Ideas, opinions, and personal essays from respected writers, thinkers, and activists. A project of Beacon Press, an independent publisher of progressive ideas since 1854.
"Mr. Caulfield muses at amusing and instructive length on the exact definition of fitness — the bizarre, science-free equivalency the modern aesthetic has established between fitness and sexy abs — and the depressingly well-validated fact that the older you get, the more running it takes to stay in exactly the same place."
“Smart. Funny. Heartening. Inspiring. Faitheist is the perfect book for those seeking a middle path between the firm, opposing certainties of religious fundamentalism and intolerant atheism.”—Reza Aslan, author of No God but God and Beyond Fundamentalism
"Tanya Erzen’s Fanpire provides a much-needed portrait of the girls and women who love Twilight. From how the series appeals to girl's and women's ideas of pleasure, power, and romance, to the ways in which the love of these books has forged communities and friendships among women, Erzen's window into these subjects is both sympathetic and critical. Fanpire is sure to fascinate and, at times, trouble, anyone interested in the lives of girls and women today."—Donna Freitas, author of Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America's College Campuses
Today's post is from Tom Hallock, Associate Publisher of Beacon Press.
I was thrilled when I realized that our family’s annual White Mountains High Huts trip would coincide with one by Beacon author Michael Lanza and his family. We made plans to hike together on the Webster Jackson trail and exchanged cell phone numbers. Michael and his family arrived first and, with Nate and Alix eager to start their climb, set off. Michael texted to say that they we were just a few minutes ahead of us, assuming that two adults would be able to catch up with hikers going at a “family pace.” It never happened (see trail photo). My brother-in-law and I had a great hike at our own pace and met other family and friends at Appalachian Mountain Club's Mizpah Hut, hiking to Lake of the Clouds the following day. Our own “Before They’re Gone” moment came when the hut naturalist told us that the entire White Mountains alpine zone, the largest one east of the Rockies, could be gone in 25 years, as a result of acid rain. Hiking in the alpine zones of the Whites is an incredible experience, whether you’re in a cloud (which you are half the time) or making the trip on a clear day. I always return feeling gratitude to the AMC staff and volunteers for all they do to protect this environment and make it possible for us to experience it.
Liberals seem to get all the attention for investing and shopping according to their ethical values, perhaps because the Civil Rights movement began with a boycott of the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. And since then, the most famous consumer actions have tended to tilt leftward—against Dow Chemical for making napalm during the Vietnam War, or against Nike and now Apple for dreadful working conditions at overseas factories.
So it’s only fair that it’s finally the conservatives’ turn.
Accordingly, gay rights groups have called for a boycott, while Christian conservatives promised to eat more chicken than ever and declared a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” Conservative politicians like the former presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are leading the charge.
Rare though it might seem to be, Chick-fil-A isn’t the first right-wing consumer cause. For instance, there are socially responsible investment vehicles from all sides of the values spectrum. Some religious-based funds avoid companies in the business of selling alcohol, tobacco, and military equipment—seemingly liberal causes—but others shun anything to do with abortion or birth control. The Republican state treasurer of Missouri launched a “terror-free fund” a few years back, to bam companies that have a financial relationship with countries on the federal government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Years ago, Pepsi was known as the “Republican” cola, and Coke was the “Democratic” alternative, because of the political campaigns to which each manufacturer supposedly donated.
As it happens, I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A. Until this controversy, I was only vaguely aware of the company, and there are no outlets near me.
On the other hand, I also don’t live near any In-N-Out Burger sites—I’m in New York, and the chain is located only in the West—but my family makes a beeline whenever we are within 10 miles of an In-N-Out restaurant, because we love the high-quality beef and secret sauce. Never mind that this brand, too, could be considered a fundamentalist Christian company, because the late president, a born-again Christian, instituted a practice of referencing Biblical chapters and verses on its paper cups. (Who even looks at the bottom of the cups?)
It’s too soon to tell which side will win the current chicken war. As a liberal, of course I hope the pro-Chick-fil-A movement flounders. I am troubled by the intolerance—indeed, the avid and self-satisfied intolerance—of the chain’s owner. If I ever stumble across an outlet, I will stay away.
Yet in a weird way, I’m glad to see the concept of ethical shopping gaining favor among conservatives.
True, right-wing activism will probably lead to more union-busting or anti-gay bias in the short run, if consumers flock to companies that engage in those practices. Chick-fil-A would undoubtedly rake in less profit if people like Huckabee and Santorum weren’t making such a concerted effort to dine there.
However, in the longer run, this trend could mean a chance for dialogue. With both sides now talking the language of ethical consumption and activism, maybe we can change some minds or find common ground.
We all win when consumers realize that every dollar has a larger meaning.
Imagine a military health issue that affects almost every woman who enlists. Imagine that this same problem affects a smaller proportion, but a large number, of men. This problem seriously impacts a soldier's ability to serve, often causes mental and physical health issues, and can even lead to suicide.
And imagine that those who face this issue are likely to find themselves further traumatized by any attempt to address the problem. According to Invisible No More, since 2006 more than 95,000 service members have been sexually assaulted in the military. While most victims do not report their crimes, the few that have the courage to come forward are often ostracized, further harassed, and sometimes even punished more harshly than their perpetrators. They can see their dreams of serving their country in the military shattered, their careers derailed by something for which they are not to blame.
On July 6th at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, I saw The Invisible War, a film that investigates the epidemic of rape in the U. S. military. This wasn't a topic that was news to me: I am old enough to remember the Tailhook scandal and the assaults at Aberdeen Proving Ground. And in 2009, Beacon published Helen Benedict's book The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, which tells the story of five women soldiers who bravely served in Iraq but were faced with a culture of misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence so pervasive, as one female soldier put it, "I ended up waging my own war against an enemy dressed in the same uniform as mine."
I've followed Benedict's work since the book was published, and through it I've had an education in the lives of women in the military. I've learned about organizations such as the Service Women's Action Network and Protect Our Defenders, and about the work being done by Massachusetts Representative Niki Tsongas (who introduced the movie when I saw it at the Coolidge) and others in Congress to investigate the problem of military sexual assault and encourage positive changes in military culture. The men and women who have come forward to share their stories--with Benedict, with the filmmakers, before Congress--to call them brave is an understatement. They speak for countless others who suffer in silence.
After seeing the film, I interviewed Helen Benedict via email. —Jessica Bennett, Blog Editor, Beacon Broadside
The women profiled in the film and in your book were different and their stories were each unique, but the similarities are striking: harassment, assault, retaliation, threats, and a lack of accountability. The Lonely Soldier focuses on women from one war, in one branch of the military, but it seems that this is a problem that has been persistent in all branches of service, and one that manifests itself both stateside and overseas. How pervasive is sexual assault and harassment in the military and how does it affect soldiers—both women and men?
The latest Department of Defense figures are showing that 20 percent of military women are sexually assaulted while serving, while for men, the number is one percent. Because men outnumber women in the military, this means that many more men than women are assaulted, but proportionally the vast number of victims are women. Other studies I cite in my book show an even higher rate – 33 percent of women sexually assaulted – and a 90 percent rate of sexual harassment. These numbers are of epidemic proportions and affect women on home bases and at war.
The stories of abuse in the movie and in your book are harrowing, but it seems that a good deal of the damage inflicted upon victims comes from the way they were treated by the military after they are assaulted. How does military leadership fail assault and harassment victims?
The military is a blame-the-victim culture, thus many victims are met with skepticism, disbelief or outright blame when they report an assault. They are often treated as liars trying to get attention or bring down the career of a man, or blamed for drinking, flirting or otherwise “inviting” the assault. (No one invites a brutal attack, ever.) Furthermore, even for those cases that are taken seriously and prosecuted, the conviction and punishment rates are shockingly low--much lower than they are in civilian courts. This sends the message that assailants will be protected by the military, whereas their victims will be vilified.
The most recent scandal--which has received surprisingly little media attention--involves twelve instructors and at least 31 female trainees at Lackland Air Force Base. One instructor, Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado, was allowed to plead guilty to "having sex with a female trainee" and received 90 days confinement before he acknowledged being involved with a total of ten trainees. The most serious charges, which will be addressed in a court-martial trial beginning this week, are leveled against Staff Sgt. Luis Walker. The leadership at Lackland has taken great pains to stress the personal responsibility of the perpetrators for their crimes, emphasizing that the great majority of instructors are ethical in their treatment of trainees. While this is certainly the case, does this PR tactic sound familiar?
Well, in all fairness, most men in the military are not sexual predators. Many too many are, but not most, so in a way the military is justified in saying most of their leaders behave correctly. We should be careful not to paint all military men as rapists, for this is terribly unfair to the majority who would never behave like that and are as appalled by it as women are. Sexual predators are repeat offenders, so one man can cause an egregious amount of harm.
That said, the military must take more responsibility for this huge problem in its ranks and its culture. It has been denying and covering up the problem for decade after decade, thus perpetuating and even supporting what is essentially a rape culture. No organization in the U.S. gives individuals as much power as the military does: with that power must come ethical behavior and anyone who abuses the power should meet with the proper justice.
Sexual "predators" or repeat sexual offenders like Jerry Sandusky at Penn State, Catholic Priests accused of abusing parishioners, and military serial abusers thrive in an environment where they have power imbalances and institutional secrecy on their side. Predators also feel empowered by "getting away with it," something that happens in an overwhelming number of sexual assault cases in the military. What does the military do to screen out or identify sexual predators?
As far as I understand, the military does almost nothing to screen out or identify sexual predators. Under President Bush, many criminal records were waived for recruits because the military was too short-staffed to run two wars. No one with a criminal record, especially one that entails abuse of women, should be allowed to serve.
At the moment, one in four veterans in prison is there for a sexual assault. Furthermore, if a sexual predator is expelled from the military, the civilian community to which he returns is not informed of his record.
In a postscript at the end of the Invisible War, the filmmakers note that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta took steps this past April to assist victims, clarify sexual assault policies, and elevate investigations of assault beyond the local unit commanders. When I saw the film, Representative Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts spoke to the audience about how she has worked in Congress to affect positive change in the military. The military has promised change before—do you think that we are finally moving in the right direction?
I do. We need to take sexual assault cases out of the chain of command and military justice system because it is too closed a system to be fair to victims. For example, some 25 percent of victims must report their assault to the very man who assaulted them; whereas 33 or so percent must report to someone who knows the assailant. This results in a system in which friends and those in command can close ranks and protect one another, shutting out all justice for the victim.
Carl Elliott is the author of White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine. Elliott is a professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, the Believer, Slate, the London Review of Books, and theAmerican Prospect. His six previous books include Better Than Well, Prozac As a Way of Life, Rules of Insanity, and A Philosophical Disease.
Another spectacular winter morning in Dunedin, New Zealand. Clear blue sky, frost on the ground, lush green hills plunging into the South Pacific. It is hard to complain about the setting, still less about the kindness and decency of the inhabitants. It has been nearly 22 years since my wife and I first landed in Dunedin, in August of 1990, when I began a postdoctoral fellowship at the newly established Bioethics Centre at the University of Otago. I still wonder why we ever left.
It was an extraordinary time for bioethics in New Zealand. In 1990, the country was still reeling from the shock of a medical research scandal—the “unfortunate experiment” at the National Women’s Hospital in Auckland. In that study, which had begun in 1966 and continued for another two decades, Dr. Herbert Green, an obstetrician-gynecologist, deliberately withheld treatment of 160 women with abnormal cervical smears in an effort to prove his misguided hypothesis that the cervical abnormalities would not lead to cervical cancer. Green enrolled women in the study without their knowledge or consent. Three of Green’s colleagues at Auckland University, Bill McIndoe, Jock McLean, and Ron Jones, tried to put a halt to the experiment for years, but they were ignored until they published a 1984 article in Obstetrics and Gynecology showing that the untreated women were 25 times more likely to develop invasive cancer. According to the Cartright Inquiry, the governmental commission set up to investigate the scandal, this amounted to a total of approximately 40 women developing invasive cancer, many of whom died.
The Medical Council of New Zealand eventually brought disciplinary action against Green and his superior, Dr. Denis Bonham. While the charges against Green were dropped because of Green’s poor health, the Council found Bonham guilty of disgraceful conduct. More importantly, the results of the Cartwright Inquiry led to dramatic changes in the oversight of medical research in New Zealand—among them the establishment of regional ethics committees, the creation of an Office of Health and Disability Commissioner, a code of rights for health consumers, and the appointment of an independent patient advocate at Auckland Women’s Hospital. Many of my friends and colleagues at the University of Otago were involved in the Cartwright Inquiry and its aftermath, perhaps most notably Dr. Charlotte Paul, who served as a medical adviser.
Two decades later, it is hard for me to avoid contrasting the ”unfortunate experiment” in Auckland to the psychiatric research scandal at the University of Minnesota, where I work now. The circumstances surrounding the suicide of Dan Markingson in an AstraZeneca-sponsored clinical trial of Seroquel were very different from those in Auckland, yet they were no less shocking: a floridly psychotic young man under a commitment order, who had been repeatedly judged incompetent to make his own medical decisions, was coerced into a highly profitable, scientifically dubious clinical trial over the objections of his mother, whose desperate warnings were subsequently ignored until the young man finally stabbed himself to death.
The two scandals have some similarities. In both cases, the wrongdoing was brought to public attention not by regulators or oversight bodies, but by journalists. The “unfortunate experiment” in Auckland was brought to light by Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle in Metro magazine, while Paul Tosto and Jeremy Olson exposed the Markingson scandal in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Also, in both cases, the scandals were symptomatic of deeper ethical pathology. At the National Women’s Hospital, medical students had been performing vaginal examinations on anesthetized women without their knowledge, and house staff had practiced inserting and removing IUDs on anesthetized women before their hysterectomies. At the University of Minnesota, administrators have repeatedly covered up or minimized questionable financial dealings and conflicts of interest, even in the face of sustained public scrutiny. (See this, this, this, this, and this.)
Most importantly, administrators at both institutions downplayed or ignored the warnings of their own faculty members. In late 2010, after my article about the Markingson case appeared in Mother Jones, several University of Minnesota faculty members and I wrote a public letter to the board of regents asking for an external investigation. In February 2011, when the regents refused our request, Dr. Aaron Friedman, the Dean of the Medical School and Vice-President for Health Sciences, sent an email to the faculty making it clear where he stood on the matter. “As a result of this case, our department of psychiatry has experienced significant scrutiny and withering criticism over the past five years, and through it all, the faculty of the department have performed remarkably well in fulfilling its mission,” Friedman wrote. He went on to praise the psychiatrists behind the trial in which Markingson died, Dr. Stephen Olson and Dr. Charles Schulz, and to voice his strong support for industry-funded research. As for the death of Markingson, Friedman wrote, “I see the Regents’ statement as the end of the University’s review of this specific patient’s case.”
Here is where the responses to the Markingson case and to the “unfortunate experiment” differ. In Auckland, the Metro article by Coney and Bunkle set off a national debate, and eventually, sweeping reforms. These reforms came about in part due to the refusal of many New Zealand academics, physicians, and feminist activists to let the matter die. But at Minnesota, the forceful responses by Friedman and the general counsel, Mark Rotenberg have successfully silenced internal dissent at the university.
This silence is understandable, but unfortunate. The issues at stake go well beyond the death of Dan Markingson. If more research deaths are uncovered, will the faculty at the University of Minnesota be able to say, “We did all we could to prevent them”?
In a New York Times interview, Dave Eggers mentions Malcolm Garcia: “there’s a writer named J. Malcolm Garcia who continually astounds me with his energy and empathy…I’ve been following him wherever he goes.”; New York Times
“One of the wonders of coming back to NOTES after such a long time is how “current” Baldwin is. That might sound like a cliché but in so many instances in our lives we learn that some clichés are built on things solid and familiar and timeless. “Journey to Atlanta” is but one of a hundred examples in NOTES. What also comes across, again, is how optimistic James Baldwin was about himself, his world, black people. Even when he describes the awfulness of being black in American, he presents us with an optimism that is sometimes like subtle background music, and sometimes like an insistent drumbeat. But through it all, with each word– perhaps as evidence of a man certain of his message – he never shouts.” From the new introduction by Edward P. Jones (Pulitzer Prize The Known World)
Sherrilyn Ifill is Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She is the author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century. Professor Ifill is nationally recognized as an advocate in the areas of civil rights, voting rights, judicial diversity and judicial decision-making.
I am genuinely pleased by the announcement that Anne Marie Slaughter has scored a book deal following her hugely popular essay in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” Slaughter’s piece has been appropriately praised for opening a robust and dynamic conversation about the very real difficulties women at the top face in trying to have families while pursuing elite professional careers. Critics have pointed out that Slaughter’s essay addresses only women at the top—the 1%, so to speak. But Slaughter concedes this herself in the piece, and fully recognizes that women like her operate from a position of economic and educational privilege.
The problem with Slaughter’s piece—and now planned book—is not that she doesn’t speak for most women, but that she and other women in the 1% fail to recognize how their failure to exercise power in support of women at the economic bottom hurts all of us. Take a fictionalized, working-class black woman named Crystal living in a city like Baltimore, a town blessed with a large number of highly-ranked hospital systems. Jobs in health care are plentiful and a woman with only a high school education and who is, say, a practical nurse may be able to find employment as a home health care worker or as an aide in a hospital. If she lives in West Baltimore and has no car, she will have to leave her home early—most likely while it’s still dark to get to work at 7 or 8am when her shift begins. Baltimore has one of the most limited subway systems for a major American city. Thus, Crystal will have to wait at a bus stop and take a ride that will last about hour or more before she makes it to her job. When she leaves home in the morning, she must leave her children—ages 12, 9 and 7—to get ready for school. This means that the 12 year old will have responsibility for waking and organizing the two younger children, and ensuring that they make it to school on time. This includes seeing to it that her siblings have their notebooks and homework in their backpacks, locking the door to the home, and navigating bullies (her siblings’ and her own) on the walk to school.
If her shift at work is 12 hours, Crystal will make it home by 8pm or 9pm. Perhaps she has a neighbor or sister or cousin look in on her children in the afternoon. Maybe not. If she has a normal 8 hour shift, she will make it home, physically exhausted, by 7 or 8, with precious little time, or perhaps even inclination, to read with her children or to spend “quality” time asking about their day and getting familiar with the names of their teachers and friends.
So what do the women of the 1% percent, who’ve just discovered that they can’t have it all, have to do with Crystal? The women in the 1% have the power to take the lead in changing the conditions that make it nearly impossible for Crystal to work and parent effectively. They are regular voters. Perhaps they work in city or state government, or they are doctors, professors or partners at a major law firm in town. Perhaps they work in the federal government like Slaughter did, taking the Amtrak Northeast Corridor train to their job at a federal agency in D.C.
Despite Slaughter’s accurate portrayal of the difficulties these women face in balancing their home and work lives, these women actually have power. But the failure of the transportation system in Baltimore to meet the needs of working class people is not a priority for them. They drive or take the commuter train to work. They have a nanny or regular babysitter who meets their children at the bus stop and brings them home. So they did not seek to ensure that the billions of dollars in stimulus money were allocated for construction projects would go to projects that would benefit working women—like inner city transportation improvements—rather than highway construction projects more likely to benefit those at the top.
Women of the 1% vigorously supported the Lily Ledbetter Act, and are mindful at their own workplace of pay equity between men and women. But these same women are not at the forefront of efforts to increase the minimum wage, which stands at a pitiful $7.25/hr. That would give Crystal less than $300/week before taxes on which to raise her 3 children.
What role have elite women played in seeking to change oppressive criminal justice policies like stop-and-frisk, California’s “3 strikes you’re out” sentencing law or the proliferation of long criminal sentences for non-violent drug offenses that might be responsible for landing Crystal’s husband in jail for years, without the ability to contribute to the well-being and support of his children and wife? Isn’t the emotional stability of Crystal’s son—who if he lived in New York City might be stopped and frisked by police a dozen times during his teen years—just as important as that of Slaughter’s son? What choices does the working-class mom of a black, teen stop-and-frisk victim have to help her son through the emotional fallout of police harassment?
And let’s be real. Many women in the top 1% employ women at the economic bottom. All over Manhattan one sees the startling visual of black and Latina women pushing white babies in carriages and strollers. What worker protections do these women enjoy? Many of these domestic workers leave their own children all day in the care of others to take care of the children of economically elite women. Organizations like the National Domestic Workers Alliance have worked for years to organize and obtain basic labor protections for domestic workers. Where do 1% women stand on the efforts to afford labor rights and benefits to the women who care for their children and clean their homes?
Finally, we should remember that Crystal and women like her are not without ambition. Like Slaughter and other economically elite women, they have a strong desire to elevate their educational and professional status. Crystal enjoys working with patients and also knows that if she were able to get her degree as a registered nurse, she would make considerably more money than she is able to make now. Having children should not mean the end of education or professional development for women. How can we support the ability of working class women to move up the ladder?
Slaughter’s piece fails to recognize that women in the 1% have real power to transform the work/family reality for women at the economic bottom, who are seeking the luxury of the kind of choices about which Slaughter and I wring our hands.
As a weekly rider on the Amtrak ACELA train on the run from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, it’s been hard not to notice over the past two years how many high-powered white women on the evening train seem to unwind by reading Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. With briefcases tucked behind their knees and power lipstick faded after the day’s meetings, exhausted 1% women on the evening train ride seem to find a kind of perverse relaxation in reading a romanticized account about the bonds that might develop between privileged white women and their black maids. But we needn’t rely on fanciful, retro fables that elevate personal friendship over economic, educational and social transformation. Change for women in the workplace will happen from the bottom up, and will take hold when powerful women expend their capital on behalf of women in the 99%. But I suspect that we shall wait a long time before there is a book deal that tells this story.
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has been outspoken in deriding President Obama’s efforts to give wind and solar power the prominence they deserve on America’s energy agenda. “In place of real energy, Obama has focused on an imaginary world where government-subsidized windmills and solar panels could power the economy,” he wrote in a Columbus Dispatch editorial earlier this year.
It’s hard to square candidate Romney’s muscular assertions with current reality, where wind power has provided 35 percent of all new U.S. power production over the past half-decade and already accounts for 10 percent or more of the electricity generated in five U.S. states. In South Dakota, 22 percent of power generation comes from wind; Iowa produces 19 percent of its electricity from wind. Even big-oil Texas taps the wind for 8.5 percent of the electricity controlled by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which accounts for 85 percent of the state’s electricity.And it’s worth noting that Texas consumes considerably more electric power than any other state in the Union – nearly twice as much as California.
Wind power is not simply a fantasy perpetrated by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, as Romney would like American voters to believe. After all, it was George W. Bush who, as Texas governor, introduced the Lone Star State’s first renewable portfolio standard, setting ambitious targets for the introduction of wind power and other renewable energy sources – goals that the state has since far surpassed. And it was President George W. Bush whose Department of Energy (DOE) published a landmark report in July 2008, mapping out a pathway to achieving a fifth of America’s power from wind by 2030.
In charting a course toward 20 percent reliance on wind by 2030, the DOE did not flat-line U.S. electricity use between now and then. To the contrary, it assumed a 39 percent increase above total consumption in 2005. If we actually became a nation that valued energy conservation more than we do today, the three hundred gigawatts of installed wind power slated for 2030 could end up providing well over 20 percent of the nation’s power needs.
Under the 20% Wind Energy by 2030 scenario, manufacturing jobs directly related to producing wind turbine components and subcomponents would top 30,000 by 2021, peaking at 32,835 in 2028. While factory work would somewhat slacken thereafter, ongoing expansion in onshore and offshore wind-generating capacity as well as the need to repower aging wind plants would guarantee a continued high level of employment in the manufacturing sector. In construction, jobs would average over 70,000 a year from 2019 through 2030. And in wind farm operations, total jobs would reach 76,667 by 2030 – about 28,000 in on-site operations and another 48,000 in utility services and subcontractors. Adding them all up, DOE foresees about 180,000 new jobs per year directly linked to wind energy as the 2030 target date approaches.
Beyond all of the “direct” jobs in the wind energy economy, DOE also explores the “indirect” employment benefits of growing this sector. These jobs include the producers and suppliers of steel, fiberglass, and other materials that are used to build wind turbines; the companies that manufacture the parts that go into a typical turbine’s 8,000 components and subcomponents; and the providers of banking, accounting, legal, and other services to wind turbine manufacturers and wind farm contractors. These indirect jobs are expected to number about a hundred thousand annually in the years leading up to the 2030 target date.
Finally, DOE draws an even wider circle around the “induced” job impacts resulting from consumer spending by people directly and indirectly employed in the wind energy sector. A wind turbine factory worker buys a new pair of jeans in a local store; a wind farm technician takes her family out to dinner; a crane operator stays at a local motel. The DOE team attributes another two hundred thousand jobs per year to these induced economic activities.[i]
Folding induced jobs into the assessment of wind energy benefits may go farther down the speculative road than some are ready to travel. But even setting that outer circle of employment impacts aside, we are looking at a roster that rises to more than a quarter-of-a-million direct and indirect jobs if we pursue the DOE’s 20% by 2030 ambition.
Today about 75,000 Americans are employed directly by the wind industry, though analysts warn that, if Congress allows the federal production tax credit for new wind farms to lapse at the end of this year, we will lose about 37,000 of those jobs. The production tax credit, providing 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour of wind-generated power, is costing us far less than the $4 billion-a-year that President Obama proposed cutting earlier this year from the enormous, decades-old subsidies for oil and gas. Because Congress blocked the President’s long-overdue proposal, the traditional fossil fuel subsidies remain untouched, along with massive ongoing federal support for the nuclear power industry.
A technology commitment that advances America’s energy independence and reduces our nation’s carbon footprint while creating hundreds of thousands of new, skill-based jobs – isn’t this a path worth taking?
Photo courtesy of Philip Warburg. A version of this post appeared at CSRWire.
[i] Specific numerical projections underlying DOE’s data were provided to the author by Suzanne Tegen, Ph.D., Senior Energy Analyst, Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
We're launching a new feature on the blog to give you the low-down on top media hits for our recent books and buzz for our upcoming releases. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Recently Published:
A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today by Kate Bornstein
Entertainment Weekly.com’s Shelf Life column lists 8 books that should be bestsellers according to Goodreads. A Queer and Pleasant Danger is #6. The mention runs with a large cover and Entertainment Weekly calls it a: “one-of-a-kind memoir.” Entertainment Weekly.com
Bobrow-Strain’s mention in the New York Times’ dinning section is now online. The article by Jeff Gordinier, has been picked up by the Seattle Times, The Honolulu Star, and various online resources. NYT Dining Section Online
A Twist of Faith: An American Christian's Quest to Help Orphans in Africa by John Donnelly
Shelf Awareness book trailer of the day, July 09; Shelf Awareness
A Queer History of the United States, Michael Bronski, $17.00 PB, 978-0-8070-4465-0
Mention in the “Gay Voices” section of the Huffington Post July 04 as a part of a slideshow, “Gay American History.” Huffington Post
Booklist Online Review of the Day, July 09; booklist.com and posted on Booklist’s Facebook and Twitter. “Compelling beyond belief, deserving the broadest possible readership… this is a tour de force about one American city and what it means to fight for the survival of your hometown.”
Bill Fletcher interview for Moyers & Company July 06. The interview features“They’re Bankrupting Us!” and other labor topics. Bill Fletcher segment on Moyers & Company
“Those you send to war may come home with souls unclean and hearts drowning in bitter mistrust. But the need for purification after battle has vanished into the blind spot of our culture. We neither offer it to returning veterans, nor remember that we—for whose sake, in whose name, our soldiers went to war—need purification with them. Potent challengers of conventional thinking, rich in heart, those who speak here are voices you will not forget.” —Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD, author of Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming, former Omar Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership, US Army War College, MacArthur Fellow.
"Very important and deeply moving. I strongly recommend it.” --James H. Cone, author of The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Kirkus Reviews: “The authors’ accomplishment stands on its own, but their book also serves as a great introduction to a shared past that ought to be better known.”
Gather at the Table is an honest exploration into the deep social wounds left by racism, violence and injustice, as the authors work through their own prejudices in search of reconciliation--and ultimately find friendship.--Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate
“Tanya Erzen ventures into ‘the Twilight zone’ in this compelling and ultimately sympathetic foray into fan culture, exploring the appeal of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books and movies in a postfeminist age. Erzen argues that what fans do with a text is as important as, or even more important than, the text itself. Part Cinderella Ate My Daughter andpart Reviving Ophelia, Erzen’s book is my own personal brand of heroin.”--Jana Riess, author of What Would Buffy Do? and Flunking Sainthood
New Trader Joe’s outlets have just opened in Lexington, KY, and West Seattle, and 18 more are scheduled soon across the U.S., from Medford, OR, to Sarasota, FL, to Albany, NY. That should certainly please fans like Jeff Pollard, 33, who lives near Albany and belongs to a group called “We Want Trader Joe’s in the Capital District” – the Capital District being the area around Albany, the capital of New York State.
Congratulations, Jeff. Enjoy the Formosa papaya and the Chicken Tikka Masala with Cumin-Flavored Basmati Rice.
Altogether, the new openings will mean approximately 400 Trader Joe’s stores in the U.S., which should make even more people happy (like Denice Rochelle in Seattle, who has blogged about that location). But this growth puts a real strain on the chain’s slogan: “Your neighborhood grocery store.”
Just whose neighborhood are they talking about?
The yuppie neighborhood near Manhattan’s “Silicon Square”? The middle-class family neighborhood in the Los Angeles exurb of Camarillo? The two neighborhoods in Atlanta?
Perhaps a surfer neighborhood in Hawaii? That would seem to be what the company wants shoppers to think, with all the surfboards, fake-bamboo, and garishly flowered shirts throughout the stores. However, there actually aren’t any Hawaii outlets.
True, each TJ site serves its own neighborhood, sometimes altering the product mix to appeal to the local demographic. Food shopping tends to be a neighborhood activity; we rarely drive 30 miles for a carton of milk. But in that case, Trader Joe’s is no more of a “neighborhood grocery store” than is Kroger, Safeway, Whole Foods, or any other supermarket chain-– many of which are smaller than Trader Joe’s.
In fact, the most apt neighborhood might be Germany’s Ruhr Valley, headquarters of the multinational Aldi grocery chain that owns TJ's.
So what difference does this make? Maybe none. The papaya and chicken taste the same, the staff is just as friendly, and the prices are just as low.
Yet the hidden billionaire ownership and the phony neighborliness matter, because they are part of a bigger misleading image-– along with a smattering of exotic veggies and cage-free eggs-- that makes people feel as if they’re somehow supporting a nice little health food coop when they shop at Trader Joe’s.
The truth is that Trader Joe’s is almost the complete opposite of that feel-good image.
As my new book Ethical Chic points out, it’s not merely the surfer-local image that’s false. For instance, only TJ-brand products are guaranteed to be free of trans fats, genetically modified organisms, artificial preservatives, and other yecchy stuff. The 20% of items that are not made specially for the chain can have any kind of ingredients, and that includes non-cage-free eggs from chickens kept in horrible battery cages. And think again about the pre-cooked, frozen Chicken Tikka Masala with Cumin-Flavored Basmati Rice. All the extra packaging? Ingredients shipped from India? That little meal violates some of the basic tenets of the organic and environmental movements, including “reduce packaging” and “buy local.”
I don’t want to be a grumpy, eat-your-tofu, enviro-extremist. Go to Trader Joe’s if you want, Jeff and Denice! It is fun to shop there (even if I think the hand-written signs are just too-too cute). All I’m saying is: Read the labels. Know what you’re buying-- and buy the product, not the image.
Available in bookstores today: The unlikely story of how faith and determination compelled an American to travel to Africa and open a school for children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.
David Nixon knew nothing about the small, landlocked African country of Malawi. An unassuming carpenter from North Carolina, Nixon had had his share of tough breaks, from enduring a traumatic childhood to battling drug addictions. But after having a religious awakening and learning about his church's efforts to aid some of Africa's most impoverished citizens, he found a new purpose for his life. He became determined to help the people of Malawi in some way-he would come up with the details later. Nixon raised money from his church community and set off for Africa, where he befriended a Malawian pastor and decided to do what so many Americans who go to Africa do: build an orphanage.
Nixon slowly comes to realize, however, that what he thinks is good for the Malawians is not necessarily what they need or want. As Donnelly shows, orphanages are not always the best use of resources, and there is much controversy surrounding removing children from their communities. After learning to listen to the villagers, Nixon amends his plan and eventually ends up building a school and a feeding center that supports 350 children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.
A Twist of Faith is the story of one man who, despite personal setbacks, a profound cultural gap, the corruption of local officials, and the heartbreak of losing the orphans he comes to love, is determined to do good in a place nothing like home. It is the story of a man who saves himself by saving others. Nixon's story is representative of a growing trend: the thousands of American Christians who are impassioned donors of time, money, and personal energy, devoted to helping African children orphaned by AIDS.
“Through the story of David Nixon's faith-driven journey to save the destitute in Malawi, John Donnelly explores the tenets of true service to underserved communities and accompaniment of the poor, while focusing a shrewd reporter's gaze on the efforts of various American aid organizations in Africa. He offers a compelling account of the great joy, frustration, and personal sacrifice inherent in addressing the urgent moral claim of the poor on a Christian conscience.” —Paul Farmer, author of Haiti After the Earthquake
About the Author For more than thirty years, John Donnelly has reported in regions far from the United States, starting with the civil wars of Central America, delving into the political violence in Haiti, drawing out tales of conflict and peace in the Middle East and Asia, and then landing in Africa, where he feels most at home. In Africa, where he traveled as a staff reporter for the Boston Globe and later as a Kaiser Family Foundation fellow, he became intrigued by the steady stream of Americans with big hearts and big ambitions whose adventures are told in this book.
Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, where she directs initiatives on independent business and community banking. She is the author of Big-Box Swindle and also produces a popular monthly newsletter, the Hometown Advantage Bulletin. Follow her on Twitter.
This op-ed is cross-posted from Other Words, which distributes commentary articles to newspapers. It is licensed for use under a Creative Commons “Attribution-No Derivatives Work” license.
Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, 50 years ago this month. Sprawled along a major thoroughfare outside the city’s downtown, that inaugural store embodied many of the hallmarks that have since come to define the Walmart way of doing business. Walton scoured the country for the cheapest merchandise and deftly exploited a loophole in federal law to pay his mostly female workforce less than minimum wage.
That relentless focus on squeezing workers and suppliers for every advantage has paid off since July 1962. Walmart is now the second-largest corporation on the planet. It took in almost half-a-trillion dollars last year at more than 10,000 stores worldwide.
Walmart now captures one of every four dollars Americans spend on groceries. Its stores are so plentiful that it’s easy to imagine that the retailer has long since reached the upper limit of its growth potential. It hasn’t. Walmart has opened over 1,100 new supercenters since 2005 and expanded its U.S. sales by 35 percent. It aims to keep on growing that fast. With an eye to infiltrating urban areas, Walmart recently introduced smaller “neighborhood markets” and “express” stores.
While the big-box business model Sam Walton pioneered half a century ago has been great for Walmart, it hasn’t been so great for the U.S. economy.
Walmart’s explosive growth has gutted two key pillars of the American middle class: small businesses and well-paying manufacturing jobs.
Between 2001 and 2007, some 40,000 U.S. factories closed, eliminating millions of jobs. While Walmart’s ceaseless search for lower costs wasn’t the only factor that drove production overseas, it was a major one. During these six years, Walmart’s imports from China tripled in value from $9 billion to $27 billion.
Small, family-owned retail businesses likewise closed in droves as Walmart grew. Between 1992 and 2007, the number of independent retailers fell by over 60,000, according to the U.S. Census.
Their demise triggered a cascade of losses elsewhere. As communities lost their local retailers, there was less demand for services like accounting and graphic design, less advertising revenue for local media outlets, and fewer accounts for local banks. As Walmart moved into communities, the volume of money circulating from business to business declined. More dollars flowed into Walmart’s tills and out of the local economy.
In exchange for the many middle-income jobs Walmart eliminated, all we got in return were low-wage jobs for the workers who now toil in its stores. To get by, many Walmart employees have no choice but to rely on food stamps and other public assistance.
Walmart’s history is the story of what has gone wrong in the American economy. Wages have stagnated. The middle class has shrunk. The ranks of the working poor have swelled. Whatever we may have saved shopping at Walmart, we’ve more than paid for it in diminished opportunities and declining income.
And the worse things get, the more alluring Walmart’s siren call of low prices becomes. While the Ford Motor Co. once profited by creating a workforce that could afford to buy its cars, today Walmart profits by ensuring that Americans cannot afford to shop anywhere else. The average family of four now spends over $4,000 a year at Walmart.
Such market concentration is unprecedented in U.S. history, as is the concentration of wealth it has engendered. Sam Walton’s heirs own about half of Walmart’s stock and have a net worth equal to the combined assets of the bottom one-third of Americans — about 100 million people. This year alone, the Waltons will pocket $2.7 billion in dividends from their Walmart holdings.
They are among the few Americans who have reason to celebrate Walmart’s 50th birthday. As for the rest of us, the milestone offers a good moment to reflect on the company’s business model and where it might lead us if we allow Walmart’s growth to continue full-steam for another 50 years.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has just released a study of enormous importance. In its four-volume Renewable Electricity Futures Study, NREL carefully examines the role that wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, hydropower, and ocean energy can play in shifting U.S. power generation to renewable energy resources.
NREL's methodology is painstaking and its conclusion is unambiguous: "[R]enewable electricity generation from technologies that are commercially available today, in combination with a more flexible electric system, is more than adequate to supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while meeting electricity demand on an hourly basis in every region of the United States." Nearly 50% of our overall power needs by that year can be supplied by wind and solar photovoltaics, the study team predicts.
Along with looking at the abundance of renewable power resources within our reach, NREL focuses on the need to expand our grid to tap those resources where they are most abundant, often in remote land areas and off our shores. The study also probes the importance of smarter demand management and a stepped-up investment in hydro, battery and other storage technologies that can make the best use of variable sources of power like wind and solar.
Three NREL infographics dramatize key aspects of the pathway to a U.S. energy future where renewable resources supplant fossil and nuclear power. The first shows the distribution and intensity of different power sources across the continental United States, taking viewers from 2010, when coal, gas, and nuclear dominate, to 2050, when wind, solar, and other renewables prevail. The second uses pulsing orbs of different colors to reflect the hour-to-hour availability and use of different power resources in 2050. Then, in the third visualization, a macro view of our transmission grid tracks the hourly flow of electrons across the U.S. from major sources of supply ("power exporters") to major centers of demand ("power importers") from January to December 2050. All three infographics can be accessed on the Futures Study home page.
This far-reaching study goes a long way toward exploding the myth that electricity generated by renewable energy is destined to play second fiddle to traditional U.S. fossil fuel and nuclear power sources.
Nancy Rubin Stuart is an award-winning author, journalist and writer-producer who specializes in women and social history. Her next book, Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary–Era Women and the Radical Men They Married, examines the lives of Lucy Knox (wife of Revolutinary War hero General Henry Knox) and Peggy Shippen Arnold (wife of the infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold). It will be published by Beacon Press in 2013.
Stuart is also the author of The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, which follows Mercy Otis Warren and her connection to some of the most notable players in the American Revolution. With a sense of liberty and independence, Stuart chose the following excerpts documenting Warren's satirical poems and plays pertaining not only to the events that led to war, but also to her revolutionary ideas of women's rights.
We asked Stuart for her thoughts on what she'll be celebrating this July 4th, and she offered this response:
"At the time of the American Revolution, nearly two hundred and forty years ago, women were expected to remain mute about worldly affairs. While seldom punished as severely as are foreign political activists today, any woman who publicly expressed her views about politics was considered an outrage. Thankfully, American women have long since been granted the vote, they now openly write about politics, and today hold key positions in government. As fireworks cascade overhead on July 4th both women and men have just cause to celebrate our nation’s birthday. "
Happy Fourth of July from Beacon Press! To celebrate, Elinor Lipman has written a special Independence Day poetic tweet inspired by "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus. Lipman is over a year into her project to chronicle the 2012 election cycle in verse on Twitter. Retweet it and follow her @elinorlipman.
In honor of Independence Day, we asked author Carole Joffe (Dispatches from the Abortion Wars) what she'll be celebrating this July 4th.
Speaking as one whose professional and political life focuses on reproductive health services, there has lately been very little lately about which to feel celebratory. (An obvious exception of course-- the Supreme Court’s recent decision on health reform). Since the 2010 elections, there have been unprecedented, nonstop assaults by Congress and, especially, the states on both abortion and contraceptive services. Nevertheless, what I do feel both celebratory about, and deeply moved by, is the determined pushback shown by the defenders of these services: the more than a thousand who gathered outside the Virginia State House to protest new regulations on abortion, which had nothing to do with “women’s health” and everything to do with politics; the wonderful women legislators in Michigan who, joined by a joyful crowd of supporters, performed the “Vagina Monologues” at the state capitol, after being literally silenced by Republican leadership because they had dared to speak the word “vagina” while objecting to extreme abortion regulation; and “Pillimina,” the human sized birth control pill that Planned Parenthood has deployed to follow Mitt Romney –and remind voters of his rightward turn on contraception.
I celebrate also the indomitable spirit of the abortion providing community, who go to work each day, knowing that there are politicians ever searching for new ways to shut them down, and aggressive protestors who will attempt to intimidate them and their patients. Finally on this day, I celebrate the memory of Dr. George Tiller of Kansas, an abortion provider assassinated three years ago in his church by an extremist. As one of his former staff told me, Dr. Tiller was deeply patriotic, and took the Independence Day and its meaning to heart. One July fourth, in the midst of particularly grueling protests, Tiller and his staff flew a number of American flags at his clinic, and later mailed these flags to abortion providing colleagues across the country. With the flags, he enclosed a letter that said, as the staff person recollected, “We would be honored if you accepted this flag as a symbol of our journey together on the pathway of Justice, Liberty and Freedom.”
Independence Day celebrations began this past weekend, with picnics, parades, and fireworks displays all around the country. In honor of the holiday, we asked several of our authors to share their feelings about Independence Day and what it means to them-- good and bad. Three authors who grapple with the complex history associated with the holiday quoted Frederick Douglass from his speech, "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?" We've grouped their responses for today's post.
Bill Fletcher Jr. is a long-time racial-justice, labor, and international activist, scholar, and author. He has served in leadership positions with many prominent union and labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union. Fletcher is currently the director of field services for the American Federation of Government Employees. He is the author of the forthcoming book "They're Bankrupting Us!" And Twenty Other Myths about Unions.
The 4th of July is always a complicated holiday for me. That is largely because it has a complicated historical significance. When I think of July 4th I immediately think about how my African ancestors were largely ignored-- except with regard to labor power and some soldiering--in the course of the events that were transpiring at that moment, and particularly ignored in the context of great minds thinking about the future of the new nation that they wished to create. I also think about how the War of Independence was in part ignited by the indignation of the settlers over restrictions imposed on them by the British regarding going further West-- into the lands of my Shawnee ancestors and other Native American nations.
As a result, I cannot uncritically celebrate July 4th. I consider, of course, the ideal that is contained in the Declaration of Independence, and am aware of those among the colonial settlers who may have had a more egalitarian vision of the future. I am equally aware of the ideal that July 4th is supposed to represent. But I am saddened each year that there is little historical examination of the contradictory nature of the War of Independence, and that for entire populations the War of Independence came to represent yet another stage on the road to their annihilation.
In the 19th century the great Frederick Douglass posed a question in a now famous speech "What to a slave is the fourth of July?" I would expand that and pose the question that today needs to be asked and answered: For those of us who believe in democracy, justice and equality, how do we disentangle the web of myth that surrounds the Fourth of July?"
We live in fearful times. War, racism, social, economic, employment, environmental, energy, health and food security issues are on the long list of things to be worried about. And I do. Worry.
On July 4, 1776, the day America declared its independence, one fifth of the population was in a state of bondage. Seventy-six years later, in 1852, abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass, articulated, “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
Although legal freedom came in 1865, when four million people were released from slavery, evidence of true emancipation did not come until 143 years later, when Barack Obama was elected the first African American President of the United States. In his inaugural July 4th address, he extolled, “That unyielding spirit [that] defines us as American... It is what has always led us, as a people, not to wilt or cower at a difficult moment, but to face down any trial and rise to any challenge, understanding that each of us has a hand in writing America’s destiny.”
This July 4th, I will be thinking about history and destiny... And celebrating my commitment to be an agent of change in the world independence has wrought.
Celebration of Independence Day ain’t what it used to be for me. What I’ve learned along the road I’ve traveled the past decade-- much of which is horrible, shameful and has been deeply buried or glossed over in America’s collective psyche-- has led me to reevaluate how I view myself and my country. On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass said, “Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.” The deep wound of racism-– the legacy of slavery-– about which Douglass spoke has never been fully acknowledged and healed. I no longer celebrate “independence” that resulted in the annihilation of millions of indigenous people and the enslavement of millions of Africans. I don’t celebrate drone strikes in the name of freedom. I celebrate truth-tellers and peacebuilders. I celebrate the progress we have made and continue to make in the face of strong resistance. Mostly, I celebrate hope – the hope that one day we will live up to the ideals upon which this great country was founded.
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Beacon Broadside, a project of Beacon Press, is an online venue for essays, news items, and dispatches from respected writers, thinkers, and activists about our times.
