CBS News, Sixty Minutes: Hard times generation: Homeless kids, First aired: March 6, 2011 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358670n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel From the Sixty Minutes website: For some children, socializing and learning are being cruelly complicated by homelessness, as Scott Pelley reports from Florida, where school buses now stop at motels for children who've lost their homes.
Story at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/03/60minutes/main20038927.shtml
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I originally had a lot to say about this Sixty Minutes segment from Sunday night's show but my draft of those comments was accidentally deleted this morning, and I'm exhausted, so this will have to do instead:
The emotionally-draining situation they describe -homeless individuals or families cleaning themselves atWalmart- is one that I actually used to see over at the Arlington County govt. HQ more often than you'd think in the 1990's when I lived in Arlington.
Since I moved back to South Florida in late 2003, I've occasionally written emails to friends and posted something here about how Arlington County, even more than usual, acted like a dog chasing its tail in their own policies on the homeless.
In the view of many well-informed people I knew -plus me- the County often seemed to be focused almost entirely on appeasing well-organized groups "helping" a segment of the homeless population, not entirely from Arlington, that, to me, at times resembled nothing so much as a very pushy and indignant voting bloc of the CDU under Helmut Kohl, constantly going on about what they wanted and needed, while simultaneously, the County seemed genuinely blind to instances where some assistance could really help some Arlington County families keep it together in their own homes.
It was hard not to notice that the constantly complaining spokes in the wheel, not the truly deserving, got the grea$e. And that was before the foreclosure epidemic hit the country.
Friends and acquaintances of mine who travel across Florida more than I do now say they see a LOT MOREfamilies cleaning-up in Florida Turnpike rest stops in the morning than they ever remember seeing.
Below, something I posted in January of 2010 on hemlösa, featuring the amazing Yohanna.
Yohanna - "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day" - HD -Dec. 15, 2009, TV3
Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, December 15, 2009 in Stockholm, for TV3's broadcast of "En Sång För Hemlösa 2009" (A Song For The Homeless 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVtoGYXsG4w
CBS News Sixty Minutes: State Budgets: Day of Reckoning December 19, 2010 4:59 PM Steve Kroft reports on the precarious financial conditions many states are facing and what they're doing about it. Length 13:50
In the City of Hallandale Beach, it just never ends...
Agenda for Wednesday morning's Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting is at: http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2011-01-05%20Regular/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202011-01-05%2010-00.htm
Below, my good friend and Hallandale Beach civic activist Csaba Kulin gets some things off his mind -and hopefully into yours- about the city's budget problems, which in the opinion of many well-informed people in this community are directly attributable to the benefits paid by city taxpayers to city employees, many of whom, in my opinion, fail to deliver a dollar's worth of service for a dollar's worth of salary. There's an entire forest of deadwood in this city that needs to be clear-cut.
The Sixty Minutes video above is referenced in his email to the powers-that-be at Hallandale Beach City Hall.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Csaba Kulin Date: Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 3:24 PM Subject: Ten (10% wage increase for HB employees
Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, Members of the City Commission and City Manager Mark Antonio,
Every time the Hallandale Beach City Commission meets it is a "clear and present danger to the financial well being of the residents of Hallandale Beach".
It is no different tomorrow when you will vote on a total on 10 % wage increase to the Local 2009, Florida Public Employees Council #79 members. The 10% is made up of 3% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) effective July 8, 2010, 3% COLA effective October 1, 2010 and 4% ratification bonus. This contract will expire September 30, 2011.
I do not blame the union for trying to get the best deal for their members and the City Manager (CM) was not in a very strong bargaining position. First, he has to work with the effected employees, second, the City Manager just got a 10% salary increase himself. Why would the union agree anything less than 10%. Remember when I argued for a "symbolic" pay freeze of the CM, you did not listen to me. The CM could have taken the "high road" during negotiations and argue that "I did not get a pay increase either". You have contract negotiations coming up for the fire and police unions. What makes you think they will take anything less than Local 2009 got?
A few weeks ago "60 Minutes" had a segment on it, the Wall Street Journal had two articles (December 23 and 24) about it and the Mayor's last article in the South Florida SunTimes talked about public employee compensation, benefits and pension benefits and the need to control it. Bloated salaries and "gold plated" benefit packages are bankrupting local governments. According to some experts, State, County and City financial difficulties will dwarf the housing crisis in magnitude. Everyone talks about it but nobody is willing to do anything about. We all know it is coming but no one has the backbone to say "STOP". Every journey starts with the first step. You missed the last opportunity to say "NO" when you hired the CM, will you miss this opportunity to say "NO again"?
The Federal Government froze wages for two years, Social Security recipients did not get a COLA for the second year in row and everyplace you look private employers introduce new "compensation plans" which is pseudonym for cut in pay. Is there any reason the City could not freeze wages for a couple of years?
The COLA's and the 2.5 salary reduction re-reinstatement in the Budget Amendments added a little over 1 million to the 2010/2011 Budget.
Now I like to get an answer to a couple questions I have.
How much this new contract will cost the City in the 2010/2011 Budget?
Is this 10% on top of the COLA already approved in the Budget Amendments?
With the original Budget Amendments and this latest one, how much is the deficit in the General Fund Budget?
Where is the extra money is coming from?
Sincerely,
Csaba Kulin
President, Fairways North, Inc.
VP, United Condominium Associations of Hallandale Beach
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: Day of Reckoning Governor Christie speaks on accountability at a Town Hall meeting in Perth Amboy, N.J., June 15, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evtt-R7Rmdw
From high atop Mount Koppel, Ted Koppel opines in the WaPo on the dearth of -yes- serious news. Just like last year. And the year before that... And at that forum in Aspen...
Just some quick but obvious questions that come to mind that Ted Koppel has never publicly asked in the past, and so never has had to answer from the privileged vantage point of his former insider position.
Why ABC News never got a cable TV component. Disney's fault?If not, whose?
Why CBS News also didn't. Viacom'sfault? If not, whose? If either or both had happened and they did the opposite of what Koppeldecries below in tomorrow's Washington Post, what all readers here, presumably, would want in the abstract, would enough people watch it to be profitable, or more than a niche? Or would it just more money down a black hole? Just wondering...
The Washington Post Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real newsBy Ted Koppel Sunday, November 14, 2010;
To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts -suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism, when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust.
Read the rest of the Op-Ed at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111202857.html
