The poor get poorer

Those TANF benefits? Pres. Clinton’s answer to welfare? They fell to 20 percent below their 1996 levels in 34 states. And six states have cut them, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Here’s a chart:

And more cuts are planned.

So what does this mean to you, a hardworking American? Well, you just may fall into the abyss, yourself. Or, if you’re blessed to have a job and lucky enough to be holding things together relatively well, you will start to see an increase in requests for public services. And if we don’t or won’t provide those, guess what happens? Emergency services get overtaxed (not in a tax-tax way, but in a used-tax sense) and you will see that in your household budget, maybe in higher insurance premiums or increased taxes to handle emergency medical calls from your neighbors who can’t afford an office visit, who wait to call their local fire department when things get so bad they just can’t suck it up any more. So really? While the Super Committee was a Super Failure, the safety net gets stretched to the point that you can drive city buses through the holes.  I’m no math major, but looking out for those who can’t look out for themselves isn’t just the moral thing to do. It makes perfect economic sense.

When is teaching “Just say no” ineffective

Well, in sex education, for one, and thanks, DickG., for the link.

Abstaining from sex is a 100-percent effective means of birth control, as it says here. But it’s not that easy a concept to teach, and it’s most effective when included as part of a larger comprehensive sex education program.

Pepper spray art!

Imagine this as your legacy…And thanks, Cynical and Chris.

Thank you, UC Davis students, for your moral example

Enjoy this, if you will. At Psychology Today, Michael Chorost writes of the pepper-spraying cop:

The police officer is Congress. Our banks. Our clerics.

The students are us.

If I had to sum up the attitude of America’s governing classes in one word, I would say: contempt.

And happy Tuesday!

D.C. is lousy with religious lobbying groups

The Pew Forum On Religion & Public Life has a new study that says religious lobby groups have increased fivefold over the last 40 years.

You can read more here or here.

ANOTHer meaningless poll! Don’t you love ‘em?

UPDATE: I’m psychic.

Mr. and Ms. Smith go to court

Eleven of the 12 protesters who were arrested at Hartford’s action that blocked the Broad St. I-84 on-ramp on Thursday went to Hartford Community Court this morning.

The protesters (the 12th could not be in court today and will appear later) were charged with disorderly conduct in violation of Section 53a-182 of Connecticut law. Before they could agree to be arrested, the dozen went through training to know what to expect, said Tom Swan, who was among those arrested. He said 40 more people were anxious to volunteer to be arrested, but they hadn’t been trained, and it was important this go smoothly.

This morning, the protesters were given one day of community service apiece. They will return to court on Dec. 9 to find out what that service might entail.

Community court was started in 1998 in no small part because of the involvement of Judge Raymond Norko, who is known for his creative community service orders, like sending people to shovel the snow from the sidewalks and porches of people who can’t shovel for themselves, or sending people to follow parades and clean up after horses.

In his chambers this morning, Judge Norko told me he would consider sending them to the Occupy Hartford encampment to do clean-up — though the site at Broad and Farmington is pretty clean already.

Thursday’s action was not an Occupy Hartford event per se, though members of the Occupy movement were there. It was, instead, sponsored by the Connecticut Action Alliance for a Fair Economy.

Over all, from the police involvement to community court, one of the arrested protesters, Daniel I. Medress, of SEIU, said everyone had been extremely professional and courteous. Hartford is emphatically not Oakland.

Today, Hartford’s protesters who were arrested last Thursday are going to court

They’re due in community court at 9 a.m. and I’m going because I love to watch democracy (and our court system) in action. Onward!

The empathy deficit

(And thanks, Sharon, for letting me steal this link off of Facebook.)

When is it an unpaid internship and when is it unethical labor?

Great Britian’s young jobless are being sent to work for free for up to two months — but they get loads of “experience,” according to this article sent by Mike the Heathen.

Now let me see: Will work for food. Will write for money. But no money or food? Here’s a bit more on the ethics of unpaid internships.