In a single story, Kaiser Health News summarizes and links to initial coverage of the Blair House HCR summit by the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, Poliltico and ABC News.
The takeaway from the event seems to be that the Democratic Congressional leadership will double down on the Obama/Senate bill via the reconciliation route without the public option.
Tom Ashbrook of NPR’s On Point interviewed Nathaniel Frank of UC Santa Barbara’s Palm Center today about his study of the 25 nations with gay service members serving successfully.
Frank is the lead author of the research report, “Gays in Foreign Militaries 2010: A Global Primer” (pdf), which concludes that integrating gay soldiers into the military can be done without disruption and much more quickly than the Pentagon is planning. Countries in the study include Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Israel, Norway, South Africa and Sweden.
Elizabeth Bumiller’s NY Times Feb. 21 report on the study is here. In it, she writes:
The report concludes that in foreign militaries, openly gay service members did not undermine morale, cause large resignations or mass “comings out.” The report found that “there were no instances of increased harassment” as a result of lifting bans in any of the countries studied.
In addition, the report says that none of the countries studied installed separate facilities for gay troops, and that benefits for gay partners were generally in accordance with a country’s existing benefits for gay and lesbian couples.
On implementation, the study said that most countries made the change swiftly, within a matter of months and with what it termed little disruption to the armed services. Mr. Frank said the study did not look at what happened if the change was implemented gradually because, he said, “I don’t think any of the militaries tried it.”
A fascinating New Yorker profile by Larissa MacFarquhar.
Matthew Yglesias notes that The Economist is guilty of execrable reporting of late.
Economist: If Only Obama Had Done Things He’s Actually Done, Things Might Be Different
… turns out to be a web site. The Atlantic’s Jim Fallows mentioned it in a brief post today. I’d never heard of it before. Not sure I’ll make much use of it, but it does seem designed to respond to folks who forward annoying urban legends. I can ignore the email, send them the appropriate Snopes URL… and now there’s a third alternative.
Fast Company produces its list of the 10 most innovative media companies. I haven’t heard of some of them and I’d quibble about one or two, but NPR and ProPublica certainly belong there. Expand it to a dozen and add Talking Points Memo and Inside Higher Ed, say I.
David Wessel, economics editor at the Wall Street Journal, reports on an experiment in the stimulus package that is changing the marketplace for municipal bonds in ways that allow cities and towns, investors and the federal government to benefit.
Infrastructure investment usually only gets attention when roads and bridges and economies fail. The collapse of the bond market for cities and states prompted the administration to include a provision in the stimulus bill that shifted the marketplace for tax-free muni bonds. The former system cost the federal governent “more than $1 in forgone tax revenue to give $1 of help to state and local governments,” according to Wessel. The new direct federal subsidies with higher interest rates on the bonds opens the marketplace to new buyers, and everyone seems to agree the system is “better, cheaper and fairer,” he writes.
Today, beneath partisan gunfire and ideological clashes in Washington, one of the few things on which Democrats and Republicans in the Senate agree is that Build America Bonds should be made permanent. The program probably will be.
“Sometimes, the system works,” he concludes.
The president’s political folks have just made a video of the chart posted here 12 days ago.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports today on a $16 million gift to UC Berkeley from the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund.
The gift will fund five new endowed chairs and a variety of research and public service programs designed to enhance Cal’s historical commitment of openness to all. Haas Jr. Fund President Ira Hirschfield has posted a deeply thoughtful open letter that explains the motivation for and history behind the gift.
Hirschfield’s letter refers to Cal’s admissions process several times and he says the gift also “includes a challenge grant for endowed scholarships for low-income students….”
Oddly the Chronicle story includes these two seemingly contradictory paragraphs:
Although the newly announced program does not address student admissions, [Berkeley Chancellor] Birgenau said, it is designed to make UC Berkeley’s environment “more inclusive” and therefore make the university “progressively more attractive to people from diverse backgrounds.”
The funding also includes $1.5 million for scholarships for transferring community college students.’
Scholarships for low-income, community college students (largely overlapping sets) certainly have a huge impact on their ability to attend if admitted.
When I worked at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business (1985-1997), about half the students in the undergraduate business program were community college transfers. As I recall, juniors entering the program from Berkeley had to have a GPA of 3.6 or higher – and most of those coming from the junior colleges had 4.0’s. A brighter, harder working, more motivated group of students would be hard to find anywhere.
The ongoing dysfunction of California’s budget and politics has hit public higher education hard at every level. Tuition and fee increases have made it impossible for many qualified students to attend community colleges, state universities and UC System schools. It’s good to see private institutions working to maintain the promise of Clark Kerr’s inspirational master plan to make public higher ed in California affordable to all.
Total support for the initiative will rise to some $31 million with matching funds. The Hewlett Foundation is also on board.
Late update: UC Berkeley’s news release is here.
Politico reports on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN Global GPS interview with Paul Volcker and his concern about the “crisis in governance.”
Volcker: “Capitol Hill – the Senate – is dysfunctional…. We are more than a year after the inauguration and neither the undersecretary for international [affairs] or the undersecretary for domestic finance – you don’t have them. It’s not because people haven’t been put forward. It took them a long time to get them nominated and an impossible amount of time to get them confirmed…. How can the Treasury effectively function … without the top officials in place that are needed?
Bali Arts 