Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
2 December 2009
Across the Pond
via Change.org's End Homelessness Blog by Shannon Moriarty on 11/22/09
Rough sleepers are to London as chronically homeless are to the U.S. According to Capital City News, these individuals "have typically been homeless for at least five years, have refused or have been failed by repeated interventions to help them off the streets, and are often affected by a complex set of problems, including drug addiction and mental health issues."
But unlike the U.S., the impetus for the targeted outreach to these individuals in London was not to save money or political face - at least according to the comments of Mayor Johnson. He said in a statement, "It is completely unacceptable for anyone to end up with only the street for a home in 21st century London." This was the zeal driving the quick removal of 138 long-term rough sleepers from the street in just six months. Given this early success, many believe the city will have no problem transitioning the remaining 67 homeless individuals into housing by 2012.
This plan to end homelessness in London is not unlike the plethora of 10-Year Plans to End Homelessness that exist in over 230 cities and states across the U.S. Similar to London's plan, they are bold, targeted, and have a timeline for success. So why has this approach working in London and not in the States? Is 10 years too long to feel urgent? Are we trying to end homelessness for penny pinching or human rights reasons?
Perhaps the new head of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness could benefit from a chat over tea with Mayor Johnson. Clearly, he has some ideas that are worth spreading.
Image: Capital City News
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
Urgent Call for more Jobs Gains Momentum - EPI News
EPI has joined forces with a coalition of national organizations in calling for more action to create jobs. On November 17, EPI hosted the panel discussion,Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis, where the heads of the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, and other groups warned that today’s high unemployment could stunt an entire generation’s lifetime earnings and devastate minority communities.
The coalition, which consists of EPI, the AFL-CIO, Center for Community Change, the NAACP, and the National Council of La Raza, issued an Urgent Call for Action to Stem the U.S. Jobs Crisis, recommending many of the same policy actions that EPI proposed last month in its five-part approach to large-scale job creation. These include additional aid to strapped state governments, public-sector job creation, as well as investments in infrastructure and tax credits to create private-sector jobs. The group also advocates extended emergency unemployment compensation and subsidies for COBRA health insurance into 2010.
Unemployment: The civil rights issue of our time
The Call to Action praised the Obama administration for moving swiftly earlier this year to pass the Recovery Act, which has already created at least 1.1 million jobs. But it stressed that additional help was needed. “The Great Recession is an unfolding social catastrophe,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of theCenter for Community Change. “If we act quickly, a jobs program could put millions of people to work in 2010.”
Much of the discussion at the Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis panel focused on the groups hardest hit by the jobs crisis. Although the nationwide unemployment rate of 10.2% is the highest level seen in 26 years, it is much higher for communities of color: 13.1% for Hispanic workers and 15.7% for black workers.
“Make no mistake. This is the civil rights issue of our time,” Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said at the event. “There can be no equal opportunity without economic justice and a stable job that provides a living wage.” MORE
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
28 November 2009
Home
via imgfave | popular by Melissa on 11/19/09
via http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/12/249076969
faved by Melissa
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
les plus beauxx (petit)
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
The Navajo mother-in-law taboo
via Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen on 11/28/09
It's not what I had expected:
Observing an old and curious Navajo taboo, Narbona was not allowed to look at his mother-in-law, nor she at him. It was a custom designed to keep the peace and, apparently, to avoid sexual tension. In fact, many mothers-in-law in Navajo country went so far as to wear little warning bells on their clothing so that a son-in-law would not round a corner and inadvertently find himself staring at her. This was no small thing, especially if he happened to look her in the eye. Even an accidental violation of the mother-in-law taboo might require that the family hire a healer to perform an elaborate -- and expensive -- nightchant to undo all the harm that had been done.
That is from Hampton Sides's quite interesting Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West. From the specialized academic literature, here is an entire study of the mother-in-law taboo (JSTOR); I'm not sure any of the offered hypotheses or explanations are persuasive. It seems the taboo lasted well through the twentieth century. Here is another discussion, under the more general heading of Navajo taboos:
The only explanation ever given for this custom is that “it avoids a lot of trouble in the family.”
26 November 2009
Your Choice
via imgfave | popular by Melissa on 9/1/09
via http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/9/177503185
faved by Melissa
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
23 November 2009
13 November 2009
How to Bounce Back From Job-Search Rejection
Link: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,205244,00.html?ESRC=fasttrack.nl
How to Bounce Back From Job-Search Rejection
Waldo Waldman | November 04, 2009
I’m sorry Mr. Jones, hired another candidate.
Your passion is great, but we just don’t think you’re the right fit for our company.
Thank you for your time, but we regret to inform you that all our slots are filled for the position you’re applying for.
We appreciate your application, but we have found a more qualified candidate.
Have you received an e-mail or call like that lately? Felt lousy, didn’t it?
Well, in this battered economy with competition at an all time high across all employment sectors, rejection plagues hardworking, talented people like you every day. The truth is, if you don’t have thick skin and don’t put yourself out there to get shot down by the missiles of rejection, then your job search is going to be a long and painful process…more
Posted via email from the Un-Official Southwestern PA Re-Entry Coalition Blog
From the Desk of Kelly Bacha
Out of prison, out of a job, out of luck
Ex-convicts are 'at the back of the line' in their struggle to find work during the recession. It's a burden Gregory Headley feels all too well...more
or LINK: http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/11/news/economy/convict_employment/index.htm Thanks Kelly.Check out this site I found on StumbleUpon!
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30 October 2009
PA Supreme Court Overturns Thousands Convictions By Judge Who Received $2.6 ...
via The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog by lois on 10/30/09
Pennsylvania Overturns Many Youths’ Convictions
By IAN URBINA - NY Times
Published: October 29, 2009
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday overturned thousands of juvenile-offender convictions handed down by a judge now charged in a corruption scandal.
The judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, and Michael T. Conahan, a fellow judge who for a time was the chief of that court, are charged with taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from the owner of two privately run youth detention centers in exchange for their sending teenagers there.
The Supreme Court said the conviction of any juvenile who appeared before Judge Ciavarella after Jan. 1, 2003, was invalid. The justices barred the retrial of all but an estimated 100 of those cases.
The decision followed advice the court received from Arthur Grim, a Berks County judge whom it appointed in February to review juvenile cases involving Judges Ciavarella and Conahan.
Judge Ciavarella, who along with Judge Conahan awaits federal trial on charges of income-tax and wire fraud, routinely held juvenile hearings that lasted just minutes, failing to ask the youths before him whether they understood the consequences of waiving their right to a lawyer and pleading guilty.
“We concluded,” the justices wrote Thursday, “that the record supports Judge Grim’s determination that Ciavarella knew he was violating both the law and the procedural rules promulgated by this court applicable when adjudicating the merits of juvenile cases without the knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of counsel by the juveniles.”
Under the justices’ ruling, the only cases that will be eligible for retrial are those in which youths are still under court supervision. The district attorney’s office has been directed to notify Judge Grim of those cases it wishes to prosecute again. He will then make a determination on each case.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 30, 2009, on page A18 of the New York edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/us/30judges.html?_r=1&ref=us
You Are Not Where You Live
via Change.org's End Homelessness Blog by Shannon Moriarty on 10/29/09
This is the painfully-simple-but-so-important message writer Becky Blanton shared during a presentation for TED, an organization that shares "riveting talks by incredible people." Blanton began living in her van by choice. But one year after she began her adventure, she was broke, had fallen into the depths of depression, and felt homeless.
In the short video below, she talks about what she learned during just one year living in a van. She makes painfully important observations about homelessness, from the outside and the inside. Including three key lessons:
1. Society equates living in a permanent structure with our value.
2. The negative perceptions of others can easily impact our self-worth, if we allow it to.
3. Homelessness is an attitude, not a lifestyle.
Although I wouldn't classify Blanton as "homeless", I still found her testimony deeply moving. Partially because Blanton is such a riveting storyteller, but also because you can sense how deeply the experience impacted her.
Blanton had her identity as a writer and plenty of opportunities awaiting her at the end of her year on the streets. Many others are not as lucky.
Image: topleftpixel
Robinson on Doing Justice as Controlling Crime
via CrimProf Blog by CrimProf BlogEditor on 10/30/09
Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania Law School) has posted The Ongoing Revolution in Punishment Theory: Doing Justice as Controlling Crime on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This lecture offers a broad review of current punishment theory debates and the...26 October 2009
24 October 2009
Cell Phone "Refuseniks" Are The New Contrarian Assholes [Missed Calls]
via Jezebel by Anna N. on 10/23/09
According to Claire Cain Miller's article, most people who lack cell phones are "older or less educated Americans or those unable to afford phones." Says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "These are people who have a bunch of other struggles in their lives and the expense of maintaining technology and mastering it is also pretty significant for them." So basically, if you don't have a cell phone you must have bad problems. Unless of course you're among the 5% of non-cell phone users who, as in so many other areas of life, become cool by simulating those with actual problems. These are the refuseniks.
They are neither too poor to afford a phone nor too stressed to learn to operate one. They just don't want you to call them. Gregory Han says, "It's a luxury not to be reached when I'm out and about." The writer/editor doesn't even have a landline, and when he travels for work he has to provide his employers with a detailed list of ways to reach him, raising the question of how he still has a job. Jenna Catsos thinks being reachable via cell phone is "scary," and prefers handwritten letters. But she's also only 22, so this sounds like an affectation of youth. She says she'll probably need a cell phone soon, because she'll be couch-surfing — maybe lacking both an apartment and a cell phone is too close to actually being poor.
Gawker helpfully categorizes the cell-phone refuseniks into a few groups, including "people who are so incredibly important that the world will bend over backwards to find them when it needs them" and "people who are total jackasses." In my totally jaundiced view, most refuseniks think they're the former, but are actually the latter. Not having a cell phone is like a much less dire version of not getting your kids vaccinated — you still benefit from other people's willingness to do what you eschew. Yes, not having a cell phone makes it harder for you to reach other people, as well as for them to reach you — but if all your friends have cell phones, you can always stop by a pay phone and call them, no matter where they are. Your life is made more convenient by other people's decision to allow the "scary" intrusion of reachability. Of course, there are probably those who barely even use pay phones, who find all phone conversation outside the boudoir to be beneath them. These are people like that dude who tells you how much he wishes he could spend a year living in the woods without the burden of human contact. Having to talk to you is really rough on him, and he wants you to know it.
As you might be able to tell, a few bad experiences have caused me to associate not having a cell phone with being a holier-than-thou dickwad. But. When I came to New York, I discovered that my phone didn't work in my apartment. After a fruitless eBay transaction — the next time I feel like buying electronics on eBay, I'm just going to stand in the middle of the sidewalk wearing a "kick me" sign instead — I sort of gave up, and resigned myself to keeping up with my friends via Skype, or while sitting in the park. It was kind of like the opposite of not having a cell phone — I could only talk while I was out. But since I don't hear very well, I didn't do much of that either, and my cell phone use plummeted. Then, last weekend, I found myself telling someone at a party: "Yeah, I don't really have a phone." He looked at me with a new respect, and I have to admit, I felt pretty fucking cool. Then the next day I went out and bought an iPhone.
The Cell Refuseniks, An Ever-Shrinking Club [NYT]
Cellphone Non-Users: An Ethnographic Study [Gawker]
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