The Ohio Attorney General has opened an investigation into the forcible strip searching of a Stark County woman, Hope Steffey, by a mixed gender team of County Sheriffs deputies. Video has commentary from Cuyahoga County Sheriff where he states that if this had happened in his department, the deputies would have been fired…
Recent weeks have seen a rash of new studies of marijuana hitting the mass media, generating scary headlines like “Smoking Pot Rots Your Gums,” “Cannabis Bigger Cancer Risk Than Cigarettes,” and “Pot Withdrawal Similar to Quitting Cigarettes. Most of this coverage can be boiled down to a fairly simple equation:
Mercifully, the U.S. mass media were so distracted by Super Tuesday, Heath Ledger’s autopsy and the latest Britney Spears trauma that reports of these studies didn’t get as much play as they might have. That’s good, because the research had significant gaps, and the reporting ranged from slapdash to flat wretched.
LUNG CANCER: A JOINT = 20 CIGARETTES?
The lung cancer study was the scariest. Since cigarettes are a known lung cancer risk, it seems plausible that marijuana might carry similar risks. In fact, most of the scientific evidence tends in the opposite direction — though one would never know it from reading either the study or the Reuters wire story that got the heaviest circulation.
Conducted in New Zealand, this was what is called a “case-control” study, in which researchers looked at a group of patients who had lung cancer and compared them to a group without cancer — the controls — matched for age and other demographics. All were asked about various factors that might increase their lung cancer risk, including smoking cigarettes or marijuana. After running the data on 79 cancer cases and 324 controls through myriad equations and mathematical analyses, the researchers proclaimed that one joint packed a cancer risk roughly equal to 20 cigarettes — an assertion that became Reuters’ lead. Read the rest of this entry »
This comes from a friend of mine, a reporter at the Dayton Daily News [also known as Damn Dumb News] and concerns efforts by the Dayton Newspaper Guild to negotiate a contract with the Cox Publishing Companies Dayton newspaper. The link will take you to a YouTube video of a Newspaper Guild picket line in front of the DDN’s new headquarters on So Main Street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdLb1npylA4
this link will take you direct to the Dayton Newspaper Guild’s informational website:
The Miami Valley Full Employment Council has two events we're planning for Jobs for All Week, Nov. 2 - 14, 2007. On Friday, Nov. 2 the Full Employment Council is sponsoring a "Rally for Jobs!" at noon at the Job Center 111 S. Edwin C Moses Blvd. Please mark it on your calendar and please let us know if your planning on attending.
You're also invited to a Town Hall Meeting on "Jobs and the Future of Dayton" Wed. Nov. 14, 2007 at 7 p.m. at the AFL-CIO Headquarters at 4127 E. Second St. The meeting is being co-sponsored by Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO, Miami Valley Full Employment Council and Organize! Ohio
This the start of a public dialog on the future of Dayton that focuses on jobs and social justice. Dayton is at the crossroads We want everyone's input on the goals we should set and how we achieve them.
In Dayton, Montgomery Co. area from 2000 to 2005 we lost 12,712 Jobs.
>From 2001 to 2005, Delphi reduced their work force by 2409 jobs.
GM Truck and Bus by eliminating third shift, we lost another 2666 jobs
Over the last five years:
Ohio Household Income is Down an average of $1000.00 dollars
53,000 New Families are on Food Stamps in Ohio.
171,000 Ohio Families Lost Homes in foreclosures.
580,021 More Ohioans now live in Poverty.
1.5 million People in Ohio are without Health Insurance.
For more information contact Logan Martinez.
Miami Valley Full Employment Council / National Jobs For All Coalition
937-275-7259 /americassafetynet@hotmail.com
We invented it. Edison was from us. Brush lived among us. And we seldom think much about what the energy in that little light bulb has wrought unless we take a drive into Amish country in Ohio.
We take it for granted that it will power our appliances, chill our food, keep us cool and allow us to watch the Cleveland Indians, OSU Buckeyes (when the powers that be let us — but that’s another story) or the Daily Show’s daily dose of sarcasm.
If we’re in the hospital, everything from the bed to the equipment can’t work if the power doesn’t.
Each passing generation becomes more reliant on it – especially in our computer age. Without it, life would be much different.
And the fact is that if the price of electricity goes way up, it has probably more impact than George W’s rant on taxes, as most of our monthly bottom lines would be much different and the spiral of spending constraints could make a real impact on Ohio’s economy.
Which is a long way of saying that Senate Bill 221 deserves your attention, especially the part that explains what leeway legislators want to give the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to set the rates we all pay for electricity.
SB 221, as introduced, was largely the work of Gov. Ted Strickland, who joined with business leaders, labor leaders and municipal electricity companies and in expressing concern for Ohio’s bottom line.
The seeds for SB 221 were planted in 1999 after Ohio and 17 other states rushed to the finish line like 49ers to the gold rush to deregulate their electricity services and let the open market set the prices. This was after all the height of the free market Reaganomics in all its glory: Dereg of utilities, dereg of phones, dereg of airlines and yes NAFTA – a gold rush of profits many of which have lost their luster.
(By the way, anyone notice we deregulated phone companies, sliced them and diced them from the old Baby Bells and now they are put back in large part as supergiant AT&T? Makes you wonder who made all that money through corporate mergers on the way back to a monopoly, doesn’t it. And gee, who pays for phone service – why all of us of course. Dereg is a great thing.)
Now back to electricity.
The goals of deregulation were lofty: The market would result in competition, causing prices to go down and consumers to benefit. On the floor of the Statehouse, it was discussed as if the savings in our wallets were a foregone conclusion.
The problem: No competitive market actually emerged, so the market began setting prices as high as the market would tolerate. In Maryland, where the phase-in has already ended, prices spiked up 72 percent in one year.
And quality began to suffer as power companies traded the unseen commodity of electrical energy in a fluctuating market much like gasoline deregulated into OPEC oversight in the 1970s.
Just in the years since we’ve begun to phase in deregulation, we’ve watched Enron go bust from the diversification and accounting games that accompanied a non-transparent utility, we’ve seen a major blackout that began in Northern Ohio and blacked out electricity from New York to Montreal, and of course, who can forget the revelation of a rusted cap at the top of an Ohio nuclear power plant.
So here we are, at the end of the phase-in of deregulation that was supposed to lower our costs and make utilities more efficient and the market was supposed to demand increased quality; and at the end of next year, the market will begin setting the prices in Ohio, causing fears that our prices will skyrocket, much like Maryland’s did.
Other than a handful of self-serving utilities, nobody really is arguing that there really is a competitive market but the Governor gave it a nod by allowing one to exist if someone can prove it exists, and most experts are convinced that unless Ohio does something before the end of next year, we really will end up like Maryland.
Given the general agreement that deregulation was a failure, the arguments over ending our flirtation with deregulation center largely on how much leeway the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) should have — if and when Ohio returns to a system of regulating electricity prices. And how much you and I and the other ratepayers should know about what goes into the PUCO’s pricing calculation. Transparency. We should have the right to know what fees and charges are being levied for the electric energy we are using.
In Ohio, there is a strong case to be made for the public’s right to know – not only given our recent political history, but given the experts who oversee our utilities. If you don’t believe me, you should believe the Lehman Brothers (well-regarded bean counters from Wall Street.)
Lehman does an annual ranking of state utility regulators and the PUCO in Ohio is routinely ranked about the most utility-friendly in the nation. And why would we not expect that after 16-years of cow-towing to corporate leaders who know how to play the political system in Ohio. After all, we are a company town as a state. We host industry giants First Energy and AEP that are behemoths of the industry and have much greater territory than just the Buckeye State.
It’s clear from things the Commission has done – and not done – that average consumers are left to battle for their pocketbooks. And it’s clear from utilities’ annual reports that electricity stockholders are doing quite nicely.
The consumer/utility balance is so out of whack that large industrial companies like Ford, and GM, and AK Steel, and Worthington Industries have banded together to gang up on the PUCO and demand that if it’s given the power to set utility rates, those of us who pay the rates should be allowed to peek in the utilities’ books. That’s the only way we’ll know if the prices the commission is setting (and the prices we’re paying) are fair, just and reasonable.
Back in pre-deregulation days, we all got to peek in the books – it was considered part of the progressive agenda of Teddy Roosevelt’s Republicans that the monopoly of large utility companies could only be balanced by the transparency of an open corporate set of books.
Back before they fixed electricity to help our pocket books, when a utility company wanted to raise rates, they had to go before the PUCO to justify the higher costs. All parties viewed this arrangement as part of the compact between the utility companies and the customers:
The state guaranteed each utility a base of customers, the regulators guaranteed the utilities a profit, the utilities guaranteed the state that it would provide electricity to those customers for a fair, just and reasonable price. To prove the prices were fair, the PUCO demanded a peek into the utilities’ books.
All that changed in deregulation – in the name of protecting your wallet – irony of ironies.
David Boehm, a lawyer who is working for some of Ohio’s largest employers, testified in favor or SB 221 and explained why open books are necessary – and how the process should work:
“Witnesses would be heard and subject to cross-examination and all interested parties would be represented.
Utilities could put on whatever other evidence they think relevant including evidence of market rates. If, thereafter, negotiations are entered into with the utilities, the basic data underlying those negotiations is open and transparent and known to everyone.
We do not see how anyone in an open society could oppose such a provision. While flexibility is an obvious goal of S.B. 221, it must not be at the expense of due process or transparency.
A federal appeals court judge, Damon Keith said in 2002 ‘Democracies’ die behind closed doors. The Framers of the First Amendment did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.”
Although Mr. Boehm might not know how anyone in an open society could oppose it, Ohio’s utilities found a way to oppose it.
With the ever increasing throng of lobbyists, consultants and employees, the utilities offered a string of audacious amendments. The bottom line: The want to continue to have a guaranteed set of customers and a guaranteed profit – but they want authority to veto any PUCO decisions they don’t like.
And they don’t want us to peek in their books.
That’s right. Let’s get this straight, they want guaranteed customers, they want guaranteed profits and want veto authority over a board appointed to protect the public’s interest.
See a problem here? Why have a PUCO?
And that’s what makes this issue so fascinating. For a company whose mission is to illuminate our lives, they sure seem to be angling for some reason to protect their profits, while shielding their costs.
And in Ohio, when you see the shadowy deal making in the Statehouse start to move away from transparency into darkness, you better grab your wallet and run.
So, here’s hoping our legislature finds the light switch or else we all need to padlock our wallets. After all the last time they tried to save us money – it created this mess to begin with.
Updating details about recently announced efforts by the City of Dayton to address prostitution issues , Tom Biedenhorn, of the Public Affairs office, said that the City Law Department is currently reviewing proposed language for an ordinance creating restricted activity, or, “No Ho’ Zones”, in different parts of the city. The ordinance, part of a wider effort at addressing the prostitution issue, is expected to come before the City Commission by the end of October or early November. As currently envisioned, the ordinance would provide a way for police to arrest alleged prostitutes for loitering after a 1st warning to leave the targeted area. Loitering laws have been challenged as unconstitutional infringement on the rights of people to”gather peaceably” and, according to Mr Biednhorn, addressing this question is part of the Law Departments charge in crafting the wording of the ordinance.
Community feedback has been negative from some quarters, with neighborhood associations [not specified] objecting to identifying the target areas with signs , fearful that this would present a negative view of the area to people unfamiliar with the problem. In this view police already know the areas and the signs are unnecessary provocations. Others have raised objections to the general concept, arguing that it could have negative effects on housing valuations and possibly create insurance related issues.
Concurrent with ordinance drafting are plans involving the Sunrise Center to develop “John Schools” where offenders convicted of solicitation would be required to attend programs aimed at deterrence conditioning. Also on the table, but not as visible, are plans to work with the courts and social service agencies to develop direct assistance programs for women seeking avenues out of the “life”. Dayton Municipal court currently has a limited diversion program operated in cooperation with the Center for Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services [CADAS] but, with limited funding of only $30,000 per year, the number of women directly assisted is quite small, ten having completed the program, five of whom have re-offended with Soliciting offenses. The Municipal Court Probation department is seeking additional funding for the program.
In 2006 Dayton-wide arrests for prostitution related crime reached 1, 496. Of this number 1,062 were between the ages of 21 & 40 . The arrests cover public indecency , soliciting for prostitution, promoting prostitution etc. Statistically, prostitution related crime in Dayton rose 23% from 2005 to 2006. 68% of arrestees were repeat offenders, 68% have been raped, 82% physically assaulted and, a disheartening 85-90% showing evidence of crack cocaine use/addiction.
“We are not going to completely solve this millennium old problem with any of these programs”, Biedenhorn said, “it is a bit of a whack-a-mole issue, but, hopefully we can reduce the number of moles being whacked…”
It’s been almost two months since joining the internet world of “blogging”. I did not start this discourse with much of a plan in mind, just some vague ideas about runnin’ my mouth about things I’m interested and, in the process, do both some enlightening and enraging, some informing, some dissembling and posting of some provocative opinions.
Inspired [?] one day by the umpteenth prostitute struttin’ past my storefront, eyes flickering from car to car, trying to catch a look-an acknowledgment for an assignation, I grabbed the keyboard and started peckin’ . You can call the Man, but the Man has other priorities in a city where crimes far more “serious” than some hooker trying to make a 20 spot demand their response. Not that there isn’t enforcement of laws, it is just that the laws don’t really work…and talking about that got me started on this blog, a place to holler about hookers…[!}. You can read more about that subject in the archives.
I'm cribbin, compiling and copying, plus adding my own commentary. I don't have very many answers. The cliche is that the more you know the more you know how really very little you DO know { a tip of the hat the GWBush on that one...]. So you come up with more questions & I like sharing what I think are answers, and or, discussion points., that may or may not develop into answers. Some of you have already joined the conversation, there is plenty of room for other voices. My focus is The War in Iraq/Afghanistan, the First Amendment, Educational issues, Blue Dog Democrats, city living and it’s too early to tell what else . The blog title says it all.
Your thoughts, comments, ideas, are most welcome. Please share them.
A listing of other Dayton area blogs can be found at:
A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM Rev. Cool forwarded to you…….
SEEFARI will be performing live with his band this Saturday, September 29 @ The Trolley Stop on E 5th St in Dayton’s Oregon District www.trolleystopdayton.com
SEEFARI will be performing songs from his new CD “Rasta Italist” as well as old favorites and reggae classics.
Last week a small group of BusinessPeople and a Santa Clara Neighborhood Association member met with County Commissioner Dan Foley and two County officials {Sunrise Center & Criminal Justice Council} concerning the prostitution issue on Main St and Dayton in general. The discussion ranged from a general overview to what specifically can be done.
The Sunrise Center has received a Weed & Seed grant to be used to explore options that include research and development of rehabilitation and deterrence programs which could include “john schools”. According to a pamphlet on Prostitution & community solutions I recently received from the Dept of Justice recidivism among graduates of the john school’s is very low. Different cities John School programs include lectures on STD’s confrontations with ex prostitutes etc. Some include making the johns perform community service in the areas where they were picked up, picking up trash and other unsavory tasks. A possible approach.
The essence of it being that sometimes it is cheaper to provide concrete solutions [housing, child care] than to continue to arrest the same people over and over again. It was posited that if there were 500 prostitutes in Dayton [a number pulled out of the air that may not be far off...] what if 50 of them accounted for 50% of the arrests? Perhaps targeting those women would do more to alleviate the problem. This assumes that many of the 450 are part timers or ones who don’t get caught.
Arrests peaked in 1999 and have dropped off considerably since then. The last couple of years # have been “flat” [thanks to DDN tip on this]. Possible reasons vary, with the reduction in the # of cops assigned to the Vice squad considered a major factor. Economic issues also play a role, a downturn in the overall economy tends to e reflected in a rise in women resorting to prostitution as a “money solution”. The consensus of the discussion was that a Nevada type “legalization” solution was not in the cards and that aiming at development of programs to help women get out of the “life” offered the most concrete “solution”.
It will be interesting to see if County & City officials can get on the same page with this. More information will be forthcoming as I get it.
As I promised a while back a new blog has been created detailing the names and addresses of persons convicted in Dayton Ohio of prostitution related offenses. You can view the list of names at http://prostitutionconvictionsdaytonohio.wordpress.com.
Tomorrow I will report on a meeting that a group of North Main Street business people are having with County Commissioner Dan Foley. One of the items on the agenda concerns rehab/intervention program possibilities that might be implemented by the County to address the prostitution issue.
We invented it. Edison was from us. Brush lived among us. And we seldom think much about what the energy in that little light bulb has wrought unless we take a drive into Amish country in Ohio.
