Category / News

by hereandsphere

ALIVE, BUT ALSO DEAD : TODAY’S GOP


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^ Chris Christie : a Fiorello LaGuardia for the 21st Century ?

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Folks in today’s GOP think it’s very much alive, indeed is the wave of the future. Observers OUTSIDE the GOP think it’s very much dead, the voice of the past, grim and gone.

They’re both right. Here’s why.

A political party is its people, its rank and file and its big voices. Today’s GOP has major big voices that span almost the entire horizon of American governance :

—- There is Chris Christie, voice of the Northeast, populist, even progressive, Fiorello LaGuardia wing of the GOP, to which this writer belongs (Christie even looks and speaks like LaGuardia).

—- There’s Jeb Bush, son and brother of Presidents, voice of the expansionist, immigrant-welcoming vision of growth and opportunity — a Teddy Roosevelt without T.R.’s Anglo-Saxon bias.

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^ Jeb bush : welcoming immigrants as a boon to our economy and the rescue of Social security

—- In the Senate, there’s Rand Paul (KY), voice of “libertarian” agendas, with one foot in the camp of radical freedom / isolation, and his other in nativism and gun-brandishing kookery

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^ Rand Paul : most influential libertarian voice in decades

—- also in the Senate, there’s John McCain : internationalist, reformer — including progressive banking and campaign finance reform — top voice of our war veterans and the avatar of bi-partisan agreements, with his two most effective allies, Lindsey Graham (SC) and Bob Corker (TN).

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^ Tennessee’s Bob Corker : shrewd and willing to experiment

—- add yet another Senator, Marco Rubio (FL), who is trying to be all things to all people: a plan that rarely works but which at least acknowledges that all people are entitled to be listened to and responded to

—- and the Tea Party, anti-government to the max, and “Christian” social conservatives, strong in the South and Mississippi valley: think Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, and a bunch of other guv’nors and legislators whose names we seldom hear up Nawth but who are wreaking Armageddon on the social progress of numerous states.

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^ Tea Party ; frustration is a dead end politics

Life, there most definitely is, on the GOP side. Unfortunately, there is also death there. The GOP rank and file includes almost no people of color, few who live alternative lifestyles, and not very many Hispanics. Walk through any important American city — state capitols especially — and you will see everybody that the GOP is not. The GOP holds sway in America’s back country, including the most outlying exurbs of big cities — people — almost all White — who see themselves losing ground, economically and culturally, to city people. This is not a misperception. They are losing ground. And the people to whom they are losing ground — the highly educated, the technology whizzes — today live, work, and shop in center cities and have remarkably remade almost all of these.

The GOP is, to a large degree, the party of America’s have-nots and excludeds. Few GOP’ers belong to the underclass or the working poor, but of those whose incomes rank just above the minimum — who work at tasks increasingly unrewarded by the technology economy — the GOP claims a majority. Curiously, the same is true of their bosses. The executives of technology companies overwhelmingly support the Democrats, but the folks who own and manage enterprises staffed by slightly above minimum-wage workers identify just as GOP as their workers do. As for minimum wage enterprises, the more minimum the wages paid to its workers, the more GOP does the management of such companies identify.

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^ Chick-a-fil CEO : fast food GOP

This is, economically, a culture of death. No one wants to live as a minimum wage employee subject to termination at any moment, without health insurance or benefits of any kind. No business that engages workers on that basis can ever rest easy that it will not be undercut by a competitor yet more ruthless. Workers in this sort of economy cannot participate in it. They can barely pay the essentials — indeed often require food stamps and other public assistance just to get by. A just-get-by family cannot buy anything discretionary ; and it is the discretionary economy that grows itself, that increases the nation’s prosperity and builds us a future.

This death would not be so dead if it embraced people of color, immigrants, and those of alternative lifestyle living and working in similar conditions. But it does not embrace them. It sees them as the cause of the death culture that has come upon them. Thus to death is added isolation, a kind of cultural solitary confinement.

The GOP needs badly to shake itself free of this culture of death; to deconstruct it entirely and rebuild entirely anew the lives of those now trapped in it. So far, however, the party’s only answer to this death trip is that of Texas’s Ted Cruz and Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan: an “opportunity fantasy.” As Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) just recently, in committee hearing, pointed out, this fantasy isn’t real. In it, everybody is on his own — no social safety net of any kind because that breeds laziness, say Cruz and Ryan — pursuing a kind of multi-level marketing scheme in which, if you dream hard enough, you will pyramid your dreams into acres of diamonds. This might work for a lucky, early few; for the future-less millions of us, it’s just another brick in the wall of being lied to.

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^ Ted Cruz : a male Mary Kay Ash ?

It is hard to be alive when much of you is dead. The GOP has plenty of life in it, at the leader level. Whether those leaders will have more alive followers than they have now depends on their ability to cast off the deadness. By 2016 we will know if any of them has succeeded.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

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^ NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia ; when the GOP was the voice of big multitudinous cities

by hereandsphere

Insult to Sindustry?

funny photoA recent poll of 100 men, indicated that, 35% of the men polled were — or have been, jealous, intimidated, or insulted — by a partner’s request or  use  of “toy-play”, in the bedroom.

When asked why; The response that the thought of the query or blatant use and action of “toy-play” was just to taboo for Man-land.

The survey taker’s insinuated that — “It is in indirect insult to the size, effectiveness, and over all satisfaction, of their “equipment”.

OUCH ego crusher? or Help with your lover? Though every man who took part had a slightly different way of portraying his distaste for The Bedroom-Battery-Buddy, one truth remained TRUE — Most feel that they are just “Not enough”.

Top 5 irrational insecurities

  1. The women in question — are DISSATISFIED on some level.
  2. That the toy in question is either a replacement, or “the something missing”.
  3. That she will be able to satisfy herself better than he can.
  4. That he is packing less than heat in his “nether-regions”…..
  5. In the more severe of the irrationality — some guys even believe ” that toy-play ” is — The beginning of the end.

“WOMAN’S VIEW” — as to why that is absurd………. or not….

  1. The woman is merely trying to spice things up — where-by, keeping YOU interested…..
  2. She is genuinely trying to alleviate some of the “pressure” you may feel to satisfy her — thus making your job easier and more enjoyable.
  3. In “some” cases woman stated — “that their sex drive is much higher than her other half, by filling her “excess need” — you can relax, and NOT feel as if you are slacking or not fully satisfying her.
  4. “IF” she was not happy or content with the “hardware” — she would have fired you, and begun shopping for a more “adequate upgrade” — let’s just say she adopted Home Depots motto of, “You can do it, we can help”.
  5. An (inside secret) admitted by 25% of woman polled said they felt — “inferior or inexperienced” — when compared to their partner. By learning what excites them — solo or with you, they feel a bit more confident in their “abilities and super-sexy-sheet-skills”. Be happy and perhaps a bit grateful she cares that much….. She’s a keeper…..

What is the consensus here?

TALK TO EACH OTHER…. Honesty really is the best policy. He’s thinking one thing — you’re thinking another — and the truth and solution lie somewhere in the middle of BOTH of your truths……. FIND IT or BUZZ OFF.

buzz lightyear

    :Heather Cornell

by hereandsphere

WHAT WILL THE $ 70 MILLION BOSTON GLOBE BECOME ? OUR VIEW

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^ our “paper of record,” you know it is.

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Everybody in Here and Sphere’s Boston home region knew that the Boston Globe was for sale. The New York Times, which owned the paper, had hardly kept their intentions a secret. Everybody knew, too, that several active bidders — including members of the Taylor family that had owned the Globe and sold it to the Times — were on the case. It was even known that one of the bidders was a group led by John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox.

Still, it surprised every observer when the two papers announced that the Globe had been sold for $ 70,000,000 — cash deal, no debt — and that the buyer was John Henry alone. No partners.

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^ John Henry, Globe Owner. Walking tall (with wife Linda)

In 1993 the New York Times had purchased the Boston Globe, as well as the Worcester Telegram and the Globe’s huge building on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester, for a reported $ 1.3 billion. Now, 20 years later, all of that — the Telegram and building, as well as all of the Globe’s internet presences — gets sold for $ 70,000,000. This, dear reader, is a heck of a discount, no ? It sends a message of desperation to those who see only the past. And yes, already the bears are howling : it’s the end, print media is dying, John Henry just wants to break it up and sell the pieces, then curtains.

We strongly disagree that that is going to happen.

Yes, the Globe’s circulation has declined from more than 420,000 in 1993 to about 200,000 now. Yes, the news staff has lost 180 positions, from 550 to 370. Yes, advertising revenue continues to drop — reportedly even during the period that the Times buffed it up to make the paper look most sale-able. Yes, many papers similar to the Globe have gone into bankruptcy, for example the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Tribune Companies. All of this is why the Globe properties fetched only $ 70,000,000 rather than the $ 1.3 billion, But that is the past. What the Globe WILL be lies in the future. It’s a future that begins strong:

First : Henry is buying the paper and its properties with no debt, all cash. He can use the Globe’s reveneus as he sees fit.

Second : the 200,000 circulation represents a hard core readership. What the ‘net can take, it has taken. the rest are staying. Indeed, I would submit that even that 200,000 represents a very different composition than detractors think. They are not just ‘what is left.’ Many, perhaps most, are new readers, even a new type of reader. More on this topic below.

Third : that hard core readership likely resembles the core readership of Boston magazine — an upscale fan base with much discretionary income to spend on advertisers’ wares. Boston Magazine has , of late, hired some major players in local journalism. That’s not the action of a publisher who thinks that print media is doomed. Why can’t the same reasoning apply to the current Globe’s readership ?

Fourth: as media journalist Dan Kennedy has pointed out, the Globe’s huge building on Morrissey Boulevard might pf itself be worth the $ 70,000,000 paid by Henry. Kennedy suggests that he might sell it, move the printing operation — highly profitable — to the Telegram’s Worcester area, and move the Globe’s news and business operations to smaller quarters in the heart of newly prosperous, bustling Downtown Boston.

Fifth : in 2009, when the Times first tried to sell the Globe, it had a pesky competitor for progressive, in-City news : the Boston Phoenix, then well established and, like the Globe, quartered in a building its owner owned and bolstered by a printing business. But in march of this year, the Boston Phoenix stopped publication. Such competition as it presented — circulation nearly 90,000 — is now available, in need of a voice.

A Boston Globe awash in Downtown’s high-end living is not likely to lack for well-heeled readers and advertisers. Were John Henry to make the Globe even more the voice of prosperous, progressive, mercantile Boston than it now is, he would only be doing what all successful newspapers have always been; the voice of a very definable readership, one that knows itself, identifies as a class or community, and insists on having a print voice to show itself off to all comers. Isn’t that what news media necessarily must be Information, one can get anywhere. The internet, ad fliers, gossip, word of mouth. The successful news media is one that communicates information of a defined kind, or with a defined point of view and even in a defined style of writing, to an audience similarly defined — and self-defining. Boston today has precisely such an audience. Large and growing, affluent, and highly concentrated in Downtown — and emulated by many who work and party Downtown even if they have — lacking the wherewithal — to live elsewhere.

A readership high-life living in $ 3,000 -rent apartments and $ 6,000 a month condos is a readership well worth playing to. It’s right there for John Henry to partner with. It wasn’t as obviously there in 2009 and not at all there in 1993, when the Times bought a very different Globe than now portends.

Why else would he even bother ? $ 70,000,000 to Henry is amuse-bouche money. Usually he plays ten times that amount. The only reason a mere $ 70 million can be worth hos time is that he sees an opportunity to add a zero to the seventy. And he definitely can. He can make the Globe the affluent community’s voice, as I have described, and at the same time create individualized, perhaps internet-only, neighborhood news outlets for every other part of Boston’s highly patchworked neighborhoods of long separatist memory. Into this community approach even the Worcester Telegram fits. (In the Telegram’s case, only into this sort of plan. That and resting on the profit foundations of the Globe’s world-class printing operation.)

Yes, many of Boston’s neighborhoods beyond downtown already have their own local print media. Can they fend off a well-heeled readership and a canny owner ?

What I have just laid out may not be Henry’s game plan at all. But if it is his plan, it is far from a stupid one.

—- Michael Freedberg / Here and Sphere

by hereandsphere

150 PIMPS ARRESTED 105 RESCUED VICTIMS IN LARGEST CHILD TRAFFICKING STING TO DATE

FBI_TransitShelter

OPERATION CROSS COUNTRY VII

       A task force made up of forty-seven FBI divisions, more than 3,900 law enforcement officers, from local, state, and federal, to agents representing 230 separate agencies teamed up with the (NCMEC) National Center for Missing and Exploited Children — as part of the Bureau’s ( Innocence Lost National Initiative).

       This three-day nationwide enforcement action targeted the people responsible for the trafficking , forced prostitution, abuse, and in some cases even torture of under-age victims.

       This united effort spanning 76 cities nation-wide concluded with an astounding 150 arrests of both pimps and other persons of interest — and most importantly  the rescue of 105 teenagers, being used as prostitutes — the youngest being only 13 years old. This has now been the largest and most successful  enforcement action to date.

        Human trafficking is not new news; however the actual numbers are heinous and appalling.

        There are at least 27 million slaves in the US today, more than any other time period in history — including  pre-abolition. Annually 800,000 people trafficked onto US territory via it’s borders. Of those 800,000 — 90% are women and young female children — with 70% of those woman and children being trafficked for the sole purpose of being forced into the ( commercial sex-slave industry ). If that stomach turning data wasn’t enough — how about the realization that according to the (NCMEC) — 50% of that 70% are children.

 One such victim was not only rescued in this past sting, but was also a key component to the success of it. With her help and cooperation, agents posing as johns, and websites used for the advertising of prostitution — this impressive three-day action served it’s purpose and then some.

“Child prostitution remains a persistent threat to children across America” said Ron Hosko, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. He also stated that ” this operation serves as a  reminder that these abhorrent crimes can happen ANYWHERE — and that the FBI are committed to stopping this cycle of victimization, and holding the criminals that profit from this exploitation accountable.”

 Since it’s 2003 beginnings, The Innocence Lost National Initiative has resulted in, the identification and recovery of more than 2,700 children — who have been sexually exploited.

  Ron Hosko also explained that most runaways turn to prostitution for money… “With no way to survive on their own, they are trapped into a life of being trafficked — trapped into this cycle, that involves drugs, it involves physical abuse, and may even involve torture — so that they are tied to the pimp.”

       One such victim is Alexandria a.k.a. Alex, a runaway — who at first stayed with family and friends — eventually finding herself on the street and desperate. Alex then turned to prostitution as a way to supply her basic needs — just for survival. Soon she was at the mercy of a pimp. In an interview Alex bravely admits what her experience was like. She tells the interviewer that ” At first it was terrifying, and then…..You just become numb to it” — “You put on a whole different attitude” — like a different person. “It wasn’t me.”

Two years into her painful ordeal, Alex contacted the FBI, and became a very important asset in helping to bring down two pimps, while also helping to facilitate  the rescue of several under-age victims.

Even through all the bad, inconceivable, and life altering things she endured — Alex is now on her own and thriving — with a positive attitude and outlook on life, as well as her future. Since her rescue she has received her high school diploma, and plans on attending college. Her future goals include becoming an advocate for victims of sexual exploitation.

Watch her interview here:

“They had my past but not my future” – Alex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aOQhf5zV18M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Nc6J6MdoBog

The sex industry is a multi-million dollar business — no matter what state the economy is in, struggling or not — SEX-STILL-SELLS…. But this is not a case of to each his own, The phrase “what happens behind closed doors, is none of OUR business.” — does NOT apply! What are your opinions on this topic? Here and Sphere would love to hear from you………

Written By: Heather Cornell / Here and Sphere

here and sphere photo me

by hereandsphere

Time for the ” Question of the week “

Does better insurance affect quality of care?

We have all been there, sitting in a Hospital waiting room – waiting, and waiting, and waiting…Where it feels as though we are living every minute in dog years. We sift and skim through the pamphlets, magazines, and what’s left of the daily paper….

On to the vending machines we go, rummaging through our purses, wallets and pockets in hopes of having just enough.

Finally the TRIAGE doors swing open. The clipboard-clad nurse decked out in flowery scrubs looks down at the list of hope and devastation, scrupulously giving it a twice -over.  As she looks up…. breaths are held…hope is high….fingers are crossed….And then……Nope instead of you, and your feverish, achy, flu ridden self……She has the AUDACITY to summons “Mr. Snazzy sniffles Fancy pants”!

……………??? WHAT???………………

What makes him so special?, He got here after me, didn’t he? He looks fine to me! Everyone mumbles, grunts, and complains….including yourself.

Now perhaps he was the last one to join in the wait, maybe he was far less critical than others waiting, he may have even been non- emergent completely…

So poses the question of hospital protocol, and politics.

Was he indeed called, triaged, treated, and sent on his merry way simply because:
HE HAD BETTER INSURANCE???

At Here and Sphere we would love to hear from you. Give us your thoughts,opinions, and feedback….

Drop us an E-mail at Here_and_Sphere@yahoo.com. Make “Question of the week” its subject. Maybe your response will be featured in the follow-up…

—- Heather Cornell

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by hereandsphere

EBT REFORM : NOT THE BIG DEAL IT’S BEING WHIPPED UP TO BE

One of Boston’s daily newspapers has made a lot of noise this year ramping up alleged abuses in Massachusetts’s EBT — “electronic benefits transfer,” i.e. food stamps — program. This at the behest of a Taunton State Representative, Shaunna O’Connell (R), who has made it her cause celebre.

We at Here and Sphere reject the fuss. Here’s the daily paper’s claims vs. the Real Deal:

1. EBT benefits went to dead people — yes. About 0.20 % of the state’s EBT funds went to dead people. Most banks would be overjoyed with a loss rate that low. The loss resulted from, in almost all cases, of people delaying to inform the state of the death of their r5elative. The state Department of Welfare estimates that only a very, very few cases involve knowing fraud. Those will be prosecuted if feasible.

2. EBT benefits should be conditioned on recipients working — most benefits go to elderly, the disabled, or to single parents. Single parents already work. If you think that caring for a house of kids isn’t work, trying to doing it sometime. Not only is it work, but also: having a single parent doing it, and paying her benefit money to keep her doing it, costs a heck of a lot less than day care for kids while the EBT recipient goes out and works at something.else. As for the disabled and the elderly, they either cannot work or shouldn’t be asked to. Retirees who do not work are often too physically down to work at much. They may have a hobby : but to order them to pursue their hobby or lose their EBT seems like “piling on” to us.

3. EBT was being used to buy cigarettes, or liquor, or scratch tickets — this is where the whole “EBT abuse” flap began. We agree that EBT recipients shouldn’t use their benefits to gamble; and cigarettes sure aren’t much good for one’s health. But life, for EBT recipients, isn’t exactly fun. In most cases it’s a cramped-up life without a car, without the ability to go anywhere or do anything or buy anything but survival. Try living an EBT life sometime ! Do we as a society REALLY want to insist that EBT recipients can’t buy a cigarette, or have a drink of wine or beer here and there ? I hope we haven’t become that petty. And can we add that even as to food, you cann0t buy pre-cooked food with EBT ? Go to Market Basket — where because of super low prices almost all EBT people in our region shop — and look at the pre-cooked chickens, pork, and turkey: too bad, Bub, you have to pay for those with cash. No EBT allowed !

In any case, the legislature a few months ago amended the EBT regulations to prohibit EBT use for purchase of cigarettes and liquor. And the Governor signed the legislation.  Hope you’re happy now…

Finally, we at Here and Sphere just find this entire wave of beating up on those in opur state who live on the edge of survival about as low as it gets. What possesses us to chaff the weakest and most vulnerable of our fellow citizens ? Is that the way we want to perform our duties of citizenship to the whole community ? Do we think that leaning on the very vulnerable somehow makes us a better place ? Is this really our big priority by way of government reform in Massachusetts ? More important than infrastructure and transportation improvements ? than education updates ? We at Here and Sphere hope not.

— the Editors

by hereandsphere

HERE AND SPHERE : OUR MISSION — AND A WELCOME

The beginning of any new venture in the media world should be a time for celebration. And we the editors of Here And Sphere are celebrating.

We celebrate the desire of people to know what other people are doing, locally and world wide.

We celebrate that people talk about what people — including themselves — are doing.

We celebrate the written word, the languages that guide and protect words and give them collective shape in the service of meaning; of information; of intention and inclination. For without language, we could not exist or serve.

We also celebrate Here and Sphere and its mission: to bring to YOU, the reader, the information we care about; information that we find interesting, or useful, or necessary, or any combination thereof.

Here and Sphere means what the name says : we live in the entire world of information, from Earth to Cloud; and we also live in specific places. The world is Sphere; specific places are Here. We shall report from both and about both.

Here and Sphere will report the news and opine on it.

Here and Sphere will review arts performances — the good, the mediocre, the lousy, and the great.

Here and Sphere will talk your lifestyles — and the life observations of our bloggers.

Here and Sphere will talk Cars; Pets; Social advice; Parenting; and “Crazy Stuff.”

We will not be all things to all people. Other media have their priorities, and we will have ours. We are trying not to replace other publications but to add to them.

We will have an identity, readily noticeable, distinct in tone, content, and look.

Lastly, Here and Sphere will report politics and opine about them. Our outlook is that of a sensible progressivism: we believe that all people matter; that all have full civil rights and are entitled to have their civil rights rigorously defended; that all people deserve meaningful health care; the right to a job and pay sufficient to survive and even prevail; and that all people deserve a place to call home, sufficient food, and the quiet enjoyment of their lives and the lives of their family, friends, and neighbors.

We affirm that governments local, state, and federal exist to assure and promote these basic rights, expectations, and aspirations; and that all of us are equally responsible, morally and politically, to see to their application to all of us.

We rue the negativity in today’;s political discourse; the fear; the grasping after illusions; the retreat into mythologies; the disinclination to facts and evidence; the rush to judgment; the attempts by some to use the law to impose this or that religious regulation on the entire community;, the self-promotion at the expense of others; the attachment of many to guns and ammunition; and the lack of patriotism in those who attach the word “patriot” to their profiles.

We prefer hope to gloom; inclusion to exclusion; and a fruitful imagination to a diet of self-deceptions.

We shall rigorously pursue the good and never shrink from spotlighting the bad. And in both Sphere and Here there is plenty of each.

And that, dear readers, is what Here and Sphere now sets forth to do. We are honored to have your company as we journey forth.

—– From the Founders and Editors of Here and Sphere

Michael Freedberg

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and Heather Cornell

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