The Handiest Girlie Of All

Gov Jerry Brown cuts a swath through California's renowned assistance programs.

State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg is not happy with the cuts that would be required under Gov. Jerry Brown's spending plan. “You know that old cliche about the pendulum swinging too far,” Steinberg said Thursday. “I think it needs to swing back.”

 During his first governorship more than three decades ago, Jerry Brown warned that California was entering an "era of limits."

The austere state budget he proposed this week is a stark acknowledgment that the Golden State has now reached them. The Democratic governor's spending plan takes large steps toward dismantling much of California's once-vaunted social safety net.

Brown proposes cutting welfare services again as the state continues its struggle to shake off the effects of a deep and persistent recession. He would continue years of reductions in Medi-Cal, child care and home health aid. He would eliminate the Healthy Families program, which was a significant expansion of healthcare in California when enacted in 1997 and serves nearly 900,000 children.

Brown was visibly frustrated as he detailed what he described as the "tough medicine" California needs to balance its books but said a $9.2-billion deficit had forced his hand.

"California government is a very generous, compassionate political jurisdiction," he said. "When we have to reduce our spending, that spending is going to have to come from programs that are doing good."

He added: "I can't figure out any better way. This is the best I can do."

In 2007, when the economy was fairly healthy and there was far less need for state aid, California spent $29.3 billion on social services, according to Brown's Department of Finance. The governor proposes leaving four years of budget cuts in place and spending $26 billion now, when poverty rates are higher and so is the demand for welfare assistance.

His plan would strip welfare benefits from people who cannot find adequate work after two years rather than four, forcing more than a quarter-million families from the rolls. Although families with children would continue to receive benefits, the average monthly check would be slashed by 20%, to $368. Child-care programs would be cut almost 40%, eliminating 62,000 slots.

The children moved out of Healthy Families would be enrolled instead in Medi-Cal, the state's healthcare program for the poor, which covers fewer costs and would take an $842-million hit in Brown's plan.

"It's appropriate that he's a former seminarian," said Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College and former GOP official, "because the entire state is about to have a very long Lent."

The suggested cuts in health and human services, projected to save about $2 billion, have put Brown at odds with his fellow Democrats and would diminish the brand of liberalism cultivated by his governor father, the legendary Pat Brown.

Legislative leaders wasted no time pushing back on the proposed reductions, and social services advocates protested that the ax would fall primarily on the most vulnerable Californians, as they have in past years.

"You always want your public policies to reflect what's going on in the economy," said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a think tank that advocates for low-income families. "The governor's proposals totally fly in the face of the economic realities for Californians right now."

Ross said the spending blueprint puts tens of thousands of children at risk for homelessness if their parents are unable to pay the bills.

Mike Herald, a lobbyist for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, said the message of Brown's budget is that "we want to become a crappy welfare state like everybody else."

Brown acknowledged that his proposals would be "very hard to digest" for many lawmakers, and Democrats proved him right.

"You know that old cliche about the pendulum swinging too far," state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Thursday. "I think it needs to swing back."

Last year, Brown and the Legislature approved $5 billion in cuts from health and human services programs, pushing welfare grants below 1987 levels and eliminating adult day-care centers for people with serious disabilities, brain injuries and chronic illnesses. (In the face of a lawsuit, the program was later reconstituted for those most at risk of being institutionalized.)

Brown received a rare nod this week from Republicans, who have thwarted his efforts to raise taxes to prevent even deeper cuts.

"The governor is dead right: this is the most generous state," said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), vice chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. "We can no longer afford to be the most generous state."

Brown tempered his grim news with some of the sunny optimism that characterized California during his previous governorship three decades ago. And he spoke of his desire to invest in high-speed rail, renewable energy and other projects.

"The good news is: California is recovering," he said Thursday. "We are the innovative state. We're the state of Apple computer, of Facebook, of Hewlett-Packard, Hollywood, stem cell research, international trade, diversity. This is a state that's dynamic, it's creative, and it's prosperous."

The governor noted that his projected deficit is a vast improvement over last year's $26-billion gap, and his spending plan assumes that the economy will continue to grow, giving a modest boost to the state's tax collections.

His proposed budget also includes nearly $7 billion in tax increases that he hopes to put before voters in November. But it provides for deep cuts from school funds if voters say no. He would also take $200 million each from California's two public university systems and cut courts and firefighting services. He would eliminate lifeguards at state beaches.

Experts said the proposed health and social welfare cuts are clearly part of Brown's pitch to voters, helping him build the will for new levies. Education, they noted, is one of the few areas of state spending that the public has said it would support with higher taxes.

"It's very smart politics," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

L.A TIMES

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Me, Michele and Our Migraines

I found how Judith Warner explains about Bachman & her having migraines and how she deals with them can be looked at in many different ways in how we deal with life's various debilitating health issues. When one enters the arena of "politics and running to work for us the citizens of the united states," I give props to those who are being open about a health issue (mental or physical) if its used in the way of not letting it beat you down. How will Bachman deal with our enormous world of issues and not have to close her eyes each time she is stressed?

By Judith Warner 

IS our problem with Representative Michele Bachmann’s migraines that she has them, or that she takes medication for them? Is she a strong stoic who, despite debilitating pain, does what she must to serve her constituents, or a woman who, every so often, when things get to be a little bit too much, has to lie down in the dark, while the world waits outside her closed door?

I too suffer from frequent migraines. Like Mrs. Bachmann, I take preventive medicine and other drugs to tame migraines when they strike, and I have, on occasion, ended up in the hospital. Severe migraines are less headaches than total-body cataclysms; sound and light are unbearable, movement is all but unendurable and blinding pain is accompanied by vomiting that can go on, every five minutes or so, for hours. Yet I do not believe that Mrs. Bachmann’s migraines, in and of themselves, should be viewed as a disqualifier for running for the presidency. Migraines are largely treatable and can be “controlled” through medication — as Mrs. Bachmann said in response to the Daily Caller article that revealed her condition earlier this week.

What Mrs. Bachmann does, however, to control her headaches, how she responds to them, thinks of them, lives with them, is something that voters should pay attention to. While there is much about migraines that will forever elude her control — weather changes, for example, can trigger terrible headaches — managing migraines involves a lot of meaningful decision-making. And those decisions can speak volumes about who she is as a person and how she might deal with the stresses of the presidency.

Voters have not been provided with the kind of information that would give a clear picture of how Mrs. Bachmann manages her condition. Her campaign permitted her son, Dr. Lucas Bachmann, a medical resident at the University of Connecticut, and her brother, Dr. Paul Amble, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale, to say that she takes medication to prevent migraines, as well as pain and antinausea medication when they occur. But so far it hasn’t revealed the details of her preventive treatment — and has done whatever it could to divert attention from the fact that such treatments often consist of first-generation antidepressants and other psychotropics.

It’s not surprising they’re being so coy. There’s an enormous stigma attached to mental health problems, and migraines, with their association with depression and anxiety, their well-known link to stress and their history of being dismissed as a disease of neurotic women, very clearly carry the taint of psychiatric illness. For someone who has co-sponsored legislation aimed at combating perceived overmedication, the risk of being identified as “on meds” is serious.

This juicy angle was, of course, what The Daily Caller was counting on when it ran the anonymously sourced migraine story, calling it in a headline the discovery of a “stress-related condition” with “heavy pill use” and burying in the eighth paragraph the fact that the condition was a matter of migraines. There’s perhaps as great a stigma now about taking medication for a brain-related disorder as there is about having that disorder in the first place. Pill-popping is seen as a sign of weakness, a refusal of responsibility, a sort of self-perfecting hubris — particularly among Mrs. Bachmann’s own conservative Christian base.

Despite its sensationalism, The Daily Caller story brings up valid questions, and the Bachmann campaign doesn’t get anywhere by ignoring them. During all my years of migraines, I’ve talked to many other women with the condition, and found that the ways in which we deal with it reflect deep truths about ourselves. I know that I could have fewer headaches if I took higher doses of preventive medication, but I won’t because it makes me gain too much weight. One of my friends hates doctors — they make her feel judged and controlled — so she soldiers on in pain or uses over-the-counter medications, something migraine specialists say can cause even more headaches. Another woman told me that she spends two weeks of every month in bed because she hates taking pain medications.

This isn’t a question of blaming the victim. But the choices we make in self-care reflect how we handle and view ourselves in relation to the world around us. I began to take proper care of my condition after I had to pull over onto the shoulder of Interstate 95 to vomit into a snack bag mid-migraine, terrifying my daughters. (You can’t drive from Washington to New York with your eyes closed.)

I’m not a doctor, but reports that Mrs. Bachmann’s condition had her admitted to an urgent care facility three times in six months suggest that she is perhaps suffering more than she has to. It’s fair to ask: Is she getting the best possible care from doctors who practice mainstream science? Does she fully acknowledge the reality of having a chronic disability by regulating her diet, sleep, exercise and stress levels, as frequent migraine sufferers must? Or does she refuse to acknowledge her limitations?

In the absence of information about the preventive steps she is taking to, as she puts it, control her migraines, we are left with the impression that it’s the migraines that control her.

Judith Warner is the author of “We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.”

 

ny times

Disabled face an uncertain future

By Gary Blumenthal/Guest Columnist  for the MetroWest Daily News

As the father of three healthy, active and mischievous young boys, I often ask myself how my mother ever survived having five children.

Life for my mom, Blanche Blumenthal, was much tougher. Widowed in mid-life with five kids under 18, including my younger brother Steve, who had autism, she had to face schools, social service systems and a community ill prepared to welcome her or my family into the fabric of our hometown.

During this time - the mid-1960s - school systems throughout the nation felt no shame in closing their doors to people with disabilities. My mom, with no other options, had to make a profoundly painful decision and put my brother in a state institution for people with mental retardation.

It is impossible to fully describe the grief this decision brought her and our family. Traveling 300 miles round trip, once a month for years, did little to ease the pain. Our pain turned to torment when we learned that during these and future decades, many of these institutions provided little more than "three hots and a cot" in locked and isolated wards, and were often cited as repositories of abuse and neglect.

Thankfully, my mom lived long enough to see my brother, decades later, successfully return back into our home community in his own apartment with a roommate and support from a local non-profit community program.

Today, families living in Massachusetts, and other states, don't have to face these terrible and difficult choices. Through the actions of visionaries like Ted Kennedy, Eunice Shriver and so many others, Massachusetts has built a comprehensive and sturdy education and adult community services system that provides real community opportunities for families who have a child with a disability. Isolated state institutions are not the only options for adults with disabilities.

Families now have choices and an infrastructure in place to assist them. The innovative Family Support programs and Respite service initiatives help families receive cost effective therapies in their own home and avoid more expensive out-of-home placements. This low cost program helps more than 10,000 Massachusetts families stay intact.

The environment is shockingly and wonderfully different than it was just 30 years ago, but it is far from assured. Disability gains are only one legislative or executive decision from extinction as the commonwealth - and every other state - struggles to survive following the global economic meltdown of 2008.

In the last three years, families have fought hard to protect residential, day services, employment and family support programs and have succeeded on most occasions because of the values of the citizens of the commonwealth and the reflected responsiveness of our elected leaders, including Gov. Deval Patrick, Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray.

Gov. Patrick is in the finishing stages of putting together his recommendations for the FY 2012 fiscal year and the Legislature will soon offer its judgment on what programs will survive in the third year of the Great Recession. Current estimates suggest they will have to wrestle with cutting over $1.6 billion from the budget, forcing legislators and the governor to make agonizing choices weighing one worthy program against another.

For families who have loved ones with disabilities, the 2011 legislative session will tell them whether the gains made since my mother was forced into an agonizing choice remain or whether they will face a familiar frightening future filled with uncertainty.

Gary Blumenthal is the president & CEO of the Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers. He is a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives and was appointed last year by President Barack Obama as a member of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency that advises the president and Congress on disability issue

Metro West Daily

 

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U.K. It's now officially 'unsustainable' to support disabled people

The government's targeting of the disability living allowance reveals a lack of compassion Young and old disabled people will face a series of tests for the new 'personal independence payment'. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

Yesterday, the government finally showed its true colours. Ever since the election this year, disabled people have watched with increasing dismay as the rhetoric against us has become increasingly vitriolic; tabloid papers can barely write the word disabled without coupling it with "workshy". The waters have become so muddied with talk of fraud on one side and the government's promised support for those most ill on the other, it was hard to prove that the coalition had categorically decided to make the lives of disabled people much harder. That was until yesterday.

With the publication of their disability living allowance (DLA) reform paper, it is now written in black and white that the government believes supporting the disabled is, using their own word, "unsustainable".

In the comprehensive spending review in October, the coalition said there would be a review of DLA: these plans have now become clearer with its announcement that it intends to scrap the benefit and replace it with personal independent payment (PIP). DLA, and its proposed replacement PIP, are not an out-of-work benefit. It is a non-taxable cash payment to disabled people to help them pay for the higher costs of living, care and mobility associated with their illness. In the executive summary of its DLA consultation document, Maria Miller, minister for disabled people, claims the reason for change is that "the rising caseload and expenditure is unsustainable".

Let's be clear: this increased DLA caseload is not because of fraud. DLA has one of the lowest fraud rates of any benefits. In fact, government figures published by the House of Commons work and pensions committee suggest that benefit fraud for DLA, carer's and attendance allowance among others has reduced since 2001 from 2.2% to 0.8% between 2008-2009 (the most recent year for which statistics are available).

But in June, the government declared in its Budget 2010 policy costings document that it hopes to save 20% from its DLA budget by changing the way it is allocated: with fraudulent claims less than minimal, the only way to cut the budget by a fifth is to redraw the boundaries over who is eligible. Miller says as much in her executive summary on the consultation, stating: "We will prioritise support on those individuals who face the greatest day-to-day challenges". This question of priority is a worrying one. It effectively means that those people who have a disability that is less severe than someone else's will no longer receive help, regardless of whether that extra support is vital to them. That is like saying that only 80% of those currently receiving housing benefit will be deemed to be eligible to continue having a roof over their heads.

Using the government's own data, currently 1.8 million people of working age claim some form of DLA (it comes in two components, care and mobility), which rises to 3 million claimants if the under 16s and the over 65s are included. These changes are currently aimed at those of working age, although the proposals state that the government is still considering whether to reassess children and pensioners. In their current form, these cuts could see up to 360,000 people losing out on money that they use to help with the higher costs associated with living with a disability. If all 3 million claimants are reassessed this would rise to about 600,000 people.

A disabled person's disability will not go away just because the government has decided to save 20% on its DLA bill. The only change will be that those affected will have to fund the higher costs of living out of their own pocket. And these pockets are already threadbare. These cuts will affect a sector of society that the Disability Alliance UK states is already twice as likely to live in poverty as other citizens.

I know that in response to these criticisms, the government will roll out its usual defence, arguing the UK's deficit is huge and savings have to be made. But to that I would like to say that if pound signs ultimately obliterate our sense of compassion, then we will truly be in a poorer state than that caused by a deficit of any size.

The Gaurdian

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Haunted House Allowed To Open At Site Of Former Institution



Mental-health advocates and some local residents are calling it ghoulish, but the owner of the historic former Pennsylvania Pennhurst Center has been given permission to operate a haunted-house attraction at the site.

After listening to two hours of testimony in a packed courtroom, Chester County Court Judge Robert J. Shenkin declined to issue an order that would have prevented the "Pennhurst Asylum" from opening at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

"We're very happy," said Richard Chakejian, who owns the 110-acre property and plans to operate the haunted house on weekend nights through Nov. 7.

Even before Shenkin issued his decision early Friday afternoon, the Arc, a national advocacy group for the mentally handicapped, called for a boycott of the Pennhurst attraction.

Pennhurst, where horrid abuses of residents were well-documented, became the focus of a landmark 1974 lawsuit that led to profound changes in the treatment of the mentally retarded nationwide. Pennhurst closed in 1987.

Friday's hearing, however, was confined to prosaic questions of whether the haunted house complied with zoning and permitting laws.

"We applied for whatever was required by the township," said Chakejian, noting that he had obtained a use and occupancy permit.

In their petition, Saul S. Rivkin, who lives about a mile from the complex, and his wife, Linda Fulton-Rivkin, held that the township also should have required building and construction permits. That, in turn, would have required hearings and opportunities for residents to raise questions and challenges.

"I'm disappointed," Rivkin, who is also chairman of the East Vincent Township Historical Society, said after the hearing. He added that he was encouraged that Shenkin suggested he would reconsider the request if something occurred at the Pennhurst attraction, located at the old administration building, that raised questions of public safety.

"He left the door open," said Stephen Siana, the Rivkins' attorney.

Rivkin said that while he would welcome a new hearing, he did not want it to be result of any tragedy: "I hope nothing happens to anyone there."

Philadelphia Inquirer

Fox News John Stossel is a tad Jelous of the ADA?!

This is beyond pathetic!! Fox news delivers crap! ( you can tell me i'm wrong) but I have never heard anything news worthy or debateable on that channel infact i cringe. I just see most anchors on the channel  as judgemental and bias!The only reason the republican party at the time Presidant George Bush sr. Signed the    ADA is because advocates had been trying to pass it for years. It was in the house till it passed in 1990

Directly from John Stossel himself Writes:

You own a business, maybe a restaurant. You've got a lot to worry about. You have to make sure the food is safe and tastes good, that the place is clean and appealing, that workers are friendly and paid according to a hundred Labor Department and IRS rules.

On top of that, there are rules you might have no idea about.

The bathroom sinks must be a specified height. So must the doorknobs and mirrors. You must have rails. And if these things aren't right -- say, if your mirror is just one inch too high -- you could be sued for thousands of dollars.

And be careful. If you fail to let a customer bring a large snake, which he calls his "service animal," into your restaurant, you could be in trouble. 

All of this is because of the well-intentioned Americans With Disabilities Act, which President George H.W. Bush signed 20 years ago. It's the subject of my Fox Business show this week

The ADA was popular with Republicans and Democrats. It passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities, 377 to 28 in the House and 91 to 6 in the Senate.

What does it do? The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, requiring businesses to provide the disabled "equal access" and to make "reasonable accommodation" for employees. Tax credits and deductions are available for special equipment (talking computers, for instance) and modifying buildings to comply with the accessibility mandate.

The ADA was supposed to help more disabled people find jobs. But did it?

Strangely, no. An MIT study found that employment of disabled men ages 21 to 58 declined after the ADA went into effect. Same for women ages 21 to 39.

How could employment among the disabled have declined?

Because the law turns "protected" people into potential lawsuits. Most ADA litigation occurs when an employee is fired, so the safest way to avoid those costs is not to hire the disabled in the first place.

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the blog, Overlawyered.com, says that the law was unnecessary. Many "hire the handicapped" programs existed before the ADA passed. Sadly, now most have been quietly discontinued, probably because of the threat of legal consequences if an employee doesn't work out.

Under the ADA, Olson notes, fairness does not mean treating disabled people the same as non-disabled people. Rather it means accommodating them. In other words, the law requires that people be treated unequally.

The law has also unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by "professional litigants" who file a hundred suits at a time. Disabled people visit businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally) extort settlement money from the businesses.

Some disabled people have benefited from changes effected by the ADA, but the costs are rarely accounted for. If a small business has to lay off an employee to afford the added expense of accommodating the disabled, is that a good thing -- especially if, say, customers in wheelchairs are rare? Extra-wide bathroom stalls that reduce the overall number of toilets are only some of the unaccounted-for costs of the ADA. And since ADA modification requirements are triggered by renovation, the law could actually discourage businesses from making needed renovations as a way of avoiding the expense.

A few disabled people speak up against the law. Greg Perry, author of "Disabling America: The Unintended Consequences of the Government's Protection of the Handicapped," says that because the disabled now represent an added expense to businesses, many resent them.

Finally, the ADA has led to some truly bizarre results. Exxon gave ship captain Joseph Hazelwood a job after he completed alcohol rehab.

Hazelwood then drank too much and let the Exxon Valdez run aground in Alaska. Exxon was sued for allowing it to happen. So Exxon prohibited employees who have had a drug or drinking problem from holding safety-sensitive jobs. The result? You guessed it -- employees with a history of alcohol abuse sued under the ADA, demanding their "right" to those jobs. The federal government (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) supported the employees. Courts are still trying to sort it out.

 

Here is also an interview that was aired September 10th. IUt doesnt provide CC but what do you expect?at http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4329019/does-ada-promote-discrimination/?playlist_id=87247

 

Please send him your reaction at: stoss@foxbusiness.com 

You can also send comments to: feedback@foxbusiness.com

FOX NEWS

Justice For All  blog

 

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Tonight for this weeks HBO Documentary:Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County."

 Premiering July 26th at 9pm, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi’s new documentary “Homeless:  The Motel Kids of Orange County” will air on HBO.  During the hour film, Alexandrea Pelosi follows Project HOPE School students and their families, giving us an in-depth look at what it’s like being homeless living in Orange County motels.

Trailer

Filmmaker discusses 'Motel Kids of Orange County'

Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi made five documentaries for HBO, and while they dealt with subjects such as politics and religion, in their tone and their approach they were comedies, she says

.And her sixth film might have been another lighter look at a serious topic, she says, until her life and her point of view shifted a few years ago.

"I had kids and I grew up and I started to see the world through their eyes," Pelosi says. "My 3-year-old would say, 'Mommy, why is that person sleeping on the street?' You start to try to figure out how to answer that.

Working through that question eventually led her to Orange County and a new film she considers not comedy but a tragedy, Pelosi says of "Homeless: The Motel Kids Of Orange County," which premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. Monday.

See photos of "Homeless: The Motel Kids Of Orange County"

It's not an unfamiliar topic to many who live here – the Register has written about the kids and families who live in run-down motels here for years, and social service agencies and organizations know all too well how extensive the problem can be.

So to find out how Pelosi came to focus her lens on Orange County, and how she went about making her film here, we caught up with her by phone as she waited for a flight to Washington D.C. for a screening of the film for government officials and employees last week.

"I really believe this movie could have been made in any zip code in America, and the people in Orange County are probably not happy that we landed there," Pelosi says. "But Orange County had it coming to it – with 'The OC,' 'The Real Housewives,' it's portrayed as the place you go to live the American dream."

She scouted other locations – places in Florida, for instance – but kept coming back to Orange County because of way its image to people in other parts of the country differed from the reality of its homeless population.

"The contrasts are stark," Pelosi says. "We have tons of homeless people everywhere, but the first thing – when I told I people I was making about homeless kids in Orange County – people would say was, 'There are homeless people in Orange County?'"

RESIENCY OF SPIRIT

Pelosi shot the film in the summer of 2009, coming to Orange County with her camera – she typically works alone, without a crew – and her two kids, who at the time were 2 and 3 years old.

And while she liked the contrasts between the ostentatious TV lives of our housewives and high schoolers on one hand and our homeless on the other, the primary reason she set her documentary was because of Project HOPE and the public school it operates for homeless kids.

"The No. 1 draw for me was the HOPE school," Pelosi says. "Orange County gets a lot of credit because they have this school, and a lot of places have this problem but they don't have a Hope school."

She met children through the school and through the kids met their families, who invited her into their lives.

"Nobody said no," Pelosi says when asked whether it was difficult to convince families to participate. "You think of homeless people being defeated and bitter, but they weren't, they were resilient."

The film is firmly focused on the kids who speak directly to the camera and off-screen Pelosi behind it.

You meet children like Rudee, whose father works as a mechanic but doesn't earn enough to rent an apartment or house, and who matter-of-factly says she's happy to be in the run-down motel because it's a step up from sleeping in the bushes in the park.

Or Deanna, a 7-year-old who tap dances over the walkways of the motel where she lives, and Cassidy, an 8-year-old who seems sadder than many of the other kids and midway through the film shows up with her hair shaved close because of a lice infestation.

The families mostly have parents who work, and that was another part of the goal for Pelosi, she says, to show that the modern homeless often don't fit the stereotype people have in mind.

"Most people think they're drug-addicted, mentally ill hobo-looking people living on a street corner," she says. "You don't think you see homeless people (other than that) but you do when you go to Wal-Mart or Disneyland or McDonalds. The people who are ringing you up might be homeless, they just don't make enough to have a (stable) home."

NO TALKING HEADS

Some things you won't find in the film.

Pelosi felt that the most desperate of the homeless she met should be left with some privacy and some dignity, so the kids who seemed to disappear from school and not go back to one of the motels – the ones most likely living in the bushes in the park – weren't followed home.

There's also none of the material documentaries sometimes use to flesh out their stories – the talking heads and experts offering solutions to the problem at hand.

"I thought that would be soap-box documentary making," Pelosi says. "Is there a solution? I don't know. I wasn't trying to make a political point of view, I was making a portrait." (She did, however, end up giving it a controversial title, Pelosi notes. The federal government doesn't consider families living in motels to be homeless.

"I wasn't trying to start any controversy, I was just trying to shine a light on the situation of the new homeless appearing in America," she says.) So what does she hope viewers will take away after spending an hour watching the film?

"I guess I hope they'll think of the homeless in a new way," Pelosi says. "That it's not a drug-addicted hobo begging for change. It's a 6-year-old named Rudee living in a motel."

And as for the debate that goes on, year after year, over how to handle or solve the issue? She's not sure what the answer is, she says, just that it shouldn't be left the way it is now.

"Everyone says that this is the greatest country in the world," Pelosi says. "And if that's true then I think every kid in America should have a roof over their head."

LINKS PROVIDED BY HBO:

OC Paper

HBO Documentaries

Boys & Girls Club of America

Project Hope School

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Doctors Threaten to Pull Out of Texas Medicaid

My comments on the story below: First Texas Dr's stop Medicaid then slowly the rest of the country does. How insane!  Advocacy groups had to work hard for there to be any medicaid and now because physicians aren't being paid fast enough they are dropping it? Ive heard the complaint before how medicaid is slow but come on that's the governments fault don't punish the patient!!!!!!!!

• 
  • About 3.3 million poor and disabled Texans depend on Medicaid for health care, but less than a third of the state's 48,700 practicing doctors accept patients covered by the federal program.
    

Cuts to the reimbursements given to doctors who treat patients covered by the state's low-income health care program are raising fears that already declining physician participation will fall even further, according to a published report.

The health care and insurance industries fear that a 1 percent cut in Medicaid fees scheduled to take effect Sept. 1 will be the first in a series of cuts as state agencies are asked to trim their two-year budgets by 10 percent to help cover an expected $18 billion revenue shortfall, The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday.

About 3.3 million poor and disabled Texans depend on Medicaid for health care, but less than a third of the state's 48,700 practicing doctors accept patients covered by the federal program, according to Texas Health and Human Services Commission. And some doctors who do participate in the program limit the number and kind of patients they accept.

The commission, which administers the program in Texas, is among the state agencies that state leaders expect to cut spending. Thomas Suehs, the commission's top executive, said he realizes the bind that physicians find themselves in.

"No one ever wants to cut Medicaid," commission spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said. But, she noted, "it's 75 percent of our budget. So when you start to identify places to reduce our budget, it gets very hard to skip Medicaid."

Dr. Lou Montanaro, a suburban Dallas obstetrician, said he wanted to stay in the Medicaid program, but low reimbursement levels have prompted him to restrict the Medicaid cases he takes. He accepts pregnant patients, but not women seeking gynecological care.

Montanaro believes that reimbursement levels will continue to decline, which will prompt more doctors to decide to restrict or stop taking Medicaid patients.

"They're going to try to expand the rolls of Medicaid ... and at the same time they want to reduce the reimbursement to doctors," he said. "With the (pay) trend going downwards, I don't see additional physicians signing up. It's just not going to happen."

A survey by the Texas Medical Association, the state's largest physicians interest group, showed that 45 percent of its members who responded said they would limit how many Medicaid patients they would treat if the Medicaid fees were cut by 1 or 2 percent, while another 24 percent said they would stop accepting any Medicaid patients.

The issue is one of financial survival, said Tom Banning, the association's lobbyist. He said Medicaid pays about 70 percent of what Medicare, a federal insurance program for people age 65 or older, pays for the same service. Commercial insurers are also lowering their rates, he said.

In planning their business survival strategies, doctors "have tended to look at what is the lowest-paying part of the market, which is Medicaid. It's not a hard economic decision," Banning said.

Links

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Tonights 60 minutes with Al Pacino as Dr. Kavorkian

Al pacino is looks eerily  similar to Dr Death himself!!

In a rare sit-down interview, actor Al Pacino talks about his films and how he prepares for them, including his upcoming movie in which he stars as Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Sunday, April 18, 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Playing "Dr. Death" could be one of Al Pacino's toughest roles. The Oscar-winning actor tells Katie Couric that Dr. Jack Kevorkian's character is like none he has ever played before.

Couric's interview with Pacino will be broadcast on "60 Minutes" this Sunday, April 18, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Pacino likes the role of the assisted suicide doctor because it's so different. "It gave me an opportunity to do something I haven't done before, I think that's what is interesting," he says. "It's a kind of portrait of someone I don't know. In all my roles, I don't think there's anyone like that," says Pacino.
It took a lot of work to get the character down, says Pacino. "What I did with Jack Kevorkian is I worked. I went into my little bunker by the house. A lot of acting is private time," he tells Couric. "I'm watching the pieces. I'm reading the script. I'm listening to the sound of him. It's like little things that you do."

Part of his preparation for playing Kevorkian came from watching "60 Minutes."

Pacino studied tapes of Kevorkian's famous 1998 interview with Mike Wallace, in which he speaks to Wallace about euthanasia and explains the videotape he provides of his assisted suicide of Thomas Youk.

Some of that original "60 Minutes" footage of Wallace interviewing Kevorkian will be used in the HBO film, called "You Don't Know Jack."

 HBO SNEAK PEEK

Behind The Scenes

HBO- YOU DON'T KNOW JACK

CBS NEWS

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Afghanistan: Live Explosives Removed From Soldier's Scalp

 

This CAT scan image shows the placement of the explosive incendiary round that was removed from the scalp of an Afghan National Army soldier at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The injury was sustained during an improvised explosive device attack. (Courtesy U.S. Air Force)

Risking a deadly explosion in the operating room, doctors at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan surgically removed an explosive device from the head of an Afghan National Army Soldier last month, according to the Air Force News Service.
The 2.5-inch unexploded ordnance became lodged in the patient's scalp during an improvised explosive device attack. But when the patient arrived for treatment, doctors thought it was only a piece of scrap metal, the Air Force reported.

"Initially, I thought it was a spent end of some sort of larger round," Lt. Col. Anthony Terreri, the radiologist at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital who checked the patient's CAT scan, told the Air Force.

"I saw that it was not solid metal on the inside," he said. "I then looked at the [CAT scan] image and could see there was an air gap on one end and what looked almost like the tip of a tube of lipstick at the end and decided this didn't look quite right."

Unnecessary personnel were immediately evacuated and an explosive ordnance disposal team was summoned in preparation for surgery, Maj. John Bini, the 455th Expeditionary Medical Group-Task Force Medical East trauma director, told the Air Force.

Several patients and personnel had to stay on, however, because they could not be evacuated for medical reasons.

"It was kind of a case of Murphy's Law coming into play," Tech. Sgt. William Carter, a medical technician at the hospital, told the Air Force.

"We had an [operating room] full of trauma cases and we had people in other rooms who were busy taking care of patients and it was really an all-hands-on-deck event."

Donning body armor and crossing their fingers, the trauma team at Bagram went to work to remove the ordnance. Luckily, things went off without a hitch, Bini told the Air Force.

The ordnance safely removed, neurosurgery on the patient commenced. "The images available on the CT scan shows a depressed skull fracture involving the right front part of the brain," said Dr. David Palestrant, director of neurocritical care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"The good news is that the [ordnance] did not penetrate the skull, [but] the force of the impact can still cause significant injury to brain structures that may not be apparent at first."

Trauma director Bini told the Air Force, "The patient does have a traumatic brain injury but his neurologic condition continues to improve on a daily basis."

Given that the device did not penetrate the skull, added Dr. Antonio Chiocca, chairman of Department of Neurological Surgery at Ohio State University, "his prognosis should be relatively good."

 
This image shows the incendiary round after doctors removed it from the patent's head. The device, originally mistaken for a piece of scrap metal, contained 5 grams of live explosives. (Courtesy U.S. Air Force)

ABC NEWS

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India needs new legislation on Disability Rights

The government has proposed 108 amendments to the Persons with Disabilities Act, the overarching disability legislation in India. Disabled rights groups are demanding a new law instead that would guarantee civil and political rights to disabled people and expand the definition of disability

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of the Government of India has been holding national consultative meetings on proposed amendments to the Persons with Disabilities Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation Act (PWD Act). Meetings have been held in Delhi, Guwahati and most recently in Kolkata on March 13, 2010. The debate centres on whether there should be amendments to the existing law, or whether there should be a new law.     

The Persons with Disabilities Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation Act, (PWD Act) of 1995 had heralded a new dawn in the lives of disabled people in India. For the first time in the history of independent India, a separate law had been formulated which talked about the multiple needs of disabled people. Very soon, though, activists as well as disabled people felt that the law had too many loopholes. However, this Act did help disabled people to come together, forming groups as they started making demands to implement this law.   To the delight of disability groups, India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disability Convention) in October 2007. This Convention marks a formal shift from the archaic medical model to the social model, and promotes the rights of people living with disabilities. Article 1 encapsulates the overall objective of the Convention which is “to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.” 

The Convention recognises that persons with disability are right-holders instead of passive recipients of government schemes. In contrast, the PWD Act has a different foundation. The PWD Act was enacted in order to implement the Proclamation on the Full Participation and Equality of People with Disabilities, an instrument that did not expressly recognise rights, but laid emphasis on the need to eliminate physical and social barriers so as to promote the participation of people living with disabilities. The PWD Act, thus, does not internalise any of the core principles that form the bedrock of the Disability Convention.  

Retain or recast? 

There is a definite need to review the existing legislative framework in India to examine whether it adequately promotes the rights contained in the Convention. The Disability Convention imposes two key legislative obligations: (1) to ensure that the rights contained in the Convention are realised and (2) to ensure that existing laws and practices that are discriminatory towards people living with disabilities are repealed or amended to bring them in line with the Convention.   Since its ratification by India, there has been much discussion of the manner in which Indian laws must be modified or harmonised to give effect to the obligations under the Convention. While the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MOSJE) has proposed 108 amendments to the PWD Act including 50 new provisions, the Disabled Rights Group (DRG) led by Javed Abidi has unequivocally stated that the PWD Act has served its time and that there is a need for a new law.   Consultations on this issue at national and zonal levels are going on throughout India right now. Advocate Kanchan Pamnani, who is blind herself, says that the old law will need more than 300 amendments to make it suitable to our times, and obviously it is better to frame a new one than make 300 changes in the old one. Shukla Bhadury, mother of two disabled children agrees. She says it is ridiculous that government is even considering so many amendments. “Even in the amendments, punitive actions are not mentioned,” comments Sritama, a law student and member of Campaigners for Inclusion. “Any law without punitive action will not work in this country,” she says.   Let’s examine the differences between the Disability Convention and the present PWD Act to see why such passionate pleas to repeal this law are coming from all quarters.  

Purpose  

It is clear from the objectives of the Convention that civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights stand on the same footing and that the state must make efforts to realise both. The PWD Act barely provides for civil and political rights and the amendments proposed by the MOSJE, too, neglect these rights.  

Construction of disability 

The PWD Act adopts a narrow definition of disability and confines it to “blindness; low vision; leprosy-cured; hearing impairment; loco-motor disability; mental retardation; and mental illness”. As opposed to this, the Disability Convention recognizes that “disability is an evolving concept” and avoids listing specific conditions and severities and broadly casts “persons with disabilities” to “include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.”   

Foundational principles (Article 3) 

The core human rights principles stated in Article 3 of the Disability Convention are respect for inherent dignity and individual autonomy; non-discrimination, full and effective participation and inclusion; respect for difference; equality of opportunity; accessibility, gender equality; respect for the evolving capacity of children with disabilities and their right to preserve their identities.” These general principles have been well etched in several

provisions of the Convention.  

The amendments proposed by the MOSJE merely replicate Article 3 without incorporating the provisions which further the principles such as those relating to civil and political rights, rights of women and girls with disabilities, and several other rights stated below.  

Extent of application (Article 4(1)(e))

The Disability Convention requires the state to address discrimination on the basis of disability even in the private sector. The amendments proposed to the chapter on discrimination fail to expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability or spell out the consequences for the same.   

Recognized rights  

The Disability Convention expressly recognises the following rights: 

1. Right to equality and non-discrimination. It also recognises the need to provide for reasonable accommodation in order to further the right to equality.
2. Right of women and girls with disabilities to full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
3. Right of children with disabilities to full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms. A child’s right to express views on matters affecting him/her is also recognised.
4. Right to access to the physical environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including information and communications technologies and systems, in urban and rural areas.
5. Right to life.
6. Right to protection and safety in situations of risk, armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and natural disasters.
7. Right to recognition before law. The right to legal capacity is also included.
8. Right to access justice with procedural and age-appropriate accommodations.
9. Right to liberty and security of person.
10. Right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
11. Protection from exploitation, violation and abuse, gender-based and otherwise.
12. Right to respect for physical and mental integrity.
13. Right to freedom of movement and the right to acquire and change a nationality.
14. Right to live in the community and choose place of residence.
15. Right to freedom of expression.
16. Right to privacy.
17. Right to marry and found a family.
18. Right to retain fertility and other reproductive rights.
19. Right to education.
20. Right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.
21. Prohibition on discrimination on the basis of disability in employment.
22. Right to an adequate standard of living including adequate food, clothing, and housing.
23. Right to participate in political and public life including the right to vote and to be elected.
24. Right to participate in cultural life

While most of the above rights can be gleaned from the Indian Constitution, a glance at the existing PWD Act shows that it can hardly be termed a rights-based legislation. It recognizes only the right to education, provides for reservations in employment and for half-hearted measures to reduce physical barriers. It also prohibits establishments from discriminating against an employee because of his/her disability.  

These abovementioned rights must be codified in the form of a statute that is more likely to be invoked by people living with disabilities and can also be used to ensure that the state fulfils its obligations towards each of the rights. The amendments proposed by the MOSJE fail to provide for a majority of civil and political rights such as the right to recognition before law, right to privacy, right to marry, right against torture etc. Discrimination has been addressed only in transport and in-built environment. Clause 46A (2) of the proposed amendments leaves it to the government to frame ‘policies’ to ensure equal access to education, health, employment and other public services. It fails to expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability.

Further, the rights that appear in the PWD Act do not measure up to the standards set out in the Convention. For instance, Sections 44-46 of the PWD Act require establishments and the government to take “special measures” to enable people with disabilities to gain better access to public transport, buildings, and roads. However, such measures could be undertaken only if it were “within the limits of their economic capacity”. A mere deletion of these words without fleshing out how rights may be realised will be unfruitful.  

Without a strong implementation mechanism, the few rights that have been added on will be deprived of meaning. For instance, the Act empowers the Disability Commissioner to “recommend” necessary action to appropriate authorities in order to address “deprivation of rights”. This recommendation is of no binding value and the authority can reject it thus rendering the office of the Commissioner toothless as before.     

Conclusion 

The PWD Act will require a complete overhaul. The Act must be recast to comprehensively provide for all the rights recognised under the Convention. In a letter to the minister of social justice and empowerment, (http://uncrpdandlaw.nileshsingit.org/blog/letter-to-hon-ble-minister-for-social-justice-and-empowerment) the Disability Rights Group has said that the amendments proposed by the ministry do not mirror the rights-based framework of the Convention. In the past, the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986, was re-enacted in the form of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 to give effect to India’s obligation under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  

Involvement of stakeholders is inherent in a rights-based approach and their exclusion will be discordant with the soul and spirit of the Disability Convention. The form that the harmonisation should take must be thoroughly discussed and debated in consultation with various stakeholders and the government cannot afford to take the decision unilaterally.  

With strong voices rising from within the disability sector, can the state remain inattentive to this demand? “It’s the decision of our lives, and we will not allow a few officers in the ministry to force down their opinion on us anymore, whatever comes,” says Rajarshi Chakrobarti, secretary of Swabalamban, a West Bengal-based organization with more than 1,500 disabled members.  

(With inputs from Shampa Sengupta)  

(Swagata Raha is a lawyer and volunteers her time with Sruti Disability Rights Centre)

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A Reader's Guide to Health Reform

By: Murrey Jacobson

Many people have written to us in the past several weeks saying they can't stand to hear another word about the political sausage-making process behind health reform. What they ARE eager to learn more about is how the legislation will actually change things for them, their families, their employers - with answers about costs, limitations, and unintended consequences.

With that in mind, we've constructed a brief Reader's Guide to Health Reform that includes a few of the more interesting pieces we've come across out of the millions of words written over the past 14 months. In some cases, these might be stories that you overlooked before. Or they may be articles you wanted to set aside to read but never did.

First, let's start with the question of what you need to know.

There are good roundups of what the House passed last night and the myriad of ways it may affect you or your employer. Here are just two of many guides that spell out the details with real numbers: the first from Kaiser Health News and the second from The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal also offers a list of suggestions to consumers on how to prepare for the reform changes.

Next, the question of what ails the U.S. health care system.

There have been a number of pieces attempting to diagnose the troubles in the American health care system, to explore smaller state experiments under way around the country, and to examine how the existing problems and attempted solutions might affect the legislation.

Most recently, for example, Kevin Sacks of the New York Times showed how the arcane matters of Medicaid payments translate into real-life problems that patients face in finding a doctor. Last year, the NewsHour's health correspondent Betty Ann Bowser looked at the benefits and problems Massachusetts has encountered since enacting universal coverage, including a doctor shortage (there's more here).

On locally-based efforts, the NewsHour's Spencer Michels reported from San Francisco on the city's initiative to extend coverage to its more than 60,000 uninsured residents. And the NYT's Gardiner Harris looked at lessons that could be learned from Hawaii's lesser-known experience.

And then there were the issues of coverage and costs.

Throughout the debate, the focus shifted periodically from coverage to costs to discrimination. On the question of coverage and insurance discrimination, Time's Karen Tumulty drew major attention last year for her powerful cover piece titled "The Health Care Crisis Hits Home," which chronicled the battles her brother encountered over the years as he dealt with a form of autism.

Perhaps no writer was more quoted throughout this debate than surgeon and New Yorker writer Dr. Atul Gawande, whose work was cited by President Obama and too many others to count when it came to questions of cost disparities and coverage. Back in June 2009, Gawande wrote a story about how two border towns in Texas of similar size and location, McAllen and El Paso, cost Medicare very different amounts of money. The article triggered plenty of discussion about whether there was waste, inefficiency, and a simple lack of standards in Medicare. And it generated debate over how to interpret that data, which Gawande responded to here.

Dr. Gawande also wrote a provocative essay early on arguing that it was important for a country to pass health reform, however imperfect, and realize that the program would evolve over time as it has in Europe and elsewhere. And our own Betty Ann Bowser sat down with Dr. Gawande to explore his idea of creating a checklist for doctors and hospitals to improve the quality of care and reduce deaths.

Costs dominated much of the talk throughout the year, particularly the idea of "bending the cost curve" - and there were sharp pieces written on all sides of that question. Most recently, former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and former adviser to Sen. John McCain wrote a withering attack.

And Ruth Marcus - who was favorably disposed to support health reform - said she didn't have much faith in the CBO estimates either. But The New Republic's Jonathan Cohen argued it was fiscally responsible. And David Leonhardt noted that while the bill was imperfect and not as courageous as he would like, it would begin to implement some changes to help bend the cost curve.

To take a look at what some places have done to improve the quality of care and reduce costs, Betty Ann and NewsHour health unit producer Bridget DeSimone traveled around the country to look at early adopters -- health systems that have already made some of the changes that legislators and health policy analysts are now advocating. Geisinger Hospital System in Pennsylvania has created a "90-day warranty" program on some surgical procedures. The Billings Clinic in Montana is aiming to reduce costs and improve quality by integrating patients' care in doctor visits, surgery and hospital care. Judy Woodruff spoke with the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest practitioners of that kind of integrated care, about his ideas for keeping costs down. And in Grand Junction, Colo., reforms implemented in the 1980s mean that the majority of doctors work together to offer coordinated care, resulting in some of the lowest medical costs in the country -- 30 percent below the national average for Medicare.

And there were also comparisons to health care systems abroad.

We explored international comparisons on our program. Betty Ann talked to reporter T.R. Reid about his book on what the United States might learn from other countries' health care systems. And the NewsHour's global health team traveled to the Netherlands to see how a massive health care overhaul that that country undertook four years ago has worked out.

And the developments continue on Capitol Hill and beyond.

In the last several weeks, two developments took center stage - the hike in insurance premiums in California and elsewhere; and the battle over abortion. Slate's Timothy Noah struck back hard at the insurers and health consultant Robert Laszewski tried to put Wellpoint's 39 percent insurance hike in a different perspective.

In the meantime, NPR's Julie Rovner - who tried to alert everyone to the simmering troubles of the abortion fight for months - looked at what the bill did and did not do when it comes to using taxpayer money to provide abortion coverage.

Finally, one last duo of links -- and that's to a pair of stories released the other day on how health reform went from death's door to passage inside of two months. It's a story that shows off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tough spine, captured here and here.

Once the bill is signed, you can expect to see plenty more pieces on the NewsHour and elsewhere about its implementation and the legal challenges ahead, including one right here. But maybe we can all take a breath before we start bookmarking those.

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House roll call: Health care bill

USA TODAY

Rep. Allen Boyd D-Fla

. Quote: "This package of reforms will effectively curb the skyrocketing cost of healthcare services, helping to lower monthly insurance premiums and doctor bills."

Context: Boyd is among several fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition members who voted no on the November House bill.

AP

Rep. Betsy Markey

D-Colo.

Quote: "This is going to be the largest deficit-reduction bill that I will ever vote for."

Context: Markey is among several freshmen Democrats in a district that backed Republican John McCain in 2008. A new House bill is estimated to reduce the deficit by $143 billion over 10 years.

AP

Rep. Bart Gordon

D-Tenn.

Quote: "The question I'm faced with is this: will this reform be better for Middle Tennessee than the status quo? I think it will."

Context: Democratic leaders pushed hard for Gordon, who is retiring after 13 terms, to switch his position.

AP

Rep. Dennis Kucinich

D-Ohio

Quote: "I don't like this bill. But I made a decision to support it in the hope that we can move toward a more comprehensive approach."

Context: A liberal, Kucinich would rather have the federal government pay for universal health care coverage. His remarks were about the Senate bill as amended by the House.

second paragraph

Switched from "yes" to "no"

AP

Rep. Michael Arcuri

D-N.Y.

Quote: "I am not convinced that after months of listening, studying and debating that the current bill benefits the people in my district in the best possible way."

Context: Arcuri could face opposition from labor unions in the fall for switching. His upstate New York district narrowly supported Obama in 2008.

AP

Rep. Joseph Cao

R-La.

Quote: "If we were to vote against our moral values, there is really nothing left for us to defend."

Context: Cao, who represents a district that strongly supported Obama in 2008, was the only Republican to vote for the original House health care bill. He is against abortion rights.

' Congress completed action Sunday night on the major portion of President Obama's top priority, a historic restructuring of the nation's health care system that has eluded his predecessors for more than a century.

The 219-212 House vote, coming after a tumultuous day of protests and rancorous debate, paves the way for Obama to sign into law most of his 10-year, $940 billion plan within the next few days. The House also approved a package of changes to the bill by a 220-211 vote shortly before midnight and sent it to the Senate for final action, perhaps later this week.

"Today, we have the opportunity to complete the great unfinished business of our society and pass health care reform for all Americans that is a right and not a privilege," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said in the final floor speech before the vote.

Democrats who provided all 219 votes cheered "Yes we can" when the needed votes were cast, assuring that about 32 million Americans will gain health insurance coverage and millions more will win protections against losing theirs. The legislation will raise taxes, largely on the wealthy, and reduce future Medicare spending by about $500 billion.

It gave Obama a major victory and will make him, at least for now, a more powerful president who made good on his campaign promise of change.

"We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things," Obama said in statement delivered after the House votes with Vice President Biden at his side. "We proved that this government, a government of the people and by the people, still works for the people."

Republicans who voted unanimously against the health care overhaul, along with 34 Democrats, predicted it would come back to bite Democrats at the polls — and in the form of repeal efforts as soon as next year.

"Just because it's historic doesn't mean it's good," said Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill.

In his closing argument, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio thundered that the Democrats were ignoring the will of the people.

"We have failed to listen to America, and we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents," he said. "And when we fail to reflect that will, we fail ourselves, and we fail our country."

With every Republican poised to vote "no," Pelosi and her leadership team had to a strike a late deal on abortion language with some of the party's conservative members.

In a dramatic turn, eight anti-abortion Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., announced late Sunday afternoon that they would support the bill even though it did not include stronger prohibitions against using federal money to cover abortions — a move that gave Obama the votes he needed to pass the bill. Instead, the conservative lawmakers settled for an executive order signed by Obama.

"We would all love to have a statute that is stronger," Stupak said. "We can't get there."

Determined not to fail where their party has so many times before, most recently in 1994, Democratic leaders drew on history as they marched toward passage of the legislation.

"This will be one of those events that every textbook writer is going to have to put in his books," said presidential scholar William Leuchtenburg, author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.

After more than a year of debate, including heated summer town-hall meetings and an icy winter summit between Obama and Republicans, Democrats had to go it alone.

"It's not the desirable way to enact major social policy, but it might be the only way," said Robert Reischauer, president of the nonpartisan Urban Institute and a former Congressional Budget Office director.

Polls continue to show Americans split down the middle on the issue, and both sides claim momentum.

"The opposition to this is as strong as it was in July," said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $145 million lobbying last year, much of it on health care. "Americans are not being fooled by this."

Many Americans, particularly those with private insurance from their employers, remained in the dark about whether the overhaul would help or hurt — even the grandson of President Harry Truman, who fought for universal health care more than a half century ago.

"How much damage is this going to do? How good a bill is this going to be?" said Clifton Truman Daniel, public relations director at the Harry S Truman College in Chicago. "My assumption is that it will improve things, but who knows?"

Making history

Throughout the rare weekend session, Democratic leaders repeatedly tried to frame the debate as part of a much larger, historic effort to revamp health care, while reducing the nation's deficit by $143 billion over the first 10 years.

House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter of New York held up a 1939 letter from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Congress seeking expanded health coverage as part of Social Security. The letter had FDR's notes in the margins.

Pelosi appeared at a news conference with the same gavel Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., used to end the House debate on the Medicare legislation 45 years ago — and she vowed to use it at the end of Sunday's vote.

"We're doing this one for the American people," Pelosi said.

As Democrats put on a confident face, they could not escape the controversies that the health care plan continues to stir. As Pelosi finished her remarks after a meeting of House Democrats, 66-year-old Ron Arner of Pennsylvania shouted, "You're doing it to the American people."

Around the corner, Arner started shouting down Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., as he spoke to a reporter. "This is Fox News," Frank quipped, suggesting that Arner might not want to interrupt the conservative cable network.

Republican House members stood on a second-floor balcony and waved to a crowd of about 1,000 protesters gathered on the National Mall. Several of them unfurled a yellow flag that read, "Don't tread on me," prompting loud cheers.

"That was fun," Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Okla., said as she walked back into the Capitol.

The opposition will have one more shot in the Senate, which must vote on the changes demanded by Obama and House Democrats as the price of passing the Senate health care bill. Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, plan scores of amendments and procedural challenges.

If the Senate parliamentarian decides any part of the second bill must be struck because it does not, as required, have fiscal implications, the measure would have to go back to the House. And a "vote-o-rama" on Republicans' amendments could go on for days.

The second bill also includes an overhaul of the college aid program that would give the government — not private lenders — the power to authorize all Pell Grant loans for needy students.

'Cost, cost, cost, tax, tax, tax'

Nearly lost in Sunday's focus on protests, process and politics was the stunning array of new federal policies included in the legislation. Dingell, 83, who succeeded his father in the House 55 years ago, called it a natural successor to Medicare.

"We were solving an enormous problem, the health concerns of the elderly in this country," he said of that vote 45 years ago. "Today, we are doing what we intended to be the second step, and that is addressing the health concerns and the health problems of all of the people. Unfortunately, it's been a very slow national progression."

The package of changes would provide coverage to 32 million people through Medicaid, subsidies to families and tax credits to small businesses that can't afford to cover their workers. It would pay for the expansion with the Medicare cuts, new taxes on upper-income workers and expensive insurance plans, and fees on the manufacturers of prescription drugs and medical devices.

It also would prohibit insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, dropping people when they get sick and limiting lifetime benefits. Children could be covered on their parents' policies up to age 26, and seniors would receive improved coverage for Medicare prescription drugs. Most individuals would be required to have insurance, and businesses with 50 or more employees would have to provide it or pay a fee.

Faced with all those provisions and more, Washington's lobbying industry has weighed in with full force. The number of corporations, trade associations and other organizations that disclosed their efforts on health care grew from 398 during the first months of 2009 to 1,541 by the end of the year. Health professionals and health insurers spent more than $576 million on lobbying, up from $515 million in 2008 and $210 million a decade ago.

In the end, most stakeholders endorsed Obama's plan, including major trade groups representing doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the AARP, the nation's largest seniors' organization. Two groups — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and America's Health Insurance Plans — opposed it with multimillion dollar ad campaigns.

Karen Ignagni, president of the insurers' trade group, expressed regret that Obama in recent weeks decided to "villainize" her industry for premium increases necessitated by rising medical costs, which she said the legislation mostly fails to address. Access is "a very important step forward," she said. "But the cost crisis needs to be addressed."

"My members are sitting there looking at cost, cost, cost, tax, tax, tax," the Chamber's Josten said.

The taxes will fall heaviest on upper-income taxpayers, according to an analysis by Deloitte Tax. It found that single taxpayers earning $250,000 a year would pay $450 more in Medicare payroll taxes, for instance. Those earning $500,000 would pay $2,700 more, while those earning $1 million would pay $7,200 more. Those with income of $5 million would pay $43,200 more.

Obama 'looking very good'

It will take years to sort out winners and losers among consumers, insurers and health care providers.

Some of the law's provisions, such as a tax on the most expensive insurance plans, don't take effect for nearly a decade.

The political consequences will be known much sooner. Republicans hope to defeat dozens of Democrats this fall, and health care represents "a bigger vote than anything we've already had," says Rep. Pete Sessions, who runs the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Democratic leaders predicted the measure would become more popular after it passes, giving those who voted for it time to herald some of the changes that would be made later this year. Among them: $250 rebates for seniors to help pay the costs of prescription drugs.

"If the Republicans want to make November all about the repeal of this bill, I don't quote George Bush very often, but 'bring it on,' " said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

One thing most experts agree on: Obama needed to win.

Fred Greenstein, director of the program in leadership studies at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, said Obama's image will be recast from "a cerebral wimp who can't hack it and doesn't have spine and doesn't understand Machiavelli's principle that it's better to be feared than loved. Instead, he's suddenly looking very good."

David Abshire, president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and a former NATO ambassador, said defeat "would be a terrific blow to his presidency, and it would be a symbol around the world that his power is broken."

Representatives who changed votes

A sampling of House lawmakers who said going into debate on Sunday that they would switch their votes on health care.

	HEALTH BILL What it does:   � Covers an additional 32 million Americans by expanding Medicaid and providing federal subsidies � Requires most American citizens and legal residents to buy health insurance � Creates a health care exchange, a marketplace where uninsured individuals and small businesses can comparison shop for insurance policies � Fines employers with 50 or more employees if any full-time workers qualify for health care subsidies � Increases Medicare payroll tax and expands it to include investment income � Prohibits insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions � Reduces out-of-pocket prescription expenses for seniors on Medicare What's next: � President Obama signs the Senate health care bill once the House passes it. � The Senate must approve separate legislation, also scheduled to be approved by the House on Sunday night, that makes changes to the Senate health bill.

Enlarge By Lauren Victoria Burke, AP House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., emerges from a Democratic Caucus session on Sunday holding the gavel used in the House when Medicare was enacted in the 1960s. Accompanying her, from left, are Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md. and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. At right is Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

	USA TODAY-HEALTHCARE VOTE

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OnThis Day in History in Selma Alabama

We have come so far yet we still have so much more to improve with discrimination all around.

On March 21, 1965, more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

The Big Parade: On the Road to MontgomeryFreedom March Begins at Selma; Troops on Guard

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3,200 Take Part in Protest as 54-Mile Rights Walk to Montgomery Starts

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Dr. King Hails Mission

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Envisions 'A New Alabama' and 'A New America' & #151; Crowd's Mood Festive By Roy Reed Special to The New York Times

Selma, Ala., March 21 & #151; Backed by the armed might of the United States, 3,200 persons marched out of Selma today on the first leg of a historic venture in nonviolent protest. The marchers, or at least many of them, are on their way to the State Capitol at Montgomery to submit a petition for Negro rights Thursday to Gov. George C. Wallace, a man with little sympathy for their cause. Today was the third attempt for the Alabama Freedom March. On the first two, the marchers were stopped by state troopers, the first time with tear gas and clubs. The troopers were on hand today, but they limited themselves to helping Federal troops handle traffic on U.S. Highway 80 as the marchers left Selma. Soldiers Line Highway Hundreds of Army and federalized National Guard troops stood guard in Selma and lined the highway out of town to protect the marchers. The troops were sent by President Johnson after Governor Wallace said that Alabama could not afford the expense of protecting the march. The marchers were in festive humor as they started. The tone was set by the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, top aide to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as he introduced Dr. King for an address before the march started. "When we get to Montgomery," Mr. Abernathy said, "we are going to go up to Governor Wallace's door and say, 'George, it's all over now. We've got the ballot.'" The throng laughed and cheered. Seven Miles Covered The marchers, a large majority of them Negroes, walked a little over seven miles today. Governor Wallace is not expected to be at the State Capitol when the marchers arrive at the end of their 54-mile journey.

An aide has said that he will probably be "in Michigan, or someplace" making a speech Thursday. Not enough buses could be found to escort 2,900 of the 3,200 marchers back to Selma tonight in line with a Federal Court order limiting the number to 300 along a two-lane stretch of highway. The authorities feared for the safety of those returning to Selma, Justice Department officials finally arranged with the Southern Railway for a special train of the Western Railway of Alabama to take them back. The Western is a subsidiary of the Southern. Johnson Praised Highway 80 narrows from a four-lane to a two-lane road about five miles past the point where the marchers stopped tonight. It widens to four lanes again as it approaches Montgomery.

In his talk at the start of the march, Dr. King praised President Johnson, saying of his voting rights message to Congress last Monday: "Never has a President spoken so eloquently or so sincerely on the question of civil rights." Then he turned to the crowd in front of Browns Chapel Methodist, Church, the thousands of whites and Negroes from Alabama and around the country who were congregated for the march, and said: "You will be the people that will light a new chapter in the history books of our nation. Those of us who are Negroes don't have much.

We have known the long night of poverty. Because of the system, we don't have much education and some of us don't know how to make our nouns and verbs agree. But thank God we have our bodies, our feet and our souls. "Walk together, children, don't you get weary, and it will lead us to the promised land. And Alabama will be a new Alabama, and America will be a new America." Dr. King's sense of history, if not his optimism, seemed well placed.

The Alabama march appears destined for a niche in the annals of the great protest demonstrations. The march is the culmination of a turbulent nine-week campaign that began as an effort to abolish restrictions on Negro voting in the Alabama Black Belt and widened finally to encompass a general protest against racial injustice in the state. The drive has left two men dead and scores injured. Some 3,800 persons have been arrested in Selma and neighboring communities. The march got under way at 12:47 P.M., 2 hours 47 minutes late, after a confused flurry of last-minute planning and organizing. The marchers reached the first night's campsite, 7.3 miles east of Selma, at 5:30. When they got there they found four big tents pitched in a Negro farmer's field. Leading the march with Dr. King were Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, United Nations Under Secretary for Special Political Affairs; the Right Rev. Richard Millard, Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, and Cager Lee, grandfather of Jimmy Lee Jackson, the young Negro killed by a state trooper last month at Marion, Ala. Also among the leaders were John Lewis, president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Deaconess Phyllis Edwards of the Episcopal Diocese of California; Rabbi Abraham Heschel, professor of Jewish mysticism and ethics at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York; Mr. Abernathy, and the Rev. Frederick D. Reese, a Negro minister from Selma, who is president of the Dallas County Voters League.

2,000 Spectators About 2,000 white and Negro spectators watched the procession leave town. That was 4,000 fewer than Army Intelligence had predicted. About 150 whites watched in silence as the march turned from Alabama Avenue and headed down Broad Street toward Edmund Pettus Bridge. A white man hoisted his young son to his shoulder to give the lad a better view. Several persons snapped pictures. Brig. Gen. Henry V. Graham, a National Guard officer, commanded all Federal troops on the scene, including the Regular Army military policemen. General Graham, a tall, square-jawed man, stood in the middle of Pettus Bridge wearing a helmet as he directed the operation. Two state trooper cars led the procession across the bridge. In the lead car was Maj. John Cloud, the man who directed the rout, with tear gas and nightsticks, of 525 Negro marchers near the foot of the same bridge two weeks ago. 

The marchers passed the site of the bloody incident without signal, except for a reminder from a white heckler. It was to protest the officers' rout of the first marchers that the Rev. James J. Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, came to Selma with scores of other clergymen. While he was here, Mr. Reeb was fatally beaten by a band of white men on March 9. The heckler held up a sign as the procession left Pettus Bridge early this afternoon. It read, "Too bad, Reeb." A few feet away, another white spectator held a sign saying, "I hate niggers." More Hecklers More whites heckled from a railroad embankment running along the highway. They apparently were upset over the way the marchers were carrying a United States flag. They were carrying it upside down- the position of the distress signal. On down the road, three cars painted with anti-Negro slogans passed in the south section of the four-lane highway. One car, with a Mississippi license plate, bore the words, "Meridian, Miss., hates niggers."

A Confederate flag flew from the radio aerial. The lettering on another car said, "Go home scum." Back in town some 20 stragglers ran up Broad Street toward the bridge with knapsacks bouncing on their backs, trying to catch the procession, which had already disappeared over the bridge. The marchers walked on the left side of the highway. The Federal presence was everywhere, even in the air. About a dozen planes and helicopters, many of them manned by military personnel, flew over the procession constantly. John Doar, head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, walked to one side at the head of the march, watching. Maj. Gen. Carl C. Turner, Provost Marshal General of the United States Army, was on the scene as the personal representative of the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Harold K. Johnson. By radio, Federal agents reported minute by minute to the Justice Department and the Pentagon in Washington. M.P.'s guarded every crossroad, leapfrogging in Jeeps to stay ahead of the march. There was one report of violence. An unidentified white minister riding in an advance car was said to have been attacked by four white men when he got out of the car on the side of the road.

A spokesman for the marchers said the minister had been struck on the face once and knocked to the ground but had not been seriously hurt. Today's leg of the journey was cut short four miles by a court injunction obtained by a white landowner who did not want the marchers camping overnight on his land. A Negro tenant had agreed to let them camp there. The march leaders found a new campsite. The Negro farmer's field where they slept tonight is about a quarter of a mile south of the highway. The field is about 500 yards from the New Sister Springs Baptist Church. It was at the church that the marchers returning to Selma tonight boarded rented Greyhound buses and numerous automobiles that shuttled them to the railway loading point about a mile from the campsite. 

Most of those who left the march this way spent the night, as many had spent previous nights, with Negro families in Selma. Some will remain in Alabama and rejoin the march Thursday, the final day. Leaders of the march hope to arrive at Montgomery in impressive numbers. The military authorities are concerned about protection for the marchers at night. Show business personalities such as Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne are scheduled to entertain the group every night. The officials fear that outsiders may come to the camps to see and hear the entertainers, and that troublemakers may infiltrate at the same time. A military spokesman said the troops had no authority to search cars for weapons. Although the weather was relatively warm for the beginning of the march, the temperature dropped below freezing.

The coming of the troops to Selma has produced none of the crushing grimness of the Federal presence that characterized the Government's intervention at Little Rock, Ark., in 1957 and Oxford, Miss., in 1962. The main difference is that troops were used in the earlier instances to suppress violence already out of hand, while they were brought here to prevent violence. Most of Selma's whites today went about their Sunday morning business, which is church, and only a few bothered with the commotion on Sylvan Street. About 30 whites gathered at Broad Street and Alabama Avenue at midmorning to wait for the march to go by. The march was late, as expected, and while they waited half a dozen spectators joshed with the four armed military policemen stationed there. The state and local authorities have repeatedly urged Alabama whites to stay away from U.S. Highway 80 while the march is in progress. Early this morning, two or three armed M.P.'s were deployed at each intersection on the march route in the city. More were strung out along Highway 80 on the other side of Edmund Pettus Bridge. Several state troopers were scattered along the highway on the outskirts of the city.

At Craig Air Force Base, five miles east on Highway 80, a dozen big Army trucks could be seen from the road. They were filled with armed troops. The temperature was 2 degrees above freezing when people began gathering in Sylvan Street this morning. The sun came out brilliantly, and by 11 A.M. the temperature was up to 42 degrees. The marchers were out in everything from shirtsleeves to heavy coats. One elderly Negro wore a dress Air Force topcoat and a heavy wool headpiece that covered his head, throat and most of his face. Paul R. Screvane, president of the New York City Council showed up in a suit and blue overcoat. He and Mrs. Constance Baker Motley, Manhattan's Negro Borough President, joined the milling crowd in front of Browns Chapel at midmorning. Mr. Screvane explained why he was there. "We came to represent Mayor Wagner and, we hope, the people of New York in what we consider to be a just cause," he said. Dozens of union officials and clergymen came in today and joined the hundreds of ministers and students and civil rights workers already here.

A fresh college group arrived, 33 students and three professors from Canisius College, a Roman Catholic institution in Buffalo, N.Y. A sign thrust up from the group said, "Civil Man Wants Civil Rights." Early today, plans for the march were still being hammered out. At 8 A.M., 400 or 500 persons milled in the street. Milling has become the style of the movement in recent weeks, and the character of the milling has changed as hundreds of whites from the North, East, and West have come into town to add their protest to the Negro's. The outsiders mill with a greater air of purpose. The marchers who showed up very early today in front of Browns Chapel were from the hard core of the movement. Others did not begin to appear on Sylvan Street until the sun was high.

The Alabama Freedom March has a long history, as the leaders see it. The Rev. Andrew Young, executive assistant to Dr. King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told reporters last night that the whole Alabama project went back to the Birmingham church bombing of 1963 in which five Negro children were killed. "At that time," he said, "we began to ask ourselves, 'What can we do to change the climate of an entire state?'" The Black Belt movement began that year. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee moved into Selma, which calls itself queen of the Alabama Black Belt - the swath of rich, dark, soil and heavy Negro population across south-central Alabama- and began holding meetings and demonstrations. Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference came here last January and put the Selma movement on the map.

NY Times

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Sean Penn: Haiti Relief a Family Affair/Video

I love love love Sean Penn. Besides the fact that he is blunt on how he feels about people/media and the

fact that he is a great actor, he gets out and helps those who need it  the most. Penn remembers

the "little people".. Actors like Penn are my favorite!

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Actor Sean Penn talks with CBS' Lara Logan about bringing his son and daughter to Haiti and what valuable lessons they can learn as part of the relief effort.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

The Oscar winning actor talks with CBS' Lara Logan about how he delivered $1 million in aid to Haiti following January's earthquake.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Actor Sean Penn tells CBS News' Lara Logan he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about his critics but does admit he wouldn't mind if they "died screaming of rectal cancer."

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Sean Penn speaks with Lara Logan about the disastrous earthquake that hit Haiti and the recovery efforts in Port-Au-Prince.

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Nujood Ali: 12-Year-Old Divorcee Takes A Stand Against Child Marriage

                                               

Huffington Post-Impact

Nujood Ali and her lawyer Shada Nasser leave the stage after being honored at the Glamour Women of the Year awards Monday, Nov. 10, 2008 in New York. Ali, a former child bride, was able to get a divorce from her abusive husband with the help of Nasser. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Nujood Ali is a 12-year-old girl from Yemen. She lived with her parents and went to school and lived, by most reasonable accounts, a normal life. There are a few things about Nujood Ali, though, that make her a bit different from most children her age. First of all, she's a published author. Secondly, she's divorced.

At the age of 10, Nujood's parents introduced her to a deliveryman in his 30s, and informed her that this was to be her husband. She had to leave school and cried all through her weekend.

As Nicholas Kristof wrote in yesterday's New York Times, Nujood has become a heroine for women's rights in Yemen, sneaking away from her home one day to a courthouse and requesting a divorce.

Divorced Before Puberty

NY Times

 

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: March 3, 2010

It’s hard to imagine that there have been many younger divorcées — or braver ones — than a pint-size third grader named Nujood Ali.

Nujood is a Yemeni girl, and it’s no coincidence that Yemen abounds both in child brides and in terrorists (and now, thanks to Nujood, children who have been divorced). Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.

For Nujood, the nightmare began at age 10 when her family told her that she would be marrying a deliveryman in his 30s. Although Nujood’s mother was unhappy, she did not protest. “In our country it’s the men who give the orders, and the women who follow them,” Nujood writes in a powerful new autobiography just published in the United States this week, “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.”

Her new husband forced her to drop out of school (she was in the second grade) because a married woman shouldn’t be a student. At her wedding, Nujood sat in the corner, her face swollen from crying.

Nujood’s father asked the husband not to touch her until a year after she had had her first menstrual period. But as soon as they were married, she writes, her husband forced himself on her.

He soon began to beat her as well, the memoir says, and her new mother-in-law offered no sympathy. “Hit her even harder,” the mother-in-law would tell her son.

Nujood had heard that judges could grant divorces, so one day she sneaked away, jumped into a taxi and asked to go to the courthouse.

“I want to talk to the judge,” the book quotes Nujood as forlornly telling a woman in the courthouse.

“Which judge are you looking for?”

“I just want to speak to a judge, that’s all.”

“But there are lots of judges in this courthouse.”

“Take me to a judge — it doesn’t matter which one!”

When she finally encountered a judge, Nujood declared firmly: “I want a divorce!”

Yemeni journalists turned Nujood into a cause célèbre, and she eventually won her divorce. The publicity inspired others, including an 8-year-old Saudi girl married to a man in his 50s, to seek annulments and divorces.

As a pioneer, Nujood came to the United States and was honored in 2008 as one of Glamour magazine’s “Women of the Year.” Indeed, Nujood is probably the only third grader whom Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described as “one of the greatest women I have ever seen.”

Nujood’s memoir spent five weeks as the No. 1 best-seller in France. It is being published in 18 other languages, including her own native language of Arabic.

I asked Nujood, now 12, what she thought of her life as a best-selling author. She said the foreign editions didn’t matter much to her, but she was looking forward to seeing it in Arabic. Since her divorce, she has returned to school and to her own family, which she is supporting with her book royalties.

At first, Nujood’s brothers criticized her for shaming the family. But now that Nujood is the main breadwinner, everybody sees things a bit differently. “They’re very nice to her now,” said Khadija al-Salami, a filmmaker who mentors Nujood and who translated for me. “They treat her like a queen.”

Yemen is one of my favorite countries, with glorious architecture and enormously hospitable people. Yet Yemen appears to be a time bomb. It is a hothouse for Al Qaeda and also faces an on-and-off war in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. It’s no coincidence that Yemen is also ranked dead last in the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap index.

There are a couple of reasons countries that marginalize women often end up unstable.

First, those countries usually have very high birth rates, and that means a youth bulge in the population. One of the factors that most correlates to social conflict is the proportion of young men ages 15 to 24.

Second, those countries also tend to practice polygamy and have higher death rates for girls. That means fewer marriageable women — and more frustrated bachelors to be recruited by extremists.

So educating Nujood and giving her a chance to become a lawyer — her dream — isn’t just a matter of fairness. It’s also a way to help tame the entire country.

Consider Bangladesh. After it split off from Pakistan, Bangladesh began to educate girls in a way that Pakistan has never done. The educated women staffed an emerging garment industry and civil society, and those educated women are one reason Bangladesh is today far more stable than Pakistan.

The United States last month announced $150 million in military assistance for Yemen to fight extremists. In contrast, it costs just $50 to send a girl to public school for a year — and little girls like Nujood may prove more effective than missiles at defeating terrorists.

AMAZON.COM

 **Please feel free to comment below** 

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Assisted Suicide Guidelines in the UK

I was just asking my friend Amber what she felt about assisted suicide, we both

believe this suit we wear now is just temporary, if there is pain and suffering one

should not have to deal with a life like that. My quote for this post is:

"If this it....Thanks A lot"

CBS News

 New guidelines published Thursday offer people in England and Wales broad hints about how to help a gravely ill loved one end his or her life with minimal fear of prosecution. 

Assisted suicide remains illegal, but Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said six factors would make it less likely that prosecutors would bring criminal charges in individual cases. 

Starmer said prosecutors will still evaluate each case for possible prosecution. One key indicator: Whether the suspect was acting wholly out of compassion, or had a darker motive. 

"The policy is now more focused on the motivation of the suspect rather than the characteristics of the victim," he said. "The policy does not change the law on assisted suicide. It does not open the door for euthanasia." 

He said prosecutors will examine each case on its merits. 

"In cases where there is enough evidence to justify a prosecution, we have to decide whether it is in the public interest to prosecute," he said. "That involves an exercise of discretion." 

Starmer was forced to clarify the assisted suicide guidelines by the House of Lords, acting on behalf of multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, who wants her husband to be able to help her end her life at a time of her choosing without facing potential prosecution. 

She said the new guidelines, which take effect immediately, would help her end her life when that time comes. Still, Purdy said an entirely new law governing assisted suicide is needed to replace the existing law written nearly 50 years ago. 

"He has been able to differentiate clearly between malicious intent and compassionate support," she said of the chief prosecutor. "But I think we need a new law because interpretation and tweaking of the 1961 suicide act will never be enough." 

She said tribunals should be established to study individual cases before a person commits suicide so family members and close friends can know where they stand legally before they take any action to assist in the suicide. 

This is the view of Terry Pratchett, a well-loved British author suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease. 

"I would like to see death as a medical procedure in very carefully chosen cases," said Pratchett, 61, who believes he should be able to legally end his life before the ravages of the disease leaves him helpless. 

Starmer stressed that he was not decriminalizing assisted suicide or modifying the law on mercy killings, which have been the focus of intense media attention with the claim last week by a BBC television personality that he had killed his partner, who was gravely ill with AIDS. 

But he said prosecution would be less likely in cases where the suspect was acting out of compassion. 

He said other factors would also make criminal charges less likely, including victims who had made a voluntary and informed decision to end their lives, suspects who reported the suicide to police and admitted their role, and cases where a suspect tried in vain to convince the victim not to choose suicide. 

Other mitigating factors that might make prosecution less likely include instances where the suspect provided only minor help in the suicide or was reluctant to provide assistance but did so in the face of persistent demands. 

Still, Starmer stressed that prosecution is possible even if all of these factors apply. 

He also listed 16 factors that would make criminal action more probable, including cases where the victim was under 18, did not have the capacity to make an informed decision to end his or had been pressured by the suspect to commit suicide. 

Prosecution would also be more likely in cases where the suspect had been guilty of violence or abuse toward the victim or when the victim did not seek the help of the suspect in the suicide. 

In addition, earlier guidance that prosecution was less likely if a suspect was a family member or close friend of the victim was eliminated from Thursday's rules. 

Richard Hawkes, the chief executive of Scope, a charity that works with the disabled, said the new guidelines threaten society's most vulnerable people. 

"We do not support any weakening of the protection offered under the law on assisted suicide, which is exactly what these new guidelines do," Hawkes said. 

"Many disabled people are frightened by the consequences of these new guidelines and with good reason. There is a real danger these changes will result in disabled people being pressured to end their lives," he added. 

** please feel free to comment below**  (-:

So, what has Obama managed to get done? Ask U.S. disabled

"At last, the United States is part of a UN strategy to stop discrimination"Being blind doesn't bother 30-year-old Bryan Garaventa. It's how others perceive him that's annoying. "People see you and they see your disability, not the person," he says from his home in Pacifica, Calif. "It's basically ignorance – they think if you have a disability, you're not capable of thinking." Blind from a gunshot wound at 14, Garaventa hasn't let his lack of vision prevent him from becoming a computer programmer and poet. He designs programs that improve computer accessibility for users of all abilities. And Garaventa is waiting for the day when the social stigma of disability disappears. One signature last summer renewed his hope that that might actually happen. While President Barack Obama continues to struggle with war and recession, his administration has been working quietly on less high-profile issues that have the potential to change the world.Years of lobbying by disability-rights advocates had failed to persuade the Bush administration to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted in 2006. But six months after Obama became president, the United States became the 142nd country to sign the agreement, lauded as the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century. The convention aims to end discrimination against people with disabilities, and to ensure equal access to education, jobs and other opportunities long denied them in some parts of the world. "It's pretty amazing," Garaventa said. "This could change the social stigma of disability forever." Enforcement of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act has lagged behind its powerful language, but it's now hoped the UN convention will lead to better implementation of all disability-related laws, advocates say. The Obama administration's push on civil rights for people with disabilities could also heighten public awareness at a time when two wars and an aging population is leading to a larger population of disabled people. It's estimated 54 million Americans have a significant disability, whether physical, psychological, sensory or intellectual. U.S. Department statistics indicate the official unemployment rate for the disabled is 14 per cent (the figure is based on people collecting unemployment insurance benefits and so isn't reflective of so-called discouraged workers – those not seeking work or who are under-employed). Experts say the jobless rate among Americans with disabilities is actually far greater, perhaps as high as 30 per cent. Canada was among 82 nations signing the convention on March 30, 2007, the first day it was open for signature. Every other major country has signed the treaty, including India and China. The U.S. had balked at signing, partly because of an aversion to being monitored by international bodies, and partly because of a belief that its laws on disability issues are solid compared to most of the rest of the world. Until last summer, the lack of a U.S. signature was "an international embarrassment," according to Andy Imparato, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, the largest disabilities group in the U.S But now, after years of knocking at the doors of power in Washington, prominent disability advocates echo Garaventa's joy at a White House committed to civil rights for all. "There is no question that this is the first administration in my 35 years in this field to put this kind of emphasis on disability rights," says Carl Augusto, president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. Kareem Dale, special assistant to the president for disability policy, and other White House officials have already contacted disability-rights advocates more times "than the last three or four administrations combined," Augusto says. But this is not a Democrat nor Republican issue: It was George Bush Sr. who signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, dramatically changing rights and protections for people with disabilities in the U.S. That law has changed the physical structure of America – think curb cuts and wheelchair-accessible buildings – as well as helping reform attitudes. And now Obama promises to take things further. "President Obama pledged a new level of U.S. engagement in the world, and this is one way he's delivering on that vision," says David Morrissey, executive director of the United States International Council on Disability. The New York-based advocacy group sees the global disability community reaching "a new level of energy" in the wake of the U.S. signing of the UN treaty, he adds. "This convention is going to make a really profound difference" in improving lives of people with disabilities. Already, it has launched an international collaboration among advocacy groups, so that American trainers are working in developing countries to show how "assistive" technology, for instance, can be used to improve accessibility. Lawyer Rhonda Neuhaus, project manager of Making it Work, a new program developed by Handicap International, has worked in El Salvador on boosting employment for women with disabilities, and in Colombia on improving laws to let people with intellectual disabilities live independently. She'll soon be in Guatemala helping non-profits make public transportation more accessible. "All the rights are interchangeable," she says. "How do you have the right to go to work if you can't get to work?" It's "remarkable that that so many developing countries have signed and they don't have laws on the books" protecting the rights of people with disabilities, Augusto observes. "In Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, where we have laws relating to people with disabilities, it's important to take the lead to show developing countries how it works ... showcasing that people in the U.S. and Canada are fully integrated." Augusto's recent tours of Caribbean nations to meet with blind citizens showed their employment is "appallingly small," he says. "There are few laws banning discrimination (against disability). "Society needs to get a wake-up call for people with disabilities to achieve equality: Employment is one of the biggest issues separating people with disabilities from the non-disabled," says Augusto, president of the North American/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union. A key strength of the convention is its goal to change attitudes about disability. In many countries, disabled people are ostracized and barred from employment. Women, especially, are shunned because of physical or intellectual disability in countries where they're considered a burden because they're deemed less likely to earn an income, marry or care for children. The UN estimates that 90 per cent of children with disabilities in developing countries don't attend school. The treaty aims not only at equality of access to education, but also at full inclusion in society for people with disabilities. The treaty "represents a major paradigm shift in the way people with disabilities are viewed around the world," says Joan Durocher, senior attorney/adviser with the National Council on Disability in Washington, D.C. The council is an independent, federal agency composed of 15 members appointed by the president and charged with promoting policies and practices guaranteeing equal opportunity for people with disabilities. The UN convention moves the focus from the old "medical" model to the social: People with disabilities are no longer "objects of charity and pity" but are regarded as autonomous beings who can make their own decisions about what they need and want, Durocher says. "It's an issue of civil rights. Take education – children with disabilities have a right to education, everywhere, the same education as everyone else. "This is far-reaching. It will make an enormous amount of difference in health care, in education, in accessibility.The Star

NIGER: Educating disabled children

Photo: Phuong Tran/IRIN

A woman in Niger disabled by polio (file photo)

Despite efforts to accommodate disabled students in Niger's schools, a lack of trained specialists limits the number of children schools can serve, according to the NGO Handicap International.

"Schools for blind and deaf persons do not have qualified teachers to work with this population," Abdourhamane Barké, an outreach worker with Handicap International in the capital Niamey, told IRIN.

Niger has five such schools in the capital Niamey. There are an estimated 4,500 people under 18 with disabilities, according to a 2009 Handicap International survey.

Since 2000 schools in Niger have offered additional instruction to help these children prepare for regular class work. In 2008 72 teachers were working with 272 deaf children in Niamey and in Maradi and Zinder in the southeast. Some 100 blind students are also enrolled.

Students get additional instruction for three years in these "integration classes" in sign language and Braille, alongside regular classroom instruction, according to the special education division in the Ministry of Education.

But most children classified as handicapped never make it to the classroom. Mariam*, a 25-year-old disabled professional who recently completed a master's degree, is an exception. "I owe my success to the support of family who stood by me through my coursework.”

Mariam is an exception because children with physical or mental disabilities are generally destined to a life of begging, said Fatou Sidibé, deputy director of the special education division. "They are pulled out of school to beg by families who see these children as a source of income," she told IRIN.

Education can break the "vicious cycle of poverty" that often entraps children with disabilities, said Niger's Minister of Education Mamadou Ousmane Sambo at a two-day Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) workshop, "Education as a Right for All", which ended on 24 September in Niamey.

For the 2008 academic school year, just over US$250,000 was set aside for schools in Niamey to work with disabled youth.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86343

Pyongyang using disabled children to test chemical and biological weapons

 A former North Korean officer who fled to South Korea makes the allegations. For the North Korean government this is the “best contribution” the disabled can make to society. Officer warns that as the world focuses on the North's nuclear programme, the more imminent threat is posed by the country's biochemical arsenal.

Seoul (AsiaNews) – Pyongyang is testing its “biological and chemical weapons” on “humans, specifically mentally or physically handicapped children,” a former officer in the North Korean military who defected to South Korea is quoted as saying on the al-Jazeera website. In the interview the defector said that Pyongyang has estimated stockpile of more than 5,000 tonnes of biochemical weaponry, including mustard gas, nerve agents such as sarin, anthrax and cholera.

Im Chun-yong is a former captain in the North Korean military who fled in 1999 with a number of soldiers. He swam across the half frozen Tumen River into China. During their escape he and his men battled their way out, chased by dozens of members of other commando units. “I myself killed three men,” he told al-Jazeera.

He now lives in South Korea and devotes his time to gathering intelligence about the North's military capabilities

"If you are born mentally or physically deficient,” Im said, “the government says your best contribution to society . . . is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing.”

Even after settling in South Korea, he kept the secret because “it was too horrific to recount.” But with Kim's health reportedly failing, and the country appearing increasingly unpredictable, Im felt it was time he spoke out.

The former military captain explained how in the early 1990s, he watched his then commander wrestle with giving up his 12-year-old daughter who was mentally ill. Initially, the commander resisted, but after mounting pressure from his military superiors, he gave in. I “watched as the girl was taken away. She was never seen again,” he said.

One of Im's own men later gave him an eyewitness account of human-testing. Asked to guard a secret facility on an island off North Korea's west coast, Im says the soldier saw a number of people forced into a glass chamber. “Poisonous gas was injected in,” Im said. “He watched doctors time how long it took for them to die.”

In the past North Korean defectors have alleged that the secretive nation has been using political prisoners as experimental test subjects.

Some have detailed how inmates were shipped from various concentration camps to so-called chemical “factories”, including one just a few kilometres north of the capital, Pyongyang, this according to Kim Sang-hun, a retired UN official. "Human experimentation is a widespread practice," he said.

But Im's is the first account of mentally-ill or physically challenged children being used.

He said that he was trained on how to use biochemical weapons against the "enemy".

As the world's attention focuses on the North's nuclear program me, Im is worried that the international community will miss what he believes is the more imminent threat posed by the country's biochemical arsenal.

Asain News