Man on the Spot #46: Sleeping truckers, veterans scandals, health care and food stamps

Posted by bob on July 7, 2014 in Blog | 0 comments

Truckers Resist Rules on Sleep, Despite Risks of Drowsy Driving …

By JAD MOUAWAD and ELIZABETH A. HARRIS  JUNE 16, 2014

But now sleep-deprived driving — an open secret among truckers — has once again come to the fore, after the June 7 accident involving the comedian Tracy Morgan on a dark stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike 45 miles south of New York City. Prosecutors say the Walmart truck driver whose tractor-trailer slammed into a van carrying Mr. Morgan, critically injuring him and killing another passenger, had not slept in more than 24 hours.

As justice department scrutinizes local police, cleveland is latest focus

By ERIK ECKHOLM JUNE 17, 2014

CLEVELAND — As cries of “shots fired” shrieked from police radios, a caravan that grew to 62 patrol cars chased an old blue Malibu through 20 miles of this city’s streets and highways. The vehicle and its two occupants were surrounded in a school lot, and in a disorienting jumble of sirens and strobes, officers fired 137 rounds at close range.

Help Thy Neighbor and Go Straight to Prison

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: August 10, 2013

IF you want to understand all that is wrong with America’s criminal justice system, take a look at the nightmare experienced by Edward Young. Young, now 43, was convicted of several burglaries as a young man but then resolved that he would turn his life around. Released from prison in 1996, Neva Mumpower, asked Young to help sell her husband’s belongings. He later found, mixed in among them, seven shotgun shells, and he put them aside so that his children wouldn’t find them.

Elite, Separate, Unequal

New York City’s Top Public Schools Need Diversity

By RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG JUNE 22, 2014

“You pass the test, you get the highest score, you get into the school — no matter what your ethnicity, no matter what your economic background is,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in 2012. But this year, only 5 percent of seats at those eight schools were offered to black students and 7 percent to Latinos, in a city where the public schools are 70 percent black and Latino. At Stuyvesant High School, just 3 percent of offered seats this year went to black and Latino students.

On Iraq, Echoes of 2003

JUNE 18, 2014 Nicholas Kristof

Is this 2014 or 2003? I’m flinching at a painful sense of déjà vu as we hear calls for military intervention in Iraq, as President Obama himself — taunted by critics who contend he’s weak — is said to be considering drone strikes there.

Killing Lions, Buying Bombs

By JOHAN BERGENAS, RACHEL STOHL and OCHIENG ADALA Published: August 9, 2013

PRESIDENT OBAMA and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently stepped up the fight against poachers, who kill tens of thousands of animals worldwide every year, selling their body parts for enormous profits. As well as bringing much needed political focus to the issue, their efforts include more resources to train and equip anti-poaching forces.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

How to Read Afghanistan

By VANESSA M. GEZARI

ON a sunny, crisp November day in 2008, three American civilians joined a platoon of United States soldiers on a foot patrol in Maiwand District, a flat, yellow patch of earth crowned by black-rock mountains in southern Afghanistan. The civilians were part of the Human Terrain System, an ambitious, troubled Army program that sends social scientists into conflict zones to help soldiers understand local culture, politics and economics.

The Other Veterans Scandal

By MICHAEL F. CANNON and CHRISTOPHER A. PREBLE JUNE 15, 2014

Here’s how. Veterans’ health and disability benefits are some of the largest costs involved in any military conflict, but they are delayed costs, typically reaching their peak 40 or 50 years after the conflict ends. Congress funds these commitments — through the Department of Veterans Affairs — only once they come due.

Health Care and Climate: President Obama’s Big Deals – NYTimes …

JUNE 15, 2014

First, health reform is now a reality — and despite a shambolic start, it’s looking like a big success story. Remember how nobody was going to sign up? First-year enrollments came in above projections. Remember how people who signed up weren’t actually going to pay their premiums? The vast majority have.

House Plan on Food Stamps Would Cut 5 Million From Program …

By RON NIXON Published: July 30, 2013

WASHINGTON — Nearly half a million people who receive food stamps but still do not get enough to eat would lose their eligibility for the program under proposed cuts that are expected to be taken up again by Congress. An additional 160,000 to 305,000 recipients who do get enough to eat would also lose their eligibility and the ability to adequately feed themselves.

House Approves Farm Bill, Ending a 2-Year Impasse

By RON NIXON JAN. 29, 2014

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill authorizing nearly $1 trillion in spending on farm subsidies and nutrition programs, setting the stage for final passage of a new five-year farm bill that has been stalled for more than two years.

Of Love and Fungus

By FRANK BRUNI Published: July 20, 2013

WOODY and Mia had opposite sides of Central Park. Tom and I have opposite sides of the East River. We’re hoping for a better outcome. For the four and a half years that we’ve been together, we’ve been apart, me in Manhattan, Tom in Brooklyn, at least most of the workweek, and during chunks of the weekend, too. We tell our friends that it’s a borough standoff, a game of Big Apple chicken, but that’s just a line and a lie, a deflection of the questions you field when you challenge the mythology of romance.