Editorials from around New England – Island Packet

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New England newspapers:

New Haven Register (Conn.), Aug. 18, 2016

Getting up for that early-morning run is turning out to be not so healthful for many joggers. Each day, millions of Americans wake up, lace up their running shoes and hit the streets running to maintain a healthier lifestyle.

It is estimated that nearly 46 million people jog or run in some capacity — from 5K races to marathons — annually. Health officials say jogging improves cardiovascular health, helps build stronger bones and strengthens muscles and helps maintain a healthy weight.

But the sport is proving sometimes to be dangerous — particularly for women — and is a growing concern here in Connecticut and across the nation. While there is no need for runners and joggers to be paranoid, two recent high-profile cases lend to the credence that caution is needed and some joggers are targeted.

Vanessa Marcotte was killed jogging in Princeton, Massachusetts, and Karina Vetrano was slain while jogging in Queens, New York. Both stories have dominated news coverage in the Northeast. But other cases get less attention, such as that of Ally Brueger, who was shot in the back while jogging in Rose Township, Michigan.

While there has not been a rash of joggers being killed, mugged or hurt in Middletown or Torrington, joggers have been accosted in New Haven going as far back as 2004 when a Yale University student was attacked and more recently, in 2013, when a 63-year-old man who lives in the Beaver Hills neighborhood was attacked by teens in Edgewood Park.

The problems women face while jogging first came to light in 1989 when Trisha Meili was assaulted, raped and sodomized in New York’s Central Park in what The New York Times called “one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s.” Meili spent 12 days in a coma.

But whether jogging in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia or Ohio, female joggers are being raped and murdered and many female runners are feeling the fear.

Some women, such as Wallingford resident Stephanie Turbett, are taking defense classes as a precautionary measure and others, like Cheshire resident Lauren Cieslewski, are offering advice and tips on staying safe while getting your run on.

“Running in groups or with a buddy is key for safety,” said Cieslewski.

And so is wearing safety gear, which can include headlamps, bright reflective vest, knuckle lights and carrying runner’s defensive spray. Other tips are running against traffic, wearing only one earbud while listening to music and being watchful of neighborhood and stray dogs.

New Haven Assistant Police Chief Achilles Generoso says joggers are passionate about their sport but urges them never to jog alone in secluded areas; be aware of their surroundings; keep a cellphone handy at all times; and tell someone where they are jogging and what time to expect them to return.

That’s advice that can possibly save a life — and joggers and runners should heed it.

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Online:

http://bit.ly/2bEKLbq

The Portland Press Herald (Maine), Aug. 15, 2016

The cost of child care for low-income Americans is debilitating. For the middle class, it is a significant and escalating strain. For the wealthy, it’s closer to a bother than a burden.

Yet if a proposal by Donald Trump were to be put in place, it’s the latter group that would receive the most help from the federal government.

During his economic policy speech last week in Detroit, the Republican presidential nominee correctly identified the cost of child care as a largely unaddressed problem facing American families. However, as a remedy, he is suggesting that parents be allowed to deduct the full cost of child care from their taxes, a plan that would reap substantial benefits for the upper class while leaving the poor behind.

As it stands now, parents are eligible for a tax credit of up to $3,000 for one child and $6,000 for two or more. That’s fully refundable, meaning parents can get the credit whether they have an income tax liability or not.

Trump’s plan, as it appears now, is to raise the limit significantly, to the “average cost of child care spending,” but make it a deduction.

That distinction is important. Deductions help only people who have an end-of-the-year income tax liability, meaning that they are of no use to most low-income Americans and many in the middle class, who may have some liability but not enough to benefit from the high ceiling on Trump’s proposal.

Deductions in general favor the wealthy, who end the year with high tax liabilities and generally itemize their taxes, and who are rewarded based on the high marginal tax rates that they pay.

In the case of child care, a deduction would favor those who spend a lot in real terms, not those who spend a lot as a percentage of their incomes, which is where the problem lies.

People in poverty pay over a third of their income on child care, while those just out of poverty pay more than 20 percent of their incomes for child care. In Maine, one of the 10 least affordable states for child care, it costs around 37 percent of the median income for a single mother.

Under Trump’s plan, single mothers and people in poverty and near poverty would see little to no benefit, while the wealthy would receive a much larger tax break than they see now.

That raises a lot of questions about the economic viability of Trump’s plan, especially when considered alongside the mammoth tax cuts he is also proposing for the rich.

But more than that, it is morally wrong.

The skyrocketing price of child care, and its disproportionate impact on the poor and working class, is forcing people out of the workforce and children into suboptimal care arrangements. It is robbing children of care that can help them do better in school, and make them less likely to need special education and more likely to attend college.

To reduce the impact of those high costs, universal pre-kindergarten for children as young as 4, as well as expanded tax credits aimed at the lower and middle class, would do a lot more than what amounts to an expensive handout to wealthy families.

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Online:

http://bit.ly/2b5Z1Os

The Republican (Mass.), Aug. 18, 2016

Flip the switch and the lights go on. Hit the starter button and the engine turns over. Key in an Internet domain name and the Web page pops open.

How does it all work? Who even thinks about that — until there’s a reason to wonder. Like when something goes wrong. Or when the administration of Internet domain names is about to undergo a change.

If you’ve never heard of ICANN — the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — you may soon enough, as the United States, which has maintained a role in the handling of Internet domain names, is about to hand over the last of its functions to the private, non-profit ICANN. If all goes as planned, though, you’ll likely not hear a peep.

Why? Because the change, set to take effect on Oct. 1, will keep things mostly as they’ve been for some time now. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t critics.

One of them, oddly, is Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the onetime presidential candidate who preached the gospel of conservatism out along the campaign trail. And yet he supports the federal government’s role in assigning and overseeing domain names instead of total privatization of the function. Seems a most anti-conservative position, doesn’t it?

Cruz’s stated objection? Handing the keys to the kingdom to ICANN might well allow other governments to begin to meddle with the Internet. Specifically, undue and unwelcome influence from China is feared.

But this is a straw man argument. ICANN has effectively been running the show since the late-1990s, with minimal involvement from the feds. The government, whose role was largely an accident of history, has long been looking for a way to step back.

Two decades of planning seems more than enough.

And the transition that’s about to take place ought surely beat the heck out of what had once been considered an alternative — having the United Nations handle the assigning of Internet domain names.

Imagine the influence that China or Russia could have had in that scenario.

The move has been supported by the last three presidential administrations. That should say something. When Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all agree on something — and Ted Cruz opposes it — it’s probably the way to go.

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Online:

http://bit.ly/2bK6D8b

Concord Monitor (N.H.), Aug. 16, 2016

A man, perhaps in his mid-50s, was working on the exterior of a home on Washington Street, close to White Park in Concord. He heard the Jack Russell terrier and its owner before he saw them, and stopped what he was doing to have a look. That’s the way it is with dog lovers; work loses its power to distract when there’s an animal around in need of a good scratch behind the ears.

The act of petting a dog is usually a sure bet for joy — for both parties — but not this time. The man was scratching a Jack Russell but his mind was elsewhere. And where he was, there was pain. His own dog, a longtime and loyal companion, he said, had passed away months before. What he didn’t say was that the loss had undermined him, as profound loss tends to do. But it had.

It can be difficult for people to express just how much affection they have for their pets, and he was struggling. He needed to be understood.

“I cared more for that dog,” he said, “than I do most people.”

The exchange happened more than a decade ago, but it rests in one of the readily accessible compartments of memory. Even small tragedies, when well expressed, leave their mark on those who hear of them. And, of course, anyone who has ever loved and lost a pet has a deep reservoir of pain and empathy from which to draw.

The ASPCA estimates that 80 million dogs and 95 million cats are owned in the United States, which translates into many, many millions of people who have improved their own quality of life just by inviting the companions into their homes. But there is a big tradeoff: Someday, the animal will die — of old age, disease or an accident. And worst of all, sometimes the pet owner is put in the position of playing God.

The decision of whether to euthanize an ailing pet, while always difficult, used to be a relatively simple calculation: Is it more cruel to keep the animal alive than it is to euthanize it? But now, as treatment options for just about everything grow, the calculation required of pet owners is as much financial as medical or philosophical. So what is a pet owner to do when a medical condition can be treated but it carries a prohibitive price tag?

The Humane Society of the United States, as you might expect, recommends doing anything and everything to avoid euthanizing a pet because of financial issues, from negotiating a payment plan with your vet to offering to clean kennels or answer phones to pay off the debt. It’s worth a shot, we suppose, but some of the society’s other suggestions fall short of sound financial or familial advice, such as putting it all on a credit card or getting a second job.

At what point does love of an ailing pet, and the accompanying cost of treatment and medication, become destructive? Would it be worth it to get another job to pay for care, and in the process subtract from the time you have to spend with family and friends — and pets? Is it defensible to buy medication for a chronically ill dog even if it means your daughter or son has to go without piano lessons or a week at summer camp?

There is no right answer to any of those questions. Nobody can dictate the lengths to which you should or shouldn’t go to save the life of a pet, perhaps one that you care for more than you care for most people. But for those considering adopting or buying a pet, it’s absolutely necessary to consider not only the cost of shelter or breeder fees, food and standard veterinary visits, but also the potentially steep price of care should health issues arise.

Before you invite a dog or cat into your home, think about the man on Washington Street. If you end up loving your pet as much as he loved his, there will be nothing you wouldn’t do to save it. The question is, can you afford it?

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Online:

http://bit.ly/2b60wfz

The Providence Journal (R.I.), Aug. 16, 2016

Many of us have been watching the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with great enthusiasm. We’ve enjoyed the competitions, cheered for our favorite athletes, and beamed with pride when Americans reached the medal podium.

There’s another podium in Brazil that could be very busy in short order. It has nothing to do with medals and athletes, but everything to do with a court of law.

Dilma Rousseff, the country’s embattled and suspended president, faces an impeachment trial.

On Aug. 4, the special impeachment committee voted 14-5 to move forward with the case against Rousseff, who has reportedly “failed to comply with tax and budget laws on the issue of additional credit decrees.” She was indicted by a margin of 59-21 in Brazil’s Federal Senate on Aug. 10, and a verdict is expected at the end of this month.

Of interest, an Aug. 10 article by Reuters’s Anthony Boadle noted the country’s interim president, Michel Temer, “has urged senators to wrap up the trial quickly.” Why? So that he “can move ahead with a plan to cap public spending, reform an overly generous pension system and restore confidence in government finances.”

Some people thought Rousseff was going to be the one who changed the country’s notorious political culture. Her longstanding roots in left-wing urban guerrilla groups that opposed the old military dictatorship, combined with her populist appeal in working-class communities, was seen as a fresh start. She won over many voters and became Brazil’s first female president in 2010.

This has been unraveling for years.

While Rousseff claimed her Marxist roots were a thing of the past — she supported the privatization of airports — she has run the country more as a socialist than a capitalist. As the Brazilian economy suffered its biggest downturn since the Great Depression, her policies of expanding government as “stimulus” have failed to energize economic growth through the private sector.

There were also significant protests in 2015-2016 related to her involvement with Petrobas, the state-controlled oil company. The dubious activities of this organization have become a significant component of Operation Car Wash, a massive investigation into money laundering (and other illegal activities) in Brazil. While Rousseff isn’t directly linked to this corruption charge, she did serve on Petrobas’ board of directors from 2003 to 2010.

The biggest allegation, and the one that could bring her down, is that Rousseff borrowed money from state banks during her 2014 presidential reelection bid, paying for social programs while painting a false picture of the country’s financial state. A court ruled her actions illegal.

Rousseff insists she’s being tarred and feathered by right-leaning political opponents like Temer. In her defense, she’s argued that “the acts that they accuse me of … were practiced by other presidents of the republic before me. And it wasn’t characterized as being illegal acts or criminal acts. They were considered legal.”

But her secretive borrowing, and her pleas of innocence, have hurt her in the court of public opinion.

The road to Rio for Dilma Rousseff, it seems, won’t be paved in gold. There may be some bars of a different color in her future, however.

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Online:

http://bit.ly/2b7ANxf

Bennington Banner (Vt.), Aug. 18, 2016

With him tanking in the polls, Donald Trump decided now is the time to shake up his organization and introduce some new faces.

But don’t be surprised if those new faces continue his downward spiral into the history books.

Earlier this week, the world learned Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, may have received more than $12 million from the former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after he was ousted in 2014 during a popular uprising. Manafort was demoted and one might be forgiven for thinking Trump would appoint someone relatively credible to manage his campaign going forward. But “unbelievable” is an adjective that has lost its meaning when used in reference to Donald Trump and his campaign. On Tuesday, he appointed Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, as the “chief executive” of his campaign.

Most rational people were astounded by the choice. Even William Kristol, one of the neocon pundits responsible for the disintegration of the Middle East by advocating for the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, called Breitbart “right-wing, intolerant, mean-spirited news.” (It might be interesting to note that Breitbart, upon learning Kristol was opposed to Trump’s run for president, headlined an article about him “Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew.”)

And Ben Shapiro, who left Breitbart a year ago, recently ranted that Bannon “turned Breitbart into Trump Pravda for his own personal gain …”

Writing for the New York Times, Jonathan Martin, Jim Rutenberg and Maggie Haberman noted that Trump’s recent staffing changes are “a defiant rejection of efforts by longtime Republican hands to wean him from the bombast and racially charged speech that helped propel him to the nomination but now threaten his candidacy by alienating the moderate voters who typically decide the presidency.”

According to the New York Times, Kellyanne Conway, a veteran pollster and strategist who was already advising Trump, will become his campaign manager. Conway has spent the last three decades advising conservative men how best to win over women. “With all due respect, Kellyanne is very good at understanding Republican women. But working with candidates like that and trying to not make them look like cave men — that’s a tough job,” Katie Packer, told the Washington Post’s Danielle Paquette. “She has created a niche where candidates can check a box and say, well, they’ve got a woman advising them.”

The appointments of Bannon and Conway came rapidly on the heels of the news that Trump had hired Roger Ailes, the now-disgraced (alleged) serial abuser and former Fox News chairman, to advise him in advance of the Sept. 26 debate with Democratic contender Hillary Clinton. Let’s just hope Trump doesn’t take any advice from Ailes on how to treat women in the workplace and sticks to getting his advice from Conway.

Frank Rich, writing for New York Magazine, noted Ailes and Bannon “are both pugilists likely to pump his volume back up to the full Mussolini-Giuliani timbre. It may not make a difference come November, but I’d argue it’s the only way for Trump to go.”

But just because Trump’s choices might seem self-defeating, Rich warns that Ailes is “brilliant and ruthless at what he does professionally: plotting and executing scorched-earth attacks on television.”

Despite the under-handed brilliance of men such as Bannon and Ailes, Trump has his work cut out for him if he expects he can achieve the electoral votes necessary to assume the presidency in January.

“His hallucinatory improvisations, his fact-lite flights of insult, conspiracy theory, and rage are him, the essence of Trump,” noted the New Yorker’s David Remnick. “His supporters sense that, and they credit it as a form of integrity and genuineness.”

The rest of America, those not hoodwinked into thinking his hubris translates into competence, are backing away from the sinking wreck that is the Trump campaign, watching in amazement from shore as his rats bail furiously, but, thankfully, in vain.

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Online:

http://bit.ly/2bq7Ijl

from myhealtyze http://www.myhealtyze.tk/editorials-from-around-new-england-island-packet/