REWIMD - A Week of Quotes and Cartoons
SUNDAY
Quote of the Day
June 2, 2013
'So while [Betty] Friedan was right in her counterintuitive claim that maternal employment could be good for women and families, she failed to foresee that the United States, which pioneered public education for all and was on the verge of establishing a comprehensive child care system in 1971 (before President Richard M. Nixon vetoed the bill), would by the early 21st century have fallen to last place among developed nations in supports for working families. While the average working woman might be better off, we need to offer better maternity leave and child care for those more at risk.
'After 50 years, shouldn't we stop debating whether we want mothers to work and start implementing the social policies and working conditions that will allow families to take full advantage of the benefits of women's employment and to minimize its stresses?'
Stephanie Coontz, co-chair
of the Council on Contemporary
Families
New York Times
June 2, 2013
Toon of the Day
Summer Blockbusters
David Horsey - Los Angeles Times
MONDAY
Quote of the Day
'Whatever one thinks about "free trade," the secrecy of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership process represents a huge
assault on the principles and practice of democratic
governance. That is untenable in the age of
transparency, especially coming from an administration
that is otherwise so quick to trumpet its commitment to
open government.'
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's
Global Trade Watch and Ben Beachy and
the group's the research director.
New York Times
June 3, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/opinion/obamas-covert-trade-deal.html…
Toon of the Day
Military Harassment Appeals
Signe Wilkinson
TUESDAY
Quote of the Day
'So, everybody has a different reason for being here. Women have the - women are here because they have been attacked to their reproductive rights. There have been new laws passed for restricting abortion, which has been a relaxed issue in Turkey until very recently. There are the - there are LGBT people. They are here because last week there was a meeting in the Parliament about LGBT rights, but the government and people in the government have insulted, in various ways, them and their rights. So everybody has a different reason for being here. And because of the peace process that's going on, I guess people have found, for the first time in 30 years, the space to react against the oppressive policies of - that have been culminating.'
Nazan Ustundag, Turkish activist and scholar
demonstrating in Istanbul
Democracy Now!
June 3, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/3/a_turkish_spring_over_1_000
Toon of the Day
It's Not Working
Keith Tucker
WEDNESDAY\
Quote of the Day
June 5, 2013
'We don't want anything from the government or from the foreign forces.We blame both for the murder of my brother. The Americans because they detained him and took him away from his shop in broad daylight, and the government for its failure to defend and protect its citizens' rights,'
Dr. Shukrullah Stoman,brother of
one the three men whose bodies
were uncovered Tuesday lying
facedown in a pit covered by
large,flat stones near a base
in Wardak Province formerly
used by the U.S. Special
Forces team in Afghanistan
New York Times
June 5, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/world/asia/afghans-say-new-bodies-are…
Toon of the Day
Sneeze Moose
David Horsey - Los Angeles Times
THURSDAY
Quote of the Day
June 6, 2013
'Higher wages, better benefits and more full-time jobs at Wal-Mart’s 4,000 stores across the country would have a broad-based beneficial economic impact. Improved wages and benefits for Wal-Mart workers would make them less reliant on public assistance, help end the enormous taxpayer subsidy of the world’s largest retailer, which is owned the country’s richest family, and give a much needed boost to the economy of urban America.
'Wal-Mart workers cannot rely on the good intentions of management to provide better jobs and benefits. The report demonstrating the enormous cost to taxpayers of Wal-Mart’s low-road strategies was a follow-up to a 2004 report that reached exactly the same conclusions. Nothing has changed in the intervening years, except that Wal-Mart has continued to retaliate against workers who speak up against poverty wages and poor working conditions. The situation of Wal-Mart workers, who according to a Bloomberg study, are paid an average of $8.81 per hour, demonstrates the need for a significant increase in the federal minimum wage. And while the current strikes are not over issues of unionization, it is only with a union that Wal-Mart workers will ultimately secure good jobs and respect at work.'
John Logan is Professor and Director
of Labor and Employment Studies at
San Francisco State University
BeyondChron
June 6, 2013
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11454
Toon of the Day
Smell of Rat
Mike Luckovich
FRIDAY
Quote of the Day
'Maybe that old idea about a law-abiding individual's contacts and movements being none of the government's business is a quaint relic of an earlier age. Surveillance cameras watch us as we walk down the street and snap pictures of our license plates when we drive through toll plazas. We leave an electronic trail whenever we use our ATM cards. Our lives are recorded in a way that was impossible in earlier times, and history suggests there is no turning back.
'But it is precisely because of this technological momentum that we should fight to hold on to the shreds of privacy that remain. If the collection of phone-call data is so innocuous and routine, why are the surveillance court's orders stamped top secret? Why can't we know more about this snooping? What's there to hide?
'We have to ask these questions now, while we still remember what privacy is. Or was.'
Columnist Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
June 7, 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-does-verizon-rec…
Toon of the Day
Forever
Mike Luckovich
SATURDAY
Quote of the Day
June 8, 2013
'A new study from the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan research institution, examines the consequences if 14 states whose governors have declared their opposition to Medicaid expansion do, in fact, reject the expansion. The result, the study concluded, would be a huge financial hit: the rejectionist states would lose more than $8 billion a year in federal aid, and would also find themselves on the hook for roughly $1 billion more to cover the losses hospitals incur when treating the uninsured.
'Meanwhile, Medicaid rejectionism will deny health coverage to roughly 3.6 million Americans, with essentially all of the victims living near or below the poverty line. And since past experience shows that Medicaid expansion is associated with significant declines in mortality, this would mean a lot of avoidable deaths: about 19,000 a year, the study estimated.'
Columnist Paul Krugman
New York Times
June 7, 2013
Toon of the Day
On My Roof
Jeff Danziger
Spread the word