Science Friday: Fast Plants
Science Friday: Speedy plants. Check it out here and below.
MyBlog
Congress Passes $10 Billion in Education Assistance
Our colleagues at Thompson Publishing Group are reporting on the passage of a $10 billion measure that President Obama will sign tonight sending $10 billion in education aid to the states. Quoting from the piece:
“Within 45 days, states can expect to receive their share of the $10 billion education aid package that cleared the House of Representatives today by a party-line vote of 247-161.
The quick allocation is mandated by the bill.
‘The President will sign this literally tonight in the Oval Office,’ said U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. ‘Moved by a huge sense of urgency, we are already drafting an application and hope to publish it sometime next week.’ “
Getting the funds was hardly painless, however, as Democrats had to concede to some cuts in Food Stamps and other popular programs to win over the votes of two Republicans and thus garner enough votes to overcome a threatened filibuster.
Science Friday: Observing Planets
Science Friday: Building a planet observatory in California. Check it out here and below.
Does Shirley Sherrod Have a Defamation Claim?
Since the Shirley Sherrod story broke this week (she is the USDA official falsely accused by a right-wing blogger of racism), I’d been wondering if she had a viable defamation claim. As my AP style book notes, “defamation means injury to reputation,” and takes the form of libel or slander.
To prove that she was defamed by the distribution of the heavily edited video, Sherrod, as a public official (albeit not a widely known one up to now), would have to meet the highest standard of proof. She would have to prove that the video publication was made with “actual malice,” which the Supreme Court defined in 1964 as “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not” (New York Times v. Sullivan). (Private individuals, my AP guide notes, have to prove a lesser standard of showing negligence to recover for libel by a news organization.)
This post, submitted by “almanac,” provides a good run-down of the legal standards involved and makes an argument that Sherrod has a decent case. It’s abundantly clear, at least at this early stage, that Sherrod is seriously considering bringing one.
For nerds like me, that would be an exciting, get-out-the-popcorn event. As a reporter, I normally come down on the side of more speech, but as a consumer of news, I find the dissemination of false information online toxic. But the arguments on both sides would no doubt be fascinating. We’ll see what happens!
Science Friday: Whale Watch
Science Friday: Oprah, for some reason, narrates this undated clip showing humpback whales in heat. It’s Oprah’s favorite thing? Check it out (here and below).
Training Sights on the American Worker
While Congress closes in on final passage of a bill extending unemployment benefits, a small debate arose in the blogosphere about the effectiveness of government-funded job training programs, prompted by yesterday’s article in the New York Times: “After Training, Still Scrambling for Employment.”
The piece discussed uneven job prospects for people who’ve received job training services—for everything from machinery repair to construction—to help them find work during this recession. The National Skills Coalition, which supports the federal workforce investment system even as it works to improve it, took issue with the article. In an e-mail, the coalition wrote:
“The underlying assumption of the article—job training that doesn’t lead to an immediate job during a recession with record unemployment is a wasted investment—has elicited strong reactions not only from our members, but [from] others in the press.”
The e-mail points to a few journalists who picked it apart, including Daniel Indiviglio, of The Atlantic, and Barbara Kiviat, of TIME, who argued “that we’re expecting the wrong thing out of such programs.” Kiviat said unemployed people who bone up on skills through federally funded job training programs—typically administered by states and delivered through local workforce investment boards contracting with nonprofits and community colleges—will be “rearing [raring?] to go” when the economy picks back up.
While I empathized with the workers, I didn’t see the article as suggesting that the U.S. get out of the business of trying to train (or retrain) out-of-work individuals. It did point out many cases in which these programs didn’t work, but a few in which they directly led to new employment.
On the other hand, the National Skills Coalition is right to note that even the best job training system in the world can hardly be expected to pick up the slack when 10, 20, 100, or more workers apply for many of the available jobs. And maybe the timing and the tone of the Times piece did more than it should have in suggesting just that.
But it’s also true that the system is not perfect. Training should be better aligned with sectors—even regions—that need workers. Federal welfare laws, which undoubtedly push people into training programs they don’t benefit from—in part to demonstrate to caseworkers that they are trying to find work—need to be scrapped and rewritten. More and better child care is needed. And better efforts need to be made to integrate industry workforce needs with both training programs and college curricula.
Still, it does seem that federal workforce legislation improves the system, however incrementally, after each five-or-so-year renewal. States are doing more to sync up industry needs with training that’s delivered. And, in recent years, the feds have tried to connect workforce investments with high-growth employment areas, such as health and energy. But these efforts, however well-intentioned, can only amount to a drop in the bucket when national unemployment hovers near 10 percent.
It would perhaps be more useful for the Times and other journalists to look at whether those moves are generating successes in and out of recessionary times. They might also write about the perversity, distortion, and waste that results from our country’s disjointed social services and human capital programs. It’s incumbent on editors to allow reporters to spend more time to learn on a deeper level what’s really going on, which will inform more effective policy responses.
It’s fine to shine the light on the big picture of job training, but there are many other stories to tell—some already written, some to be written—about the plight of today’s worker.
Science Friday: Horseshoe Crabs
Science Friday: Horseshoe crabs have got to be one of the stranger things to have survived the evolutionary process. Check out (here and below) how scientists are working to ensure they remain as freaky and as plentiful for generations to come.
Is the Gulf Oil Well Plugged?
Finally, at long last, some good news.
Arts and Intrigue
Two stories about arts and intrigue: One from The New Yorker about the seemingly impossible task of authenticating art works when millions of dollars are at stake; and the other, from WHYY’s “Fresh Air,” about former G-man Robert Wittman, who tries to track down stolen art.