Archive for December, 2010
Ah! Memories. Here’s Alan Greenspan waxing euphoric over budget surpluses
Sunday, December 26th, 2010
Once upon a time – yes, it does seem like a fairy tale now even though it was just 10 years ago – the United States had a budget surplus. This surplus was generated during the time of a Democratic President. His name was Bill Clinton. He was preceded in the Oval Office by two other Presidents who had made a big deal about controlling government spending. The first of them, Ronald Reagan, had decried deficit spending and the accumulation of those deficits into the national debt. He made a big deal of describing the soaring stack of thousand-dollar bills it would take to pay off a national debt that was, when he stepped into the White House in 1981, 7 billion. When he left, it was .6 trillion. When his successor left, the debt was .2 trillion. Not one year was either of these Presidents’ budget in surplus.
Bill Clinton added to the national debt, too. But when he left office in January 2001, the budget was in surplus. This allowed Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman at the time, to almost euphorically tell House Committee on the Budget on March 2, 2001:
The challenges you face both in shaping a budget for the coming year and in designing a longer-run strategy for fiscal policy have been brought into sharp focus by the budget projections that have been released in the past month and a half. Both the Bush Administration and the Congressional Budget Office project growing on-budget surpluses under current policy over the next decade. Indeed, growing on-budget surpluses were projected even under the more conservative assumptions of the Clinton Administration’s final budget projections. …
The most recent projections from OMB and CBO indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach about 0 billion in fiscal year 2010, including an on-budget surplus of almost 0 billion. Moreover, the admittedly quite uncertain long-term budget exercises released by the CBO last October maintain an implicit on-budget surplus under baseline assumptions well past 2030 despite the budgetary pressures from the aging of the baby-boom generation, especially on the major health programs.
These most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach and, indeed, would occur well before the end of the decade under baseline assumptions. …
In general, for reasons I have testified to previously, if long-term fiscal stability is the criterion, it is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases….
That said, the changes in the budget outlook over the past several years are truly remarkable. Little more than a decade ago, the Congress established budget controls that were considered successful because they were instrumental in squeezing the burgeoning budget deficit to tolerable dimensions. Nevertheless, despite the sharp curtailment of defense expenditures under way during those years, few believed that a surplus was anywhere on the horizon. And the notion that the rapidly mounting federal debt could be paid off would not have been taken seriously.
But let me end on a cautionary note. With today’s euphoria surrounding the surpluses, it is not difficult to imagine the hard-earned fiscal restraint developed in recent years rapidly dissipating. We need to resist those policies that could readily resurrect the deficits of the past and the fiscal imbalances that followed in their wake.
Uh-huh. Policies like the Bush tax cuts, which added .5 trillion of the .35 trillion that the national debt increased during his two terms of office. The tax cuts and the cost of two wars totaled more than half the trillion deficit for fiscal 2009, Bush’s last budget year.
Today, the complaints about deficit-spending are laid at the feet of the Democrats, particularly a Democratic President who inherited those tax-cut policies, those wars and an economic disaster that analysts have found can only be adequately measured by comparing it to the worst economic downtown in the past 120 years, the Great Depression. Those complainers never met a tax cut they didn’t like. During the 20 years their favored choices for President were in office the only surplus generated was a pile of rhetoric about fiscal responsibility that had zero to do with the reality of their policies.
Under President Obama, deficit spending has risen sharply, and that, of course, cannot be continued forever. Some people, however, might argue that when you inherit more than a year’s worth of impacts from the worst economic downturn in 75 years, the direct and indirect spending for two ongoing wars, the cumulative impact of tax breaks for the rich, a lengthy period of “deferred maintenance” on the nation’s infrastructure, and the loss of government revenue because so many Americans are out of work, temporarily high deficits are to be expected. That is, if you are going to create a budget that pretends to do anything to keep the situation from getting worse.
To be sure, the deficit spending we are now engaged in is eye-opening. But if the supply-side whiners were more than tin-horn con artists, they’d now be able to crow about the trillions of surplus dollars they frugally tucked away in the nation’s mattress in the past 10 years. And our national balance sheet would look more like China’s.
About Washington, DC
Friday, December 24th, 2010This page will offer you information about the neighborhoods and sights of Washington, DC and visiting in March.
National Alliance to End Homelessness
The Man Who Didn’t Fall
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010On the matter of negligence in personal injury cases the first draft of the Restatement (Third) of Torts eliminated the element of duty altogether. After an uproar the authors eviscerated duty and stuck back in what was left. Ultimately, while they failed to restate the law as it pertains to duty they did manage to restate the era of unjustified fears and risk aversion that has persisted since about the time the Restatement (Second) was published.
The Restatement (Third) takes the position that case law as well as scholarship pertaining to duty is largely incoherent. The essence of the claim is that limits to liability couched in terms of relationships or foreseeability are nothing but ad hoc justifications for taking the real question, whether defendant breached a duty of reasonable care owed to society, out of the hands of the jury where it belongs. Thus, dismissing as insupportable judicial inquiries about the connectedness of plaintiff and defendant (the relational approach) as well as those as to the proximity of cause and effect (proximate cause), the Restatement (Third) of Torts, Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm Section 7(a) reads "[a]n actor ordinarily has a duty to exercise reasonable care when the actor’s conduct creates a risk of physical harm." It goes on to add that save in "exceptional cases" judges "need not concern themselves with the existence or content of this ordinary duty." In other words, once it has been established that a defendant created a risk the court’s work regarding duty is finished and the question of whether defendant’s conduct was reasonable is exclusively for the jury to decide.
That’s a very long way from either position taken in Palsgraf v. The Long Island Railroad Company . On one side Chief Justice Cardozo for the majority wrote "[t]he risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed, and risk imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension". On the other Justice Andrews dissented writing both that "[e]very one owes to the world at large the duty of refraining from those acts that may unreasonably threaten the safety of others" and yet that "there is one limitation (on liability). The damages must be so connected with the negligence that the latter may be said to be the proximate cause of the former." He continues "[w]hat we do mean by the word "proximate" is, that because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point."
Cardozo marks the boundary of liability by a circle of close if fleeting relationships while Andrews bounds it within a circle of causes that are close to the injury producing event. Whether measured by the remoteness of the relationship or of the cause from effect both sides agreed that there was a limit to the duty of reasonableness even when a risk has been created. It’s that idea of a limit on the duty of reasonableness that was cut out of duty in the Restatement (Third). Consequently foreseeability, the catchall for the various efforts to limit the scope of the duty of reasonable care, is said to have been purged from duty.
The objection that the collection of limitations on the duty of reasonable care (whether Cardozo’s or Andrews’ or the many iterations based on foreseeability) is incoherent is based, I suspect, on an understandable misunderstanding of what these jurists are trying to say. What I think they’ve been trying to say is that risk is an inevitable part of life and that some risks are so small that liability isn’t warranted even if an injury should follow their creation.
But foreseeability doesn’t sound much like risk. Isn’t it about predicting the future; about foretelling future events based on what’s already known? Yes, but that ex ante calculation of the effects that likely follow causes is what risk is all about.
But why limit liability by the degree of risk? And if a boundary is drawn how can it be done other than arbitrarily? Isn’t it better that we follow the Precautionary Principle? Aren’t we Addicted to Risk? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we quit taking risks?
To answer those questions let’s go back to the railroad guards who created the risk that caused Ms Palsgraf’s injury. As a train began to leave the station two men ran to catch it. One safely boarded but the other, "carrying a package, jumped aboard the car, but seemed unsteady as if about to fall. A guard on the car, who had held the door open, reached forward to help him in, and another guard on the platform pushed him from behind. In this act, the package was dislodged, and fell upon the rails." What might the future have looked like had the guards taken the time to consider all of the possibilities that might follow from their effort to keep the man from falling? What might the future have held for him assuming gravity acted upon him as it did upon his package? And what about the rest of us, if inaction were the only way for our fellow citizens to avoid being hauled into court?
For several decades now the merchants of fear have been telling us that everything we thought was progress is instead the cause of human suffering. Vaccines? Autism or worse. Electricity? Electromagnetic fields, migraines, MS, cancer. Internal combustion engines? Global warming, pm2.5, etc. Plastics? Endocrine disruption, heart attacks, cancer. Pesticides (e.g. DDT) and herbicides? Sterility, cognitive deficits, cancer, overpopulation. Cars? Runaway acceleration, rollovers, fireballs. Computers? ADHD, too many choices, too little control. Shouldn’t we have waited until all the kinks were worked out before acting? Click on the vaccines link in this paragraph and also consider the price of fear of regret as expressed by Benjamin Franklin.
It is, I’m afraid, a duty to stop and not act until you’ve considered all the possible consequences of every action, however improbable, that the Restatement (Third) ultimately embraces. It is an embrace of the Precautionary Principle – an embrace therefore of a political viewpoint; not a restatement of the law regarding duty.
When you think of foreseeability as risk you see what the law really has to say about the duty of reasonable care and the analysis of any claim that it was breached. What it truly says is that the court, taking an ex ante perspective, is to decide whether the risk created was one for which, if found unreasonable and causative by a jury, liability may fairly be imposed. Thereafter, for any act amenable to liability, it’s for the jury to express their community’s tolerance for risk. Risk, or foreseeability, is thus sensibly in two places. First in the law where the limits of liability are drawn and thereafter with the fact finder who considers the reasonableness of the conduct given the context in which the various factors played out.
Is there some bright line that can be drawn? Not always though we’re certainly arguing down here that in cases where good quantitative risk assessment is available it can be. For example, in one case involving a minute exposure to a carcinogen we can take the plaintiff expert’s epidemiology studies and show that the exposure his industrial hygienist calculated produced, at most, a 1 in 13 million risk of death. Compared to other known risks you’re much more likely to slip and fatally hit your head on the toilet than to die from the exposure of which plaintiff complains. Our argument is that it make sense then to have the law, i.e. the court, set some reasonable outer limit on liability – perhaps at the 1 in 1 million level. Otherwise we either open up toilet makers and everyone else to ruinous liability for creating risks running towards the impossible end of the spectrum or we without any sound reason decide that some one in a million risks of death are fine while others aren’t.
Unsurprisingly it didn’t take long for the simplicity and predictability arguments advanced in support of the new and hollow version of risk to run off the rails. Consider Feld v. Borkowski. Iowa’s supreme court eagerly adopted the new conception of duty in 2009 (see Thompson v. Kaczinski) only to start tortuously creating exceptions to it less than a year later. (Slow pitch softball is a contact sport? Who knew? By the way, with all due deference to the Creighton coach I suspect angular momentum and early application of torque rather than recklessness answers the question). Rather than clarifying duty I’m afraid the Restatement (Third) has only created a risk of even more obscure and incoherent formulations of exceptions so as to avoid the consequences of duty without limit.
Anyway, whatever the facts and whatever the content of duty courts will in the end have to recognize the wisdom of another famous American, Henry David Thoreau, who wrote "A man sits as many risks as he runs." And that "if a man is alive, there is always a danger that he may die …" It’s exactly that essence of the inevitability of risk that the courts, if not the Restatement (Third), have been trying to express when they talk about duty.
Airport Information
Saturday, December 18th, 2010Airport information for the DC-area airports.
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Will the EPA Disclose Confidential Business Information?
Thursday, December 16th, 2010For the first time since enactment of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) the US EPA is threatening to remove confidentiality claims on studies of 14 chemicals.
Under the TSCA companies may claim that information submitted to the EPA should be treated as confidential business information (CBI) and not disclosed to the public. Companies that manufacture, process or distribute chemicals are required to immediately notify the EPA if they learn a chemical presents a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment. The reports are available on EPA’s website, but when the identity of the chemical has been claimed confidential by a company, the name of the chemical has been removed from the copy of the report that is made public.
In May 27, 2010, the EPA said it planned to generally deny confidentiality claims for and the identity of chemicals in health and safety studies filed under the TSCA, except in specified circumstances.
The EPA has begun reviewing past CBI claims for chemical identity in health and safety studies. When the EPA determines that the information is not eligible for confidential treatment under the law, it will notify companies of the determination and that it will make the information public on the 31st day after receiving the determination unless the company properly challenges the disclosure.
On February 10, 2011, the EPA notified five companies that the identities of 14 chemicals associated with a number of health and safety studies under TSCA are not eligible for confidential treatment. The companies that submitted the data in question are: Givaudan Fragrances Corporation, Japan Technical Information Center, Inc., JSR Micro, Inc., Nalco Company and Promerus LLC.
Alumna to participate in Distinguished Alumnus Lecture at MFA Alma Mater
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Photo courtesy of Lisa Kereszi, lisakereszi.com
The Alumni Society of School of Visual Arts will host CCAD Fine Arts alumna Inka Essenhigh (CCAD 1991) for the Distinguished Alumnus Lecture, March 3 at 7 p.m. at the SVA Theatre in New York City. Essenhigh earned her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1994.
After completing her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, Essenhigh had her first New York solo show in 1997. She gained attention as a member of the heralded late ’90s generation of New York artists. Her paintings depicting cartoonish figures floating on monochromatic backgrounds helped to resurrect the public’s interest in figurative painting through their graphic narratives.
Her work has been collected by public art collections such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Denver Art Museum; PS1 Center for Contemporary Art/ MoMA, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Saatchi Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She has had solo exhibitions at 303 Gallery, New York; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; and Mary Boone Gallery, New York.
Essenhigh is represented by 303 Gallery in New York and Victoria Miro Gallery in London. She currently lives and works in New York City with her husband Steve Mumford.
Columbus College of Art & Design Blog
Sellers selling v. sellers sitting
Friday, December 10th, 2010Well it’s here. Remodeling magazine’s 2010-2011 Cost V. Value report. Below are the top 5 projects that give home sellers the most “buyer buying” bang for the dollar. First impressions and kitchens matter most– same song new lyrics below. Great advice selling public!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
TOP 5: First Impressions Matter
Big-bang projects can make or break a sale from the moment potential buyers exit their car. A midrange entry door replacement brings the highest payback at a national average of 102.1 percent, followed by a midrange garage door replacement, at 83.9 percent, and an upscale redo of the siding at 80 percent of the cost. Step into the home, and a midrange kitchen remodel recoups an average 72.8 percent. Gaze into the backyard, where a wood deck addition also generates a 72.8 percent return.
Also noteworthy in this slow-growing economy is that four of the top five projects are “midrange” projects aimed at budget-conscious sellers. If sellers still balk at the price tag, take note of our tips for completing the projects on a tidy budget.
PROJECT 1: Entry Door Replacement (Steel)
Cost ,218
Resale value ,243
Cost recouped 102.1%
National averages
What this project entails: Remove an existing 3-foot-by-6-foot-8-inch entry door and jambs and replace it with a new 20-gauge steel unit, including a clear dual-pane half-glass panel, jambs, and an aluminum threshold with a composite stop. The door is factory finished with the same color on both sides. Exterior brick-mold and 2.5-inch interior colonial or ranch casings in poplar or an equal choice are prefinished to match the door color. Replace the existing lock set with a new bored lock with a brass or antique brass finish.
A new entry door can make a big splash, but only if it complements the style of the house. “The biggest mistake people make is to choose a door that doesn’t match the neighborhood or home,” says Donnie Worley, broker at RE/MAX Real Estate Service in Sanford, N.C. “You won’t recoup the money at resale, and it might look funny. For high-end homes, leaded glass may be appropriate. But in a more moderately priced home, a regular steel door painted in a color that complements the home’s trim will make a bigger impact.”
Sellers can get their money’s worth with online research before a purchase, says Peter McCluskey, owner of McCluskey Construction, Realty, and Loans in San Francisco. “Identify the type of steel, whether the door has been primed with a rust inhibitor, how many coats of finish paint have been added, and whether it’s insulated and if so with what insulation rating,” McCluskey says. “An alternative to finish paint is powder coating. It’s more like glue than paint and generally better than nonpowder coating.”
Finally, thoroughly inspect the door before buying and installing it. “Steel doors can dent easily, and you can’t fix dents,” says Taylor Joe Goldsmith, vice president of marketing and sales at Joe Goldsmith Construction Inc. in Lakeland, Fla. “Make sure the door is in good condition before you purchase it.”
Replacement projects have always performed better in resale value than other types of remodeling projects, partly because they’re among the least expensive.
PROJECT 2: Garage Door Replacement
Cost ,291
Resale value ,083
Cost recouped 83.9%
National averages
What this project entails: Remove and dispose of the existing 16-by-7-foot garage door and tracks. Install a new 4-section garage door on new galvanized steel tracks; reuse the existing motorized opener. The new door is uninsulated, single-layer, embossed steel with two coats of baked-on paint, galvanized steel hinges, and nylon rollers. 10-year limited warranty.
Home owners should be careful when choosing a garage door because it’s easy to buy a more expensive product than what’s necessary. In many cases, a basic door will do the job, McCluskey says. “There are a few standard garage doors priced around 0, and installed they might be twice that,” he says. “If you want something that looks like a carriage door, expect to pay three times as much.”
Sellers should also consider how potential buyers might use the garage. A selling point for garage tinkerers might be windows or upgraded insulation. “Lots of people don’t even park vehicles in their garage but instead use it as their workshop,” says Goldsmith. “In the winter, an insulated door will knock the edge off of the cold and will also keep the garage cool in the summer.”
Windows allow in natural light. “That’s pretty important and often overlooked,” McCluskey says. “Windows aren’t typically a large extra expense, costing about 0 extra. But they make an enormous difference in the usability of your garage. If it’s dark inside, you can’t do anything without opening the door.”
Another potential selling point is a belt-driven garage door opener, which costs about 0 more than a chain-driven model. “A chain drive is really noisy,” McCluskey says. “With a belt, you can hardly hear the door move.”
PROJECT 3: Siding Replacement
(Fiber Cement)
Cost ,382
Resale value ,707
Cost recouped 80.0%
National averages
What this project entails: Replace 1,250 square feet of existing siding with new fiber-cement siding, factory primed and factory painted. Include all 4/4 (1-inch) and 5/4 (1.25-inch) trim using either fiber-cement boards or cellular PVC.
“Siding materials can vary widely, so home owners should be sure they’re getting actual cement siding, rather than pressboard or other composite materials,” says McCluskey. “Look on the Internet at the specifications on the various cement siding products. There are no standard materials, so you have to know what materials are being used so you can compare apples to apples.”
Home owners should also ask siding contractors how much of an overlap, called the “lap,” there will be on each board. “This is one of these ‘duh’ things,” says Goldsmith. “I live in a historic district, and I’ve seen homes in which the lap is three inches, which gives siding a wood look, instead of the maximum lap of six inches. Those home owners are wasting materials. Ask how big a lap contractors will use and whether it would save on materials and lower the cost to increase the lap.”
Finally, home owners should consider prepainted siding, which they can then tout to potential buyers. “That can save home owners money,” says McCluskey. “They won’t have to have the siding repainted every few years.”
PROJECT 4: Kitchen Remodel (Minor)
Cost ,695
Resale value ,790
Cost recouped 72.8%
National averages
What this project entails: In a functional but dated 200-square-foot kitchen with 30 linear feet of cabinetry and countertops, leave cabinet boxes in place but replace the fronts with new raised-panel wood doors and drawers, including new hardware. Replace the wall oven and cooktop with new energy-efficient models. Replace laminate countertops; install a mid-priced sink and faucet. Repaint the trim, add wall covering, and remove and replace resilient flooring.
“Too often, home owners overimprove their kitchen,” says Adam Bosworth, a sales associate at Peggy Parker Real Estate LLC in Norwich, N.Y. “That’s not cost-effective unless they’ll stay in the house a long time.”
To save a good chunk of money on a kitchen remodel, keep your existing electrical wiring and plumbing in place, Bosworth says.
Another idea: Considering painting your cabinets instead of buying new ones, advises Jude Herr, broker-owner of Boulder Area Realty in Boulder, Colo. And while many home owners opt for laminate flooring that resembles wood, Herr says ceramic tile is a smarter option. “With a laminate, you may get a negative reaction,” she says. “You can buy nice ceramic tile for the same amount of money as wood laminates.”
However, do consider a laminate countertop. “The most cost-effective way to give a kitchen a better look is with a laminate,” says Jeff Carbone, a general contractor and sales associate at Coldwell Banker Premiere, REALTORS®, in Southington, Conn. “The selections today are very impressive, with many mimicking quite well the look of marble, granite, or other natural stones.”
Finally, to save money, do some of the work yourself. For example, tell your contractor that you’ll remove the cabinets, advises Bosworth. “Ask your contractor to let you know when he’s done with the drywall,” adds Herr. “Then do the painting yourself before cabinets are installed, patching nail holes or scratch marks later. That will save you the cost of painting, and it’s easier than painting afterward, when you have to work around the cabinets.”
The minor kitchen remodel may carry a high price tag, but it’s a relatively inexpensive face-lift to what many buyers consider the most important room in the home.
PROJECT 5: Deck Addition (Wood)
Cost ,973
Resale value ,986
Cost recouped 72.8%
National averages
What this project entails: Add a 16-by-20-foot deck using pressure-treated joists supported by 4-by-4-foot posts anchored to concrete piers. Install pressure-treated deck boards in a simple linear pattern. Include a built-in bench and planter of the same decking material. Include stairs, assuming three steps to grade. Provide a complete railing system using pressure-treated wood posts, railings, and balusters.
A new wood deck can look stunning, but if not done correctly it could turn into a drawback to buyers. Home owners should also be sure a new deck isn’t too big or small. “Home owners can add an 8-by-8-foot wood deck, but it’s so small the space seems useless,” says Bosworth. “Or they can put on a deck that spans the length of the home. That’s great for entertaining, but they’ll never recoup the cost.”
Bosworth also recommends that sellers who need to save money choose a contractor who’ll let them do some of the work. “Have the footings poured by a professional and maybe the frame put together by one, too,” he says. “But anybody who knows how to use a screw gun can put in the floorboards and railings.”
Adding a natural stain can be a final selling point. “I hear constant complaints from home owners about having to stain the deck every year,” says Bosworth. “Colored stains like darker browns and reds wear very unevenly. Natural stains wear more evenly.”
Before any work begins on the new deck, make sure that permits are in place. “Home owners should check with their local code enforcement department,” Worley says. “People who work [in the department] will often give them free advice to help owners avoid mistakes. They may even provide copies of building codes so home owners can be sure railings are the correct height and vertical slats aren’t too far apart or close together, potentially dangerous for children or pets.”
This project is considered essential rather than discretionary in many markets, particularly in neighborhoods where every home has an outdoor living space.
Since it was added to the survey in 2005, fiber-cement siding replacement has ranked first among projects costing ,000 or more.
This project is a new addition for the 2010–11 report, in recognition that curb appeal continues to play a strong role in a home’s resale value.
Construction cost estimates are generated by HomeTech Information Systems (www.hometechonline.com) of Bethesda, Md., which takes into account construction commodity data and labor cost information from a nationwide network of remodeling contractors. The company prepares a detailed construction estimate for each project and then adjusts this baseline cost for each city to account for regional pricing variations. However, project costs are based on estimates for hypothetical projects, with no reliable way to accommodate local and short-term fluctuations in supply and demand. Resale value data for each project are aggregated from estimates provided by REALTORS®. E-mail surveys were sent to some 150,000 appraisers, sales agents, and brokers in the summer of 2010, and more than 3,000 participated. Respondents were instructed not to make judgments about the motivation of the home owner in the decision to undertake the remodeling project or to sell the house.
School Board Discusses Possibility Of Another Levy Failure
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010A Fairfield County school board is preparing for the worst. At a board meeting Monday night, board members with Amanda Clearcreek Schools discussed what would happen if a levy on the May ballot fails.
www2.nbc4i.com – Govt_politics
Dr. Cornel West Speaks at Columbus State Community College
Saturday, December 4th, 2010
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Too many people try to "deodorize" the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, said Dr. Cornel West, Columbus State's MLK Day speaker.
"You've got to keep it funky," West said. West, a Princeton University professor and public intellectual, said King is often viewed as a saint up on a pedestal, but you have to remember he came from a long tradition of service and activism. And his work's not done. If King were here today, he'd speak out against hollow pursuits like fame, greed, lust and hatred. This weekend's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz, showed there's still a lot of hate in the world. "Indifference to evil is more evil than evil itself," West said. "Indifference is the one characteristic that makes the very angels weep." He praised Columbus State for helping people from all walks of life get an education, but he warned students not to stop there. "Martin's question is, 'What will you use your success for?'" West said. "Never confuse success with greatness." West took questions at the end of his speech, including one from a woman struggling to make a difference at a school in her community. West said the best way to reach the younger generation is by treating them with respect, and urged her not to give up hope. "No matter how bad things are, things would be worse if you weren't doing what you're doing," West said. West became nationally known with his 1993 book "Race Matters," a searing analysis of racism in American democracy. He has published 13 other books, including a recent memoir, and offers weekly commentary on the Tavis Smiley Show on PRI. He also had a recurring role in the Matrix movies as a member of the Zion Council. Hosting West is an honor, said Dr. David Harrison, Columbus State's president — and the events aren't over yet. Columbus State has a week of events planned for MLK Day, leading up to a march next Monday. |
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Kasich ‘Astounded’ By Statehouse Partisanship
Saturday, December 4th, 2010Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he's "astounded" by the partisanship he's seen between African Americans and whites, and between Democrats and Republicans, since taking office in January.
www2.nbc4i.com – Govt_politics