilkenny reported on the nationwide Black Friday protests against Walmart.


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Classic BotswanaSeptember 12, 2015 - September 28, 2015
Based on the expeditionary nature of our trips, there may be ongoing enhancements to this itinerary.
Below please find the day-by-day itinerary for this expedition. Unless otherwise noted, daily excursion options are included in the cost of the trip. We do our best to adhere to the scheduled itinerary, but in the spirit of our expeditionary style of travel we may deviate slightly to take full advantage of encounters with the destination and its people, culture, and wildlife.


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We have an old inventory program on a WinCE 6.1 device that connects back to a AS/400 mainframe. It was designed in VB using Visual Studio 2008. We are beginning the thought process of updating the program to work on a new android inventory scanner running ICS.
Any idea what would be the best and most efficient way of doing the conversion? Is a complete re-write needed or can we use an IDE like netbeans to do a conversion?


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RBC hiring as it resumes European push
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Tavis Smiley | Sean Penn | PBS
Duration: 02:34
Program: Tavis Smiley
Broadcast Date: Jan. 20, 2012
The two-time Oscar winner reflects on the 30th anniversary of the hit comedy classic that represents the early days of his film career.Tags:
Tavis Smiley | The Supremes' co-founder Mary... (#2755)
Full Program: The Supremes co-founder reflects on the 50th anniversary of the group's first album. 26:42
TAVIS SMILEY | Kristen Stewart | PBS (#2751)
Actress Kristen Stewart tells Tavis how she handles the enormous media attention. For more information visit www.pbs.org 02:57
Tavis Smiley | Singer-songwriter Aimee Mann | PBS (#2745)
Full Program: The Grammy winner talks about her new project, 'Charmer'—her first CD in four years. 26:42
Tavis Smiley | Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki | PBS
Full Program: The filmmaker unpacks his documentary on America's war on drugs, 'The House I Live In.' 26:42
Tavis Smiley | Adam Nagourney | PBS (#2716)
The "NY Times" LA bureau chief explains why California's controversial Prop 32 ballot measure matters to the nation. 02:21
TAVIS SMILEY | Ethan Hawke | PBS (#2710)
The two-time Oscar nominee and "Sinister" star shares why he believes audiences appreciate horror films. To see this... 02:22
TAVIS SMILEY | Arianna Huffington | PBS (#862)
From the DNC in Charlotte, Huffington discusses the power of social media over the conversations circling around... 01:34
TAVIS SMILEY | Kyra Sedgwick | PBS (#2680)
"The Closer" star reflects on the show's seven-year run and shares why she feels the program resonated with its... 01:52
TAVIS SMILEY | Ben Stein | PBS (#2679)
The economist and award-winning writer explains why he would never vote for a Democrat in an election. To see this... 02:44
TAVIS SMILEY | Daniel Wolff | PBS (#2677)
The author-filmmaker discusses sustaining the conversation about the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and the myth of... 02:58
TAVIS SMILEY | Newt Gingrich | PBS (#716)
The former GOP presidential candidate sheds light on what he believes Mitt Romney needs to do to connect with... 02:39
TAVIS SMILEY | Brian Castner | PBS (#2675)
The Iraq war veteran opens up about his experiences on the battlefield and how they've impacted his daily life,... 03:02
TAVIS SMILEY | Ralph Nader | PBS
The consumer advocate weighs in on the 2012 presidential race and on how voters should push politicians into action.... 02:32
TAVIS SMILEY | Jeff Foxworthy | PBS (#2672)
The comedian discusses the balance of teaching lessons about Christian ethics while avoiding proselytizing and why he... 02:42
TAVIS SMILEY | Erin Brockovich | PBS (#2640)
The famed environmentalist discusses the documentary, "Last Call at the Oasis," and the challenge of spreading the... 03:46
TAVIS SMILEY | Eddie Levert | PBS (#2639)
The O'Jays frontman shares why, after all these years, he's decided to release his debut solo album, "I Still Got... 03:37
TAVIS SMILEY | Joan Walsh | PBS
The Salon.com columnist shares her reaction to the recent Supreme Court ruling on the healthcare act and examines... 04:41
TAVIS SMILEY | Peter Berg and Freddie Roach | PBS (#2634)
The world-famous boxing trainer shares his thoughts on the June 9, 2012 Pacquiao-Bradley fight and his experience... 03:30
TAVIS SMILEY | Kristen Johnston | PBS (#2632)
The Emmy-winning actress discusses how, despite her success, she fell into "champagne depression." To see this entire... 02:49
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Post Date: February 10, 2012