Page 127 of the Oct. 20, 2003 edition of BusinessWeek. It quotes my husband Charlie. We talked to this reporter for ten minutes, and she chose a quote that makes SC look skeptical of Dean -- how frustrating. So be careful what you say to reporters, 'cause they'll print it!
Dean's smiling picture in A.J.'s bar is on the front page of the article, which is entitled "South Carolina Shakeout."
Here is the quote. It comes at the end of essentially a 2-page article ALL ABOUT SC POLITICS on page 129 of BusinessWeek:
In Charleston and at the church, he [Dean] delivered a toned-down version of that line. "South Carolina has voted Republican for 30 years," he shouted. "Tell me what you have to show for it."
Even some of Dean's ardent supporters were skeptical about how that would fly with most South Carolinians. "I don't know if they'll take too kindly to it," chortled Charlie Gaddy of Rock Hill, who with his wife drove three hours to see Dean. "But the economy is so bad that maybe people will at least listen."
True, says Emory University political scientist Merle Black, they may listen, but South Carolina voters are unlikely to flock to Dean. "If [he] wins Iowa and New Hampshire, I think South Carolina could be a place for another candidate to emerge," says Black. Naturally, almost all of Dean's rivals are spinning fantasies about who that person might be.
- article by Alexandra Starr
Do I really need to air my thoughts online? Does the world need another blog? Ah, what the hell. I can always abandon it later. I'm a quitter anyway.
Friday, October 10, 2003
I got this story from a friend who works for a Peace & Justice group in NC.
1 in 7 North Carolinians lives below the poverty line.
It's hard facts like this that make me so annoyed when people insist to me that everyone in America is equal and/or has an equal chance at succeeding in life. They say this because everyone they know, everyone they associate with, has done so. The ones who don't, they figure, must be lazy... too bad for them.
Can you imagine life on $18,500 a year -- let alone raising kids and having a car and health insurance? Would you live at that level if you had an alternative? I made about $16,000 (ten years ago) at my first full-time job (kinko's). I had a college degree, all paid for by my parents, and a good healthcare plan from kinko's, and I knew I would make a lot more at my next job. Meanwhile, some people can afford to pay $18,000 a year for their kids' private college tuition -- some even without taking out loans. It's just unbelievable, the gap between have and have not.
And the majority of us middle class people are of course in the middle, torn between aspiring to keep our money to improve our own status and save for unforeseen future disaster, or helping those who have less.
Friday, October 3, 2003 12:00AM EDT
POINT OF VIEW
_____
Looking right past the poor
By GENE R. NICHOL
CHAPEL HILL -- Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its most recent study of income and poverty. For the "second consecutive year, the poverty rate and the number living in poverty rose." Almost 35 million Americans (12.1 percent) made less last year than the extraordinarily modest federal poverty threshold of $18,500 for a family of four. About 17 percent of the nation's children are poor. The numbers are even worse for black (24 percent) and Latino (22 percent) kids.
The North Carolina story was particularly disheartening. Our median family income is now almost $5,000 below the national average. We are one of 10 states whose median income actually fell from the year before -- in our case by 4.4 percent. About one in seven Tar Heels lives below the poverty line.
The Bush administration says the recession ended in November 2001. You'd have a hard time proving it in North Carolina.
Newspapers gave the poverty report fairly prominent play. Headlines read "State's median income dips." But, as is typically the case, it was essentially a one-day story. No expressions of outrage appeared. No emergency proposals followed. The Congress stood mute. The executive branch was unmoved. No electoral campaigns took up the mantle. No state legislative initiative was launched.
Once each year we learn that the wealthiest nation in human history countenances shockingly high levels of poverty. We discover, yet again, that -- despite our vaunted rhetorical commitment to equality -- America leads the industrial world in wealth disparity and concentration. We shrug our shoulders, and we go on.
And income differentials hardly present the whole picture. Over 43 million Americans have no health care insurance. In North Carolina, 15.6 percent lack coverage. Of households earning under $25,000 a year, about a quarter are uninsured. We stand alone among the major industrial nations in failing to provide universal coverage. We spend more per capita on health care than any country in the world. But we also leave more of our fellows outside the system, in the shadows.
Economics also drives opportunity. We countenance rich and poor public schools. Not just private schools, mind you; rich and poor public schools. As if were acceptable to treat some of our children as second- or third-class citizens. Higher education magnifies the inequality -- though UNC-Chapel Hill's new "Carolina Covenant" is a hopeful step in the right direction. Only 3 percent of the students at the nation's 146 most selective universities come from the bottom economic quartile. An astonishing 74 percent come from the top quarter. Twenty years ago, children from parents in the top quarter were four times more likely to get a college degree than those at the bottom. Now it's 10 times.
The legal system also prices out a huge segment of the community. Study after study finds that about 80 percent of the legal need of the poor and near-poor goes unmet. Less than 1 percent of our total national expenditure for lawyers goes toward services for the poor. We carve "equal justice under law" on our courthouse walls. The sentiment stops there.
Even our political system rewards those who can pay in order to play. The private financing of campaigns systematically skews the outcome of our political processes toward the interests of the economically powerful. The halls of power are increasing off limits to those without significant economic resources. Across a broad array of enterprises, we have allowed the deck to become stacked against those lodged at the bottom. And we know it.
Yet, decade after decade, in cultural arena after cultural arena, in election after election, these crushing problems are barely discussed. In law, in politics, in philosophy, in the humane letters, we simply turn our gaze away. We have come to think that a regime of economic apartheid is both unavoidable and untroubling.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to give the convocation address at Chapel Hill. Given the brouhaha over Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed," there was a tad of tension in the air. I remember thinking that we would explore Enhenreich's book from a stunning array of perspectives. Is the book balanced? Does it represent good journalism, or first-rate literature? Is UNC leftist? Are we open to dissent? Do legislators have the right to ask for faculty members' political affiliations? Should remarkably underpaid campus workers be allowed to participate in the discussions? Do we practice anything like what we preach?
My own fear, though, was that, in all of the hullabaloo, we would miss the central, irrefutable premise of "Nickel and Dimed": that "the poor have disappeared from the culture at large, from its political rhetoric, its intellectual endeavors, from its daily entertainment." In American life, formal equality has become submerged in a torrent of disadvantage. By accepting it, we turn our backs on our best selves.
(Gene R. Nichol is dean and the Burton Craige professor of law at the UNC School of Law.)
_____
1 in 7 North Carolinians lives below the poverty line.
It's hard facts like this that make me so annoyed when people insist to me that everyone in America is equal and/or has an equal chance at succeeding in life. They say this because everyone they know, everyone they associate with, has done so. The ones who don't, they figure, must be lazy... too bad for them.
Can you imagine life on $18,500 a year -- let alone raising kids and having a car and health insurance? Would you live at that level if you had an alternative? I made about $16,000 (ten years ago) at my first full-time job (kinko's). I had a college degree, all paid for by my parents, and a good healthcare plan from kinko's, and I knew I would make a lot more at my next job. Meanwhile, some people can afford to pay $18,000 a year for their kids' private college tuition -- some even without taking out loans. It's just unbelievable, the gap between have and have not.
And the majority of us middle class people are of course in the middle, torn between aspiring to keep our money to improve our own status and save for unforeseen future disaster, or helping those who have less.
Friday, October 3, 2003 12:00AM EDT
POINT OF VIEW
_____
Looking right past the poor
By GENE R. NICHOL
CHAPEL HILL -- Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its most recent study of income and poverty. For the "second consecutive year, the poverty rate and the number living in poverty rose." Almost 35 million Americans (12.1 percent) made less last year than the extraordinarily modest federal poverty threshold of $18,500 for a family of four. About 17 percent of the nation's children are poor. The numbers are even worse for black (24 percent) and Latino (22 percent) kids.
The North Carolina story was particularly disheartening. Our median family income is now almost $5,000 below the national average. We are one of 10 states whose median income actually fell from the year before -- in our case by 4.4 percent. About one in seven Tar Heels lives below the poverty line.
The Bush administration says the recession ended in November 2001. You'd have a hard time proving it in North Carolina.
Newspapers gave the poverty report fairly prominent play. Headlines read "State's median income dips." But, as is typically the case, it was essentially a one-day story. No expressions of outrage appeared. No emergency proposals followed. The Congress stood mute. The executive branch was unmoved. No electoral campaigns took up the mantle. No state legislative initiative was launched.
Once each year we learn that the wealthiest nation in human history countenances shockingly high levels of poverty. We discover, yet again, that -- despite our vaunted rhetorical commitment to equality -- America leads the industrial world in wealth disparity and concentration. We shrug our shoulders, and we go on.
And income differentials hardly present the whole picture. Over 43 million Americans have no health care insurance. In North Carolina, 15.6 percent lack coverage. Of households earning under $25,000 a year, about a quarter are uninsured. We stand alone among the major industrial nations in failing to provide universal coverage. We spend more per capita on health care than any country in the world. But we also leave more of our fellows outside the system, in the shadows.
Economics also drives opportunity. We countenance rich and poor public schools. Not just private schools, mind you; rich and poor public schools. As if were acceptable to treat some of our children as second- or third-class citizens. Higher education magnifies the inequality -- though UNC-Chapel Hill's new "Carolina Covenant" is a hopeful step in the right direction. Only 3 percent of the students at the nation's 146 most selective universities come from the bottom economic quartile. An astonishing 74 percent come from the top quarter. Twenty years ago, children from parents in the top quarter were four times more likely to get a college degree than those at the bottom. Now it's 10 times.
The legal system also prices out a huge segment of the community. Study after study finds that about 80 percent of the legal need of the poor and near-poor goes unmet. Less than 1 percent of our total national expenditure for lawyers goes toward services for the poor. We carve "equal justice under law" on our courthouse walls. The sentiment stops there.
Even our political system rewards those who can pay in order to play. The private financing of campaigns systematically skews the outcome of our political processes toward the interests of the economically powerful. The halls of power are increasing off limits to those without significant economic resources. Across a broad array of enterprises, we have allowed the deck to become stacked against those lodged at the bottom. And we know it.
Yet, decade after decade, in cultural arena after cultural arena, in election after election, these crushing problems are barely discussed. In law, in politics, in philosophy, in the humane letters, we simply turn our gaze away. We have come to think that a regime of economic apartheid is both unavoidable and untroubling.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to give the convocation address at Chapel Hill. Given the brouhaha over Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed," there was a tad of tension in the air. I remember thinking that we would explore Enhenreich's book from a stunning array of perspectives. Is the book balanced? Does it represent good journalism, or first-rate literature? Is UNC leftist? Are we open to dissent? Do legislators have the right to ask for faculty members' political affiliations? Should remarkably underpaid campus workers be allowed to participate in the discussions? Do we practice anything like what we preach?
My own fear, though, was that, in all of the hullabaloo, we would miss the central, irrefutable premise of "Nickel and Dimed": that "the poor have disappeared from the culture at large, from its political rhetoric, its intellectual endeavors, from its daily entertainment." In American life, formal equality has become submerged in a torrent of disadvantage. By accepting it, we turn our backs on our best selves.
(Gene R. Nichol is dean and the Burton Craige professor of law at the UNC School of Law.)
_____
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Who irons the pants in your family?
I can’t iron clothes without thinking of my parents. For me, this is a pleasant association. The hot hoof of the iron releasing great whoofs and chuffs of steam, my parents taking pride in clean and stiffened clothing.
Mom did most of the ironing in our house, but Dad showed me how to do it elegantly, flattening clothes with an almost fond touch, the iron gliding across the starched sleeves of his blue dress shirts. He would give me 25 cents for each shirt I starched and ironed well for him, a rate that could yield several dollars a week if I kept after it.
One day, years after this, I was ironing while Mom was in the room folding other clothes. I mentioned slyly that Dad seemed to be better at ironing than Mom, and she scoffed. She actually scoffed. “That’s because he doesn’t have to do it.”
“Oh…” I murmured. This was a clue about the dynamics of married life that I hadn’t expected and felt embarrassed about exposing.
I can’t iron clothes without thinking of my parents. For me, this is a pleasant association. The hot hoof of the iron releasing great whoofs and chuffs of steam, my parents taking pride in clean and stiffened clothing.
Mom did most of the ironing in our house, but Dad showed me how to do it elegantly, flattening clothes with an almost fond touch, the iron gliding across the starched sleeves of his blue dress shirts. He would give me 25 cents for each shirt I starched and ironed well for him, a rate that could yield several dollars a week if I kept after it.
One day, years after this, I was ironing while Mom was in the room folding other clothes. I mentioned slyly that Dad seemed to be better at ironing than Mom, and she scoffed. She actually scoffed. “That’s because he doesn’t have to do it.”
“Oh…” I murmured. This was a clue about the dynamics of married life that I hadn’t expected and felt embarrassed about exposing.
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