A support our troops rally was held at the ewa end of Ala Moana beach park Saturday from 10 a.m. – 12 noon.( March 29th ).
It was so successful it is being held ”’every Saturday same time, same place.”’
Please lend your support, come and cheer for America and our troops. A wonderful, positive experience is in store for yourself and all who see and hear it.
”’Bud Ebel is a resident of Waianae and can be reached at:”’ mailto:bud96792@hotmail.com
Well, it’s back again — the state long-term care insurance tax proposal. Remember this is the $10 per month tax that is supposed to provide you with a benefit equal to $70 per day for 365 days should you need long-term care.
While the governor has already indicated that she will veto such a proposal, it appears lawmakers seem hell-bent on putting it on the governor’s desk in a battle of one ups-man ship. Unfortunately, no one will win in this political tug-of-war as neither side of the issue has moved to find a common meeting place of compromise.
There is no doubt that the issue of long-term care needs to be addressed especially in light of the aging population and with the golden years just beyond the horizon for baby-boomers, the problem will grow. However, creating a false sense of security by adopting a social insurance will make the problem worse and not better.
Everyone seems to agree that the amount of the benefit is not enough to cover institutional long-term care, but proponents point out that it is enough to provide in home care so that a person does not have to be put into an institutional setting.
And that may be well and good, but if people who are ignorant of the cost for institutional care are led to believe that this coverage will take care of all their needs, we may find there will be even more people who will not be able to afford long-term care. In other words, if people come to rely solely on this state run insurance for long-term care and their needs somewhere down the line are greater than in-home care, they will be faced with the same dilemma that many of the proponents of the plan bemoan, the high cost of institutional long-term care.
Encouraging what will be the next generation of those who will need long-term care to purchase private policies will reduce the demand for publicly financed care. Whereas proponents argue that young people simply have other priorities, what do they think the $10 per month will mean to these same young people?
Because older taxpayers are more likely to need that long-term care coverage in the near future, they will be the first to benefit from the coverage while younger taxpayers will be asked to foot the bill.
However, when it comes time for those younger taxpayers to benefit from the plan, either the plan will have no money to pay benefits or the cost of the tax will have increased so much that it would have been better to take out private long-term care insurance.
But like Social Security the point will come when the system will be faced with a fiscal crisis because there will be more benefits being paid out than there will be contributions to the system. Thus, the premiums or tax will surely have to be increased.
Proponents argue that the money will be invested wisely so that the earnings from the invested funds should preclude having to raise the premium anytime soon — regardless of the fact the bill already provides that the tax will more than double within the next ten years. However, if that is the case, then more than likely the funds will have to be invested outside the state as there are few, if any, investments in Hawaii that will produce double digit returns on investments.
That is what is ironic — that at a time when lawmakers have been trying to lure investors to Hawaii to stimulate the economy, this plan will send more than $100 million a year out of the state so that there will be sufficient returns on the premiums invested to cover the benefits that will be paid out.
More importantly, because this new tax will require tracking of the payment and the taxpayer, new records will have to be kept. Businesses who are required to withhold the $10 a month will have to keep track of from whom they withheld the tax. Either the tax department or the third party provider of the insurance will have to keep track of who paid into the system at least ten years and whether or not they stopped paying, because once the taxpayer stops paying, they begin to lose benefits. If the taxpayer has not paid into the system for ten years, then the taxpayer is entitled only to a fraction of the daily benefit.
In a year when lawmakers are faced with millions of dollars in budget short falls, are they really willing to raise a tax to fund a new program of long-term care insurance that will raise more the $100 million while they let education and other state programs go begging?
”’Lowell L. Kalapa is the president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, a private, non-profit educational organization. For more information, please call 536-4587 or log on to”’ https://www.tfhawaii.org
WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) — Twenty years after the ominously titled “A Nation at Risk” report, a panel of experts agreed that American education still is deficient but disagreed about the nature of the problem.
The consensus at this week’s American Enterprise Institute forum was that standards had declined in the years leading to 1983, that they had not recovered, and the country would do well to restore them. But one panelist challenged this assumption, saying the apparent deterioration was really a function of more students finishing high school and going on to college.
Terrence Bell, President Reagan’s first Secretary of Education, charged the National Commission on Excellence in Education with evaluating the state of America’s high schools. In April 1983, the commission issued a sweeping indictment, citing rising mediocrity and the need for extensive reform.
On Tuesday four experts — Michael Cohen, Lynne V. Cheney, Chester Finn and Marc Tucker — addressed the question of how much has changed in the two decades since the report was issued.
Cohen is president of Achieve, which was founded by governors and corporate executives after the 1996 education summit to help states pursue standards-based education. He was an assistant secretary of Education in the Clinton administration.
Cohen said the report was a powerful document that got a number of things right. For example, it called for higher standards and a more focused and rigorous core curriculum for all students, standardized national (“not federal”) achievement tests, and incentives for new teachers.
States significantly increased funding, and the federal government has become a “senior partner” in high school education.
Despite all this, “We’re still a nation at risk,” Cohen said. The gains hoped for 20 years ago have largely failed to materialize. Why?
First was the assumption that the schools were filled with faculty and students who would make significant progress when freed from the shackles of bad regulation. The difficulty in improving this “capacity” was underestimated.
Reform also was hindered by fragmented state and local governing structures. For example, high school curricula were not geared either to college entrance or workplace requirements.
The federal “No Child Left Behind Act,” which President Bush signed in January 2002, requires states to test students frequently and imposes a 12-year timetable by which every state and every school must bring each student up to proficiency.
Cohen said most of the reform efforts that have been underway during the past 20 years have been at the elementary, not the high school, level.
Cheney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on education policy and standards. She was chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993.
Cheney said that although “A Nation at Risk” resulted in hundreds of reports and education summits, as well as the expenditure of billions of dollars, “there has been very little to show as a result.”
Reading scores are essentially the same, and in math American 12th graders rank 19th out of 21 nations. Only 11 percent of 12 graders achieved a proficient level in a National Association for Primary Education history exam.
Cheney offered the theory that many of the “reforms” engendered by “A Nation at Risk” haven’t been reforms at all. In fact, the “reform” movement has been co-opted to strengthen the status quo.
She made her point with an example. In 1999 it was reported that the Educational Testing Service was revising its “praxis” examinations for new teachers, which test content mastery, “to reflect the standards for teachers written by subject matter associations.” But those associations defined education as a student-directed enterprise. Teachers in this model act as facilitators or guides rather than imparting knowledge.
The standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of English, Cheney said, were vague and free of content. Reading is thought of as “the construction of meaning” rather than decoding.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, she said, places great importance on the idea that students should “create knowledge” for themselves and rely on calculators starting in the primary grades.
The National Council for the Social Studies, Cheney said, “also conceives teachers as facilitators who — rather than teaching subject matter that they command — arrange for students to have ‘experiences’ through which they can learn.” The council’s 178-page set of standards is silent about specific people, events and places students should learn about.
Cheney said that for the Social Studies council: “The best projects for satisfying these abstract aims … are not ones that involve contemplation of the past but those that encourage political activism in the present, such as 8th graders lobbying to change the local school board’s budget priority or high school students examining ‘their complicity as consumers in the exploitation of workers and resources.'”
These are three of the groups that revise the praxis exam.
The exam, she said, asks those tested to identify “risks” for young children associated with a “teacher-centered” approach to education. One answer key states: “Research suggests that an overemphasis on academic skills may undermine the development of children’s disposition to use the skills they have acquired.”
In 2003, “all hope for substantive change is dead,” Cheney said.
She cited the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, made up of 11 leading educational scholars assembled by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. The task force noted that one reason why “A Nation at Risk” produced so little improvement is that the authors of the 1983 report underestimated the resistance to change from “the organized adult interests” in the public education system.
Cheney said they also underestimated the ability of those interests to co-opt reform and divert the energies of parents and others interested in changing the schools.
“Real reform will not take place through old organization,” she said. “New structures are required.” Particularly promising is the American Board for the Certification for Teacher Excellence, which will offer tests that measure knowledge of subject matter and teaching methods. “Individuals who wish to be certified through these tests will not be required to complete a particular set of education courses,” Cheney said. “Pennsylvania has adopted the program as a route to full certification, and I hope many other states will follow.”
Also sensible, Cheney said, are valid assessments of students’ academic achievement.
Chester Finn is a noted scholar of education, author, and chairman of the Koret Task Force.
“Twenty years after ‘A Nation at Risk,’ most of the trend lines are flat,” Finn said.
Commission members diagnosed the performance problem in 1983, but “didn’t quite get the causes right” and were “na
WASHINGTON, April 5 (UPI) — It’s been 10 or 12 years since I’d seen Michael Kelly, but news of his death in Iraq Friday brought 40 years ago to the here and now.
Mike died reporting the war from the front lines as editor-at-large of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for the Washington Post. His contribution to journalism, his talent for using the pen to stir the pot of ink, speaks for itself. But if you want to know why he was out front in a HUMVEE, read on.
He and I were buddies long ago, since we were about 3 or 4 years old. We were born two days apart in 1957 to young mothers living in the not-yet-trendy Capitol Hill. Mike was born on St. Patrick’s Day — how cool is that for an Irish Catholic — and I interrupted dessert two days later.
If you craned your neck right, you could see the U.S. Capitol from the corner of Mike’s block in Northeast, and I was down in the outback at 6th and G, in Southeast. Our mothers knew each other well, were civic activists of a sort and both had talent and energy to spare. My older sister and Mike’s older sister were contemporaries, so naturally Mike and I were part of what would now be called the same posse.
And we were trouble then in our childish ways.
I remember one day in kindergarten, when Mike and I were at the top of the jungle gym, standing and jumping up and down. Mrs. McGlaughlin, an intimidating presence we thought could glare Russian missiles back whence they came during the Cuban missile crisis, disapproved.
“You two get down here this instant!!” she bellowed. And so we did — we jumped.
Mike hit the ground on her right side, I on her left. We landed on our feet and bounced. Before we hit a second time, she had us by the ears. I forget the punishment. It wasn’t the first time we’d been in trouble together and wasn’t the last. We were poster children for the efforts to get kids to wear helmets and padding.
Mike’s birthday parties were huge events. Nobody was to spend more than 25 cents on gifts (remember, this was the 1960s) so nobody would be embarrassed; Nobody was rich back then, and some were less not-rich than others. But the parties were great.
One year, Mike’s mom made a train cake. She decorated a bunch of loaf cakes to look like an engine, cars and a caboose. Another year it was a battleship, which we ate after a tour of a destroyer at the Washington Navy Yard.
That day started warm and we went to school in short sleeves. By 3 p.m. a wet snow was falling. A bunch of us piled into my mother’s station wagon for the trip to the Navy Yard, but got in a fender bender (Washington drivers and snow) near the front gate. We sloshed our way through the Navy Yard to the destroyer, cold, and wet. But the party afterward was great.
Another time Mrs. Kelly — the Marguerite Kelly who writes the Family Almanac columns and books — was driving the school carpool that day. She was rather harried, as any young mother with a Rambler full of kids would be (Minivan? What’s a minivan? What’s soccer?). She had an egg that she meant to eat for breakfast on the way to school. She cracked it on the steering wheel. But it wasn’t hard-boiled. Mike’s father Tom is a newspaperman and a raconteur of Irish proportions. He had names for the entire posse. I was Willem Crabapple.
As we grew older, Mike and I would take Washington transit buses to and from school. Sometimes we’d stop off at the Capitol. There are tunnels all over the place and we would explore, ride back and forth on the little tram subways, and all kinds of things not allowed today. One time, on the Senate side, we were doing our best to run up the down escalator and got a scolding. It was a young Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who sent us on our way.
We traveled diverging yet parallel paths. In the late 1960s, my family joined the exodus to the Washington suburbs and I lost touch with many of my city friends. I’d run into Mike every now and again and we both had kept up our troublemaking ways. I was called in as a ringer for a Catholic school soccer team set to play a team from South Jersey. The other team showed up in big black cars along with large men in double-breasted suits. A game tie suited us just fine, thank you very much.
The next time I saw him was at the Tune Inn, a ragged saloon on Capitol Hill. We were both Jimmy Olsens at the bottom rung of the news-hound ladder. Mike was there, chilled malt beverage in hand with a brace of stewardesses (they weren’t called flight attendants yet). Later Mike would show up at an annual White House Correspondent’s dinner, the one during the Iran-Contra feeding frenzy with a tall blonde on his arm: Fawn Hall, Oliver North’s secretary, the one who hid documents in her underwear to sneak them out. Another coup.
I stayed mostly local in my reporting, at several small papers, but did break an occasional national story. Mike was breaking stories all the time. Through it all we’ve both been bullheaded, leaping-from-jungle-gym guys, running in different playgrounds. And running with scissors.
So that’s the Michael Kelly I know. Nothing he ever did surprised me. We’re both in his mother’s books on children. He’s in my thoughts.
”’Will Scheltema is a free-lance reporter based in Washington.”’
Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
Five HealthSouth Corp. executives pleaded guilty Thursday to accounting fraud charges in federal court, bringing the total to eight executives charged in an investigation examining improperly inflated profits at the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain.
Separately on Thursday, HealthSouth said it would eliminate 165 employees at its corporate headquarters. The company employs some 3,500 people in Birmingham, Ala., including 830 at its headquarters.
The job cuts were the first since federal regulators charged HealthSouth and Scrushy on March 19 with civil accounting fraud for allegedly overstating earnings by $1.4 billion since 1999. The company’s assets also were overstated by at least $800 million by the third quarter of last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
HealthSouth declined to say how much money the job cuts would save the company.
“As the company gets back to the basic business of healthcare, it continues to assess resources and expenditures that do not directly impact patient care,” it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Alice H. Martin said Ken Livesay, 42, who is HealthSouth’s chief information officer, was charged with conspiring with senior officers to artificially inflate the company’s earnings and the value of its assets.
Charges were also filed against vice presidents Angela C. Ayers, 33, and Cathy C. Edwards, 39, as well as group vice president Rebecca Kay Morgan, 35, and assistant vice president Virginia B. Valentine, 33.
The executives pleaded guilty to fraud and other charges in Birmingham federal court and will agree to cooperate with the government, Martin said.
“These accounting executives carried out the orders of superiors in the accounting department at HealthSouth,” she said. “Today they face the consequences of these illegal actions.”
HealthSouth spokesman Andy Brimmer told United Press International when employees enter their guilty pleas they are terminated.
Former chief financial officers Weston Smith and William Owens, and former assistant controller Emery Harris recently pleaded guilty to similar charges.
Scrushy, who was fired Monday as chairman and chief executive officer, has not been charged with any crime. But Martin said indictments would likely go beyond the accounting department.
All five executives were charged with overbooking reserve accounts, which could later be bled out into revenue; creating fictitious entries in the fixed assets system, and overstating intangible assets, or goodwill.
Martin said Ayers, Edwards, Morgan and Valentine were each charged with participating in the conspiracy, and with making false reports on the company’s financial condition. The charges filed Thursday also allege that a conspiracy existed from 1994 until this year.
On Wednesday, Standard & Poor’s cut its long-term debt ratings on HealthSouth to default, citing the company’s failure to pay off $345 million of the convertible bonds due on Tuesday.
S&P cut HealthSouth’s corporate credit and senior unsecured ratings to default from “CCC-minus” and its subordinated debt rating to default from “CC.”
The company said on Thursday National City Bank informed holders of two series of senior notes that HealthSouth failed to make a $21.2 million interest payment due April 1.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, failure to make the payment within a 30-day grace period on the 7-3/8 percent senior notes due 2006 and our 8-3/8 percent senior note due 2011 will lead to an event of default.
HealthSouth had also failed to repay about $350 million of convertible bonds that were due April 1 after the company’s $1.25 billion credit line was frozen.
The company was founded in 1984, and went public as a result of an initial public offering in 1986. The company’s common stock was previously listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “HRC.”
Shares of HealthSouth gained 1 cent, or 9.09 percent, to close Thursday at 12 cents per share on moderate volume of 177,937 shares in over-the-counter trading.
HealthSouth is the nation’s largest provider of outpatient surgery, diagnostic and rehabilitative service. The company operated approximately 1,700 locations in 50 states, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
Five HealthSouth Corp. executives pleaded guilty Thursday to accounting fraud charges in federal court, bringing the total to eight executives charged in an investigation examining improperly inflated profits at the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain.
Separately on Thursday, HealthSouth said it would eliminate 165 employees at its corporate headquarters. The company employs some 3,500 people in Birmingham, Ala., including 830 at its headquarters.
The job cuts were the first since federal regulators charged HealthSouth and Scrushy on March 19 with civil accounting fraud for allegedly overstating earnings by $1.4 billion since 1999. The company’s assets also were overstated by at least $800 million by the third quarter of last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
HealthSouth declined to say how much money the job cuts would save the company.
“As the company gets back to the basic business of healthcare, it continues to assess resources and expenditures that do not directly impact patient care,” it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Alice H. Martin said Ken Livesay, 42, who is HealthSouth’s chief information officer, was charged with conspiring with senior officers to artificially inflate the company’s earnings and the value of its assets.
Charges were also filed against vice presidents Angela C. Ayers, 33, and Cathy C. Edwards, 39, as well as group vice president Rebecca Kay Morgan, 35, and assistant vice president Virginia B. Valentine, 33.
The executives pleaded guilty to fraud and other charges in Birmingham federal court and will agree to cooperate with the government, Martin said.
“These accounting executives carried out the orders of superiors in the accounting department at HealthSouth,” she said. “Today they face the consequences of these illegal actions.”
HealthSouth spokesman Andy Brimmer told United Press International when employees enter their guilty pleas they are terminated.
Former chief financial officers Weston Smith and William Owens, and former assistant controller Emery Harris recently pleaded guilty to similar charges.
Scrushy, who was fired Monday as chairman and chief executive officer, has not been charged with any crime. But Martin said indictments would likely go beyond the accounting department.
All five executives were charged with overbooking reserve accounts, which could later be bled out into revenue; creating fictitious entries in the fixed assets system, and overstating intangible assets, or goodwill.
Martin said Ayers, Edwards, Morgan and Valentine were each charged with participating in the conspiracy, and with making false reports on the company’s financial condition. The charges filed Thursday also allege that a conspiracy existed from 1994 until this year.
On Wednesday, Standard & Poor’s cut its long-term debt ratings on HealthSouth to default, citing the company’s failure to pay off $345 million of the convertible bonds due on Tuesday.
S&P cut HealthSouth’s corporate credit and senior unsecured ratings to default from “CCC-minus” and its subordinated debt rating to default from “CC.”
The company said on Thursday National City Bank informed holders of two series of senior notes that HealthSouth failed to make a $21.2 million interest payment due April 1.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, failure to make the payment within a 30-day grace period on the 7-3/8 percent senior notes due 2006 and our 8-3/8 percent senior note due 2011 will lead to an event of default.
HealthSouth had also failed to repay about $350 million of convertible bonds that were due April 1 after the company’s $1.25 billion credit line was frozen.
The company was founded in 1984, and went public as a result of an initial public offering in 1986. The company’s common stock was previously listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “HRC.”
Shares of HealthSouth gained 1 cent, or 9.09 percent, to close Thursday at 12 cents per share on moderate volume of 177,937 shares in over-the-counter trading.
HealthSouth is the nation’s largest provider of outpatient surgery, diagnostic and rehabilitative service. The company operated approximately 1,700 locations in 50 states, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
“Dick Rowland Image”
”Shoots (News, Views and Quotes)”
– Union Membership Trends in States Vary
Last week’s Department of Labor report showed union membership reduced
to its lowest recorded level — 13.2 percent of the American salaried
work force. Numbers like that beg some sort of response from organized
labor, but the noises that came out of the AFL-CIO executive council
meeting can’t be too encouraging to union activists.
The Associated Press reported that “labor leaders’ discussions and plans
are focusing on 2004 this week earlier than ever before.” The council
agreed to spend at least $20 million to unseat President Bush. That’s
their business, but union membership declined during the eight years of
the Clinton administration, and at the rate they’re going, there may not
be enough members left in 2004 to cough up $20 million.
The overall numbers are depressing, but an examination of the
state-by-state figures show that some places are doing much, much worse
than others, lowering the national average as a result. In fact, in 14
states union membership outperformed the growth (or decline) of the
total labor force in the state. For example, in Tennessee the work force
grew by 2.2 percent, but the number of union members grew by 20 percent.
The other states where unions had a relatively good 2002 were Alaska,
California, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland,
Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia.
On the other hand, 11 states and DC had percentage losses in union
membership in double digits — some of them while the state’s labor force
grew. They were Delaware (-10.9%), DC (-14.3%), Florida (-10.6%),
Georgia (-15.8%), Iowa (-11.4%), Kansas (-10.8%), Kentucky (-13.2%), New
Mexico (-15.8%), North Carolina (-14.0%), Vermont (-12.9%), West
Virginia (-12.4%), and Wyoming (-15.0%).
Above article is quoted from the Education Intelligence Agency
Communique March 3, 2003
– Prescription Drug Price Fixing
By Edward G. Rogoff, Associate Professor of Management, Baruch College,
Cuny and Hany S. Guirguis, Assistant Professor of Economics, Manhattan
College
Price-fixing is a crime — unless the government establishes it as law,
supervises it, helps maintain its secrecy, punished companies that
undercut prices and then becomes the biggest customer. This is precisely
the system that exists for drug price regulation. The government calls
it a drug price reduction program, yet it is a major culprit in causing
price increases.
Above is quoted from Forbes 12/9/02
– Some Publications and Research Projects
*”Lesson for States — Economic Freedom Means Prosperity” is a study by
the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the Fraser Institute
(Canada). Hawaii ranked 35th with our average output per capita $1331
less than the average state (New Jersey) see study at
https://www.ncpa.org
*Goldwater Institute released Arizona Issue Analysis 174 by Jordan R.
Rose, Land Use and Zoning Attorney on August 16, 2002. The title tells
us why we in Hawaii should be interested “Eminent Domain Abuse in
Arizona: The Growing Threat to Private Property.” See study at
www.goldwaterinstitute.org
”Roots (Food for Thought)”
– Don’t Abandon One-way Streets!
In Cambridge, Chattanooga, and other cities, traffic engineers have
become outspoken opponents of one-way to two-way conversions By Randal
O’Toole
Published: The Heartland Institute 02/01/2003
The latest fad among urban planners is to convert one-way streets to
two-way streets. The goal, they say, is to slow down traffic and make
streets more pedestrian-friendly.
One-way to two-way conversions are being planned or implemented in
Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Louisville, Palo
Alto, Sacramento, San Jose, Seattle, St. Petersburg, and Tampa, among
other cities. These proposals have become a major source of controversy
in at least some of these cities, especially Austin, Cincinnati, and
Chattanooga.
By almost any measurable criteria–safety, pollution, congestion, and
effects on most local businesses–one-way streets are superior to
two-way streets. The idea that two-way streets are superior because they
are more pedestrian-friendly is just a planner’s fantasy that disguises
the real intent: to create an auto-hostile environment.
Why One-Way Streets?
Most one-way streets in this country were first created between the
1930s and 1950s from two-way streets. Those conversions took place in
areas built before the automobile became the prevalent form of
transportation. Such areas tend to have narrower streets and smaller
blocks than post-auto cities. One-way streets were thus an attempt to
accommodate auto traffic in areas not built for the auto. The wider
streets and longer blocks typical of post-auto areas often allow
improved traffic flows without one-way streets.
Before the 1990s, transportation policy was firmly in the hands of
traffic engineers, whose primary goal was safety, with a secondary goal
of the movement of people and goods. Cities that converted two-way
streets to one-way streets noted a significant decline in accidents.
One-way streets have the obvious advantage that pedestrians and drivers
need look only one way when watching for traffic. How many times have
you looked both ways when crossing a two-way street, only to be nearly
hit by a car coming from the first direction you looked?
One-way streets also permitted higher average speeds because signals on
a one-way grid could be synchronized to allow drivers in all directions
to proceed indefinitely at a fixed rate of speed. A semblance of
synchronization can be approached on a two-way grid only if signals are
more than a half-mile apart, and even then it is less than perfect.
Traffic on two-way streets, for example, is often delayed by special
left-turn signals, which are not needed on one-way grids.
Faster speeds on signal-synchronized one-way streets increased road
capacities without laying more pavement. Since the increase was in the
average rate of speed, not the top speed, increased speeds posed no loss
in safety. One-way streets not only have greater capacity than two-way
streets, they save the space two-way streets require for left-turn
lanes.
In the 1970s a new goal–reduced air pollution–led to more conversions
of two-way streets to one-way. The smooth flow of traffic allowed by
signal synchronization meant less auto emissions. Since cars pollute
more at slower speeds and in stop-and-go traffic, one-way streets can
generate significantly less pollution than two-way streets.
Proposals to Convert Back
Today, transportation policy is in the hands of urban planners who claim
their goal is to make cities more livable by designing them for people,
not cars. That people in most American cities do 85 to 95 percent of
their travel by car does not deter planners from making this artificial
dichotomy.
“A pedestrian-oriented hierarchy of transportation promotes density,
safety, economic viability, and sustainability,” say Austin’s Downtown
Design Guidelines. In transportation planning, “sustainable” has become
a code word for “anything but automobiles.” Beyond this, Austin does not
say why density is an appropriate goal, nor have planners shown how a
pedestrian orientation is more economically viable than an auto
orientation.
Austin goes on to say, “The safety and comfort of pedestrians is of
greater concern than the convenience of a driver.” This statement
assumes pedestrian safety and comfort is incompatible with the
convenience of drivers. In fact, the two need not be incompatible.
Planners only sometimes admit their real goal is to discourage driving
by creating auto-hostile environments. Since every single car on the
road has at least one person in it who is trying to get somewhere, being
anti-auto is hardly a people-friendly attitude. More important, in their
single-minded opposition to the auto, planners have forgotten about
safety, environmental, and social concerns.
Two Kinds of One-Way Streets
The controversy over converting streets back to two-way involves two
different kinds of one-way streets. First is the downtown grid, which
typically has traffic signals at every intersection set for speeds of 15
to 20 miles per hour. Second is the one-way couplet–two parallel
streets that feed traffic in opposite directions in downtowns or other
busy areas. These typically have traffic signals only at major
intersections which, if they are synchronized, are typically set for
speeds of 25 to 40 miles per hour.
Conversion of part of a downtown grid to two-way means a significant
loss of both safety and traffic flow. Such conversions produce no
positive results. They are likely to contribute to downtown decay as
they reduce the capacity of streets to carry traffic into and through
downtowns.
Converting one-way couplets to two-way could reduce flow capacities by
nearly half. “You need seven lanes of a two-way arterial to achieve the
same capacity as four lanes of a one-way couplet,” says transportation
planning expert Michael Cunneen. However, planners usually want to
reduce traffic flows by even more than this amount. Their proposals
often call for:
*reducing the number of lanes of auto traffic;
*narrowing lane widths;
*removing right- and/or left-turn lanes;
*adding median strips or other barriers to streets: and
*other traffic-calming (i.e., congestion-building) actions.
In Chattanooga, for example, McCallie and ML King avenues form a one-way
couplet of four broad lanes in each direction. The city plans to convert
both to two-way. ML King would have two lanes in each direction, but
McCallie would be reduced to one lane in each direction plus an
intermittent left-turn lane. The two lost lanes would be turned into
on-street parking. The result would be a net loss of two lanes, and the
remaining lanes would be slower (meaning less capacity) than the current
lanes. Planners say these steps will make streets more
pedestrian-friendly and that the resulting reduction in speeds will make
up for the reduced safety of two-way streets. Their real goal is to
reduce roadway capacities.
Planners in Chattanooga and certain other cities, such as St.
Petersburg, argue the decline of downtown areas since streets were
converted to one-way has reduced the need for roadway capacity, so the
reduction in capacity is not a problem. However, limited capacity would
inhibit the downtown revitalization planners also say is their goal.
Above is quoted from Heartland Institute, Environment & Climate News
February 2003 https://www.heartland.org
”Evergreen (Today’s Quote)”
“When a private individual meditates an undertaking, however connected
it may be with the welfare of society, he never thinks of soliciting the
co-operation of the government; but he publishes his plan, offers to
execute it, courts the assistance of other individuals, and struggles
manfully against all obstacles. Undoubtedly he is often less successful
than the state might have been in his position; but in the end, the sum
of these private undertakings far exceeds all that the government could
have done.” — Alexis de Todqueville, Democracy in America [1835]
”’Edited by Richard O. Rowland, president of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. He can be reached at (808) 487-4959 or by email at:”’ mailto:grassroot@hawaii.rr.com ”’For more information, see its Web site at:”’ https://www.grassrootinstitute.org/
“Dick Rowland Image”
”Shoots (News, Views and Quotes)”
– Union Membership Trends in States Vary
Last week’s Department of Labor report showed union membership reduced
to its lowest recorded level — 13.2 percent of the American salaried
work force. Numbers like that beg some sort of response from organized
labor, but the noises that came out of the AFL-CIO executive council
meeting can’t be too encouraging to union activists.
The Associated Press reported that “labor leaders’ discussions and plans
are focusing on 2004 this week earlier than ever before.” The council
agreed to spend at least $20 million to unseat President Bush. That’s
their business, but union membership declined during the eight years of
the Clinton administration, and at the rate they’re going, there may not
be enough members left in 2004 to cough up $20 million.
The overall numbers are depressing, but an examination of the
state-by-state figures show that some places are doing much, much worse
than others, lowering the national average as a result. In fact, in 14
states union membership outperformed the growth (or decline) of the
total labor force in the state. For example, in Tennessee the work force
grew by 2.2 percent, but the number of union members grew by 20 percent.
The other states where unions had a relatively good 2002 were Alaska,
California, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland,
Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia.
On the other hand, 11 states and DC had percentage losses in union
membership in double digits — some of them while the state’s labor force
grew. They were Delaware (-10.9%), DC (-14.3%), Florida (-10.6%),
Georgia (-15.8%), Iowa (-11.4%), Kansas (-10.8%), Kentucky (-13.2%), New
Mexico (-15.8%), North Carolina (-14.0%), Vermont (-12.9%), West
Virginia (-12.4%), and Wyoming (-15.0%).
Above article is quoted from the Education Intelligence Agency
Communique March 3, 2003
– Prescription Drug Price Fixing
By Edward G. Rogoff, Associate Professor of Management, Baruch College,
Cuny and Hany S. Guirguis, Assistant Professor of Economics, Manhattan
College
Price-fixing is a crime — unless the government establishes it as law,
supervises it, helps maintain its secrecy, punished companies that
undercut prices and then becomes the biggest customer. This is precisely
the system that exists for drug price regulation. The government calls
it a drug price reduction program, yet it is a major culprit in causing
price increases.
Above is quoted from Forbes 12/9/02
– Some Publications and Research Projects
*”Lesson for States — Economic Freedom Means Prosperity” is a study by
the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the Fraser Institute
(Canada). Hawaii ranked 35th with our average output per capita $1331
less than the average state (New Jersey) see study at
https://www.ncpa.org
*Goldwater Institute released Arizona Issue Analysis 174 by Jordan R.
Rose, Land Use and Zoning Attorney on August 16, 2002. The title tells
us why we in Hawaii should be interested “Eminent Domain Abuse in
Arizona: The Growing Threat to Private Property.” See study at
www.goldwaterinstitute.org
”Roots (Food for Thought)”
– Don’t Abandon One-way Streets!
In Cambridge, Chattanooga, and other cities, traffic engineers have
become outspoken opponents of one-way to two-way conversions By Randal
O’Toole
Published: The Heartland Institute 02/01/2003
The latest fad among urban planners is to convert one-way streets to
two-way streets. The goal, they say, is to slow down traffic and make
streets more pedestrian-friendly.
One-way to two-way conversions are being planned or implemented in
Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Louisville, Palo
Alto, Sacramento, San Jose, Seattle, St. Petersburg, and Tampa, among
other cities. These proposals have become a major source of controversy
in at least some of these cities, especially Austin, Cincinnati, and
Chattanooga.
By almost any measurable criteria–safety, pollution, congestion, and
effects on most local businesses–one-way streets are superior to
two-way streets. The idea that two-way streets are superior because they
are more pedestrian-friendly is just a planner’s fantasy that disguises
the real intent: to create an auto-hostile environment.
Why One-Way Streets?
Most one-way streets in this country were first created between the
1930s and 1950s from two-way streets. Those conversions took place in
areas built before the automobile became the prevalent form of
transportation. Such areas tend to have narrower streets and smaller
blocks than post-auto cities. One-way streets were thus an attempt to
accommodate auto traffic in areas not built for the auto. The wider
streets and longer blocks typical of post-auto areas often allow
improved traffic flows without one-way streets.
Before the 1990s, transportation policy was firmly in the hands of
traffic engineers, whose primary goal was safety, with a secondary goal
of the movement of people and goods. Cities that converted two-way
streets to one-way streets noted a significant decline in accidents.
One-way streets have the obvious advantage that pedestrians and drivers
need look only one way when watching for traffic. How many times have
you looked both ways when crossing a two-way street, only to be nearly
hit by a car coming from the first direction you looked?
One-way streets also permitted higher average speeds because signals on
a one-way grid could be synchronized to allow drivers in all directions
to proceed indefinitely at a fixed rate of speed. A semblance of
synchronization can be approached on a two-way grid only if signals are
more than a half-mile apart, and even then it is less than perfect.
Traffic on two-way streets, for example, is often delayed by special
left-turn signals, which are not needed on one-way grids.
Faster speeds on signal-synchronized one-way streets increased road
capacities without laying more pavement. Since the increase was in the
average rate of speed, not the top speed, increased speeds posed no loss
in safety. One-way streets not only have greater capacity than two-way
streets, they save the space two-way streets require for left-turn
lanes.
In the 1970s a new goal–reduced air pollution–led to more conversions
of two-way streets to one-way. The smooth flow of traffic allowed by
signal synchronization meant less auto emissions. Since cars pollute
more at slower speeds and in stop-and-go traffic, one-way streets can
generate significantly less pollution than two-way streets.
Proposals to Convert Back
Today, transportation policy is in the hands of urban planners who claim
their goal is to make cities more livable by designing them for people,
not cars. That people in most American cities do 85 to 95 percent of
their travel by car does not deter planners from making this artificial
dichotomy.
“A pedestrian-oriented hierarchy of transportation promotes density,
safety, economic viability, and sustainability,” say Austin’s Downtown
Design Guidelines. In transportation planning, “sustainable” has become
a code word for “anything but automobiles.” Beyond this, Austin does not
say why density is an appropriate goal, nor have planners shown how a
pedestrian orientation is more economically viable than an auto
orientation.
Austin goes on to say, “The safety and comfort of pedestrians is of
greater concern than the convenience of a driver.” This statement
assumes pedestrian safety and comfort is incompatible with the
convenience of drivers. In fact, the two need not be incompatible.
Planners only sometimes admit their real goal is to discourage driving
by creating auto-hostile environments. Since every single car on the
road has at least one person in it who is trying to get somewhere, being
anti-auto is hardly a people-friendly attitude. More important, in their
single-minded opposition to the auto, planners have forgotten about
safety, environmental, and social concerns.
Two Kinds of One-Way Streets
The controversy over converting streets back to two-way involves two
different kinds of one-way streets. First is the downtown grid, which
typically has traffic signals at every intersection set for speeds of 15
to 20 miles per hour. Second is the one-way couplet–two parallel
streets that feed traffic in opposite directions in downtowns or other
busy areas. These typically have traffic signals only at major
intersections which, if they are synchronized, are typically set for
speeds of 25 to 40 miles per hour.
Conversion of part of a downtown grid to two-way means a significant
loss of both safety and traffic flow. Such conversions produce no
positive results. They are likely to contribute to downtown decay as
they reduce the capacity of streets to carry traffic into and through
downtowns.
Converting one-way couplets to two-way could reduce flow capacities by
nearly half. “You need seven lanes of a two-way arterial to achieve the
same capacity as four lanes of a one-way couplet,” says transportation
planning expert Michael Cunneen. However, planners usually want to
reduce traffic flows by even more than this amount. Their proposals
often call for:
*reducing the number of lanes of auto traffic;
*narrowing lane widths;
*removing right- and/or left-turn lanes;
*adding median strips or other barriers to streets: and
*other traffic-calming (i.e., congestion-building) actions.
In Chattanooga, for example, McCallie and ML King avenues form a one-way
couplet of four broad lanes in each direction. The city plans to convert
both to two-way. ML King would have two lanes in each direction, but
McCallie would be reduced to one lane in each direction plus an
intermittent left-turn lane. The two lost lanes would be turned into
on-street parking. The result would be a net loss of two lanes, and the
remaining lanes would be slower (meaning less capacity) than the current
lanes. Planners say these steps will make streets more
pedestrian-friendly and that the resulting reduction in speeds will make
up for the reduced safety of two-way streets. Their real goal is to
reduce roadway capacities.
Planners in Chattanooga and certain other cities, such as St.
Petersburg, argue the decline of downtown areas since streets were
converted to one-way has reduced the need for roadway capacity, so the
reduction in capacity is not a problem. However, limited capacity would
inhibit the downtown revitalization planners also say is their goal.
Above is quoted from Heartland Institute, Environment & Climate News
February 2003 https://www.heartland.org
”Evergreen (Today’s Quote)”
“When a private individual meditates an undertaking, however connected
it may be with the welfare of society, he never thinks of soliciting the
co-operation of the government; but he publishes his plan, offers to
execute it, courts the assistance of other individuals, and struggles
manfully against all obstacles. Undoubtedly he is often less successful
than the state might have been in his position; but in the end, the sum
of these private undertakings far exceeds all that the government could
have done.” — Alexis de Todqueville, Democracy in America [1835]
”’Edited by Richard O. Rowland, president of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. He can be reached at (808) 487-4959 or by email at:”’ mailto:grassroot@hawaii.rr.com ”’For more information, see its Web site at:”’ https://www.grassrootinstitute.org/
“Suzanne Gelb Image”
”Classroom Defiance – Why Won’t My Child Behave?”
Dear Dr. Gelb:
My 10-year-old daughter is getting into trouble in school because she passes notes and whispers to her friends in class. So I have restricted her twice from watching her favorite TV program, but it hasn’t helped. What else can I do?
Smart Kid’s Mom
Dear Mom:
Television restriction is one form of discipline, and if that doesn’t work obviously it is not a stiff enough consequence because your daughter appears to be willing to give that up to continue the behavior.
Consequences must be in proportion to the improper behavior. That being said, some parents in your position may choose to withdraw their child’s allowance, if the child has one, for a week or two, or until the behavior changes.
Parents should keep in mind that their own behavior must be consistent also (e.g., make the bed, wash dishes) because children tend to emulate caregivers. Parents need to remember as well that they are the authorities in the house and in the family, that they must have final say, and be firm and consistent with it.
”Homework – Why Does My Kid Fib About It?”
Dear Dr. Gelb:
On several occasions my 9-year-old has come home from school and told me he had no homework. Later I find out from the teacher that there was homework. I have worked hard to teach my child good values, especially about not lying. Why would my son override my moral teachings?
Truthful
Dear Truthful:
So often when children have not learned or mastered the mechanics of how to study, then when they open their books everything becomes Greek to them. As a result, it is not uncommon for them to avoid homework, even if it means fibbing to get out of it.
Such children need support and direction. They need someone that they can ask the many, many questions that they no doubt have. They need to be able to ask, “Why — What does this mean?” If they have no one to communicate with about how to learn, then when they go to school so much of what the teacher says tends to be a bunch of words without meaning. And when they get home and try to study or to figure something out, there is no one to help them with the answers; no one to discuss it with. It is not hard to appreciate what a nightmare this must be, and why they would avoid this experience.
Parents must prioritize spending time with their children, learning and growing together. Then studying, and even homework, can be a fun activity, not a nightmare. Keeping in mind that ignorance is invariably the aspect of learning that many children fear, parents should impress upon their children that ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of. All it means is that there are things have not yet been learned. All too often lies, such as those you describe, are intended to hide ignorance.
”’Suzanne J. Gelb, Ph.D., J.D. authors this daily column, Dr. Gelb Says, which answers questions about daily living and behavior issues. Dr. Gelb is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Honolulu. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Human Services. Dr. Gelb is also a published author of a book on Overcoming Addictions and a book on Relationships.”’
”’This column is intended for entertainment use only and is not intended for the purpose of psychological diagnosis, treatment or personalized advice. For more about the column’s purpose, see”’ “An Online Intro to Dr. Gelb Says”
”’Email your questions to mailto:DrGelbSays@hawaiireporter.com More information on Dr. Gelb’s services and related resources available at”’ https://www.DrGelbSays.com
Tom had a 10 a.m. appointment with his doctor. He arrived a few
minutes early, and started looking at the stack of People, Time, and
Newsweek magazines that were on the coffee table.
Shortly thereafter he was escorted into Dr. James W. Smith’s office
for his examination.
Dr. Smith proceeded to tell Tom all about himself. Where he grew up,
where he went to college. He described his years at medical school at
NYU in New York City, and told him about how he did his internship
at UCLA Medical Center.
Then he started telling Tom about how qualified his nurses and support
staff were and about the new X-Ray machine he had just purchased
for $480,000.
After this brief introduction, Dr. Smith fired up his laptop computer,
and commenced his 25 slide PowerPoint presentation that told Tom all
about the wonderful services that the doctor and his staff provided.
It had eye-catching graphics and charts. Great patient testimonials.
And was narrated by a famous actor.
After about 75 minutes, Dr. Smith asked Tom how he felt. He said he
was having headaches. So Dr. Smith prescribed some pills, and sent him
on his way.
What’s wrong with this story? Everything!
”Doctors Ask Questions”
Doctors don’t work this way. They ask questions.
The first thing they do is ask you to fill out a medical history form.
They want to know about your ailments, illnesses and injuries. Your family’s
medical history. Are you allergic to any drugs? Have you seen other
physicians? Who? When?
A nurse gives you tests. Blood tests. Urine analysis. Maybe an X-ray. Maybe an EKG.
Then the doctor comes in, asks you lots of questions, and begins to
examine you. He listens to your heart and lungs. Taps your knees and
elbows with a rubber mallet to check your reflexes. He looks into your
eyes and ears, and up your nose with a little flashlight.
He makes you open your mouth, pushes down your tongue with a depressor,
and makes you say AH, while he looks down your throat (and you start
coughing).
Depending upon the answers to the questions and the results of the
tests, he may ask you more questions and/or run more tests to find out what’s
ailing you.
Or give you a prescription and send you on your way.
”Finding the Customer’s Pain”
Sales people are often trained to “Find The Customer’s Pain.” I for one
don’t like that phrase. For what do you do when you’re in pain? You go see a
doctor.
And if the customer was in “pain” she would call you — or one of your
competitors — and ask you to come over because she knew that she had
a problem that needed fixing.
So if the customer doesn’t “know” she’s got a problem, how do you
discover that she’s a need for your product or service?
You do it by asking questions. (Not by talking about yourself, like Dr.
Smith did.)
But finding out that a problem exists isn’t enough. You’ve got to
discover the financial impact or economic value of the problem. You’ve got to
get the customer to tell you how much it’s costing them because something
isn’t working properly.
”The Problem’s Financial Impact”
Last week I was working with a client — Shelly — whose company makes
shipping label software. She told me that one of her clients ships 1,000
packages per day. I asked her how many of them get shipped to the wrong
address. She said that only two are mis-labeled each day.
You would think that 0.2 percent is good, but what is the cost to the company
of those two mis-labeled packages.
There’s the cost of
*Pulling a new order from the warehouse and putting it in a box.
*Retyping the labels.
*Dealing with an unhappy customer who didn’t receive the merchandise.
*The cost of restocking, if the merchandise is returned.
*The cost of the merchandise if the package is lost.
In this case, it was costing Shelly’s client at least $100+ for each
mis-labeled package. $200/day. $1,000/week. $50,000/year.
By finding out the financial impact of the customer’s shipping problem,
Shelly had discovered a $50,000/year problem. (What’s the present value
of this over the next five years?) Now her $5,000 solution wasn’t so
expensive. In fact it paid for itself in just five weeks.
Spend more time asking great questions, and less time talking about
yourself and your company, and you’ll create more opportunities,
close more sales, and make more money.
”’Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey Mayer’s SucceedingInBusiness.com Newsletter.(Copyright, 2003, Jeffrey J. Mayer, SucceedingInBusiness.com.) To subscribe to Jeff’s free newsletter, visit:”’ https://www.SucceedingInBusiness.com
