Tomorrow, it will be 20 years since Dan Voinea helped send Nicolae Ceausescu before a Christmas Day firing squad. But the anniversary of the climax to Romania's revolution will not bring unalloyed joy to the prosecutor, or indeed to his compatriots, as they struggle to unearth the truth of what really happened in those extraordinary days, and to discover whether it was a vengeful people or a communist clique that really toppled the Romanian dictator. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, had been forced to flee Bucharest, after a wave of protests against their quarter-century of despotic rule swept across the country from the western town of Timisoara, reaching the capital on 21 December. The loathed couple fled the next day, flying by helicopter and commandeering cars on country roads on their wild dash for freedom, before finally being caught.
Tomorrow, it will be 20 years since Dan Voinea helped send Nicolae Ceausescu before a Christmas Day firing squad.
But the anniversary of the climax to Romania's revolution will not bring unalloyed joy to the prosecutor, or indeed to his compatriots, as they struggle to unearth the truth of what really happened in those extraordinary days, and to discover whether it was a vengeful people or a communist clique that really toppled the Romanian dictator.
Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, had been forced to flee Bucharest, after a wave of protests against their quarter-century of despotic rule swept across the country from the western town of Timisoara, reaching the capital on 21 December. The loathed couple fled the next day, flying by helicopter and commandeering cars on country roads on their wild dash for freedom, before finally being caught.
L'AQUILA, Italy -- Cities take centuries to grow, but they can die in the relative blink of an eye. After an earthquake in April killed hundreds and left tens of thousands homeless in and around this medieval and Baroque city some 70 miles northeast of Rome, the emergency relief efforts were extraordinary. Volunteers from all over Italy rushed to help. Tent villages were swiftly set up outside the danger zone. Concerts were staged to provide continuity and hope, and construction workers were soon erecting dozens of housing complexes on the outskirts of town. But now, as the region's mayors and the Italian culture ministry prepare to take over recovery efforts from emergency agencies in January, the longer-term future of L'Aquila is in question. Shortages of money, political will, architectural good sense and international attention -- along with a distinctly Italian predilection for a kind of magical thinking -- threaten to finish what the quake started.
After an earthquake in April killed hundreds and left tens of thousands homeless in and around this medieval and Baroque city some 70 miles northeast of Rome, the emergency relief efforts were extraordinary. Volunteers from all over Italy rushed to help. Tent villages were swiftly set up outside the danger zone. Concerts were staged to provide continuity and hope, and construction workers were soon erecting dozens of housing complexes on the outskirts of town.
But now, as the region's mayors and the Italian culture ministry prepare to take over recovery efforts from emergency agencies in January, the longer-term future of L'Aquila is in question. Shortages of money, political will, architectural good sense and international attention -- along with a distinctly Italian predilection for a kind of magical thinking -- threaten to finish what the quake started.
NORTH POLE (The Borowitz Report) - The Central Intelligence Agency confirmed reports today that an unmanned predator drone accidentally hit Santa Claus' sleigh on Christmas Eve, killing Santa Claus and injuring an undetermined number of reindeer. The CIA drone, which was intended to kill an al-Qaeda operative located in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, went off course and targeted Claus instead. A CIA spokesperson said the agency was still trying to sort out what, exactly, sent the predator off course, but offered one theory: "It's conceivable that it was thrown off by the beard."
The CIA drone, which was intended to kill an al-Qaeda operative located in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, went off course and targeted Claus instead.
A CIA spokesperson said the agency was still trying to sort out what, exactly, sent the predator off course, but offered one theory: "It's conceivable that it was thrown off by the beard."
Sean Paul Kelley writes: I don't buy all the hype that the internet is even the primary culprit of the demise of journalism. The primary culprit is the same as it is all over the country, in every industry and in government: equity extraction. Let me explain, in short: when executives expect unrealistic profits of 20% and higher per annum on businesses something has got to give. It's an unnatural and unsustainable growth rate. For the first ten or so years of a small to medium size company's life? Sure. But when you are 3M, or GE? Unrealistic and ultimately impossible. So, when such rates cannot be achieved by organic growth in the business, executives start shaving off perceived fat and before they know it they're cutting off the muscle and then shaving off bone chips. And when they've gotten to the bone chips they borrow other people's money to buy new companies, load up those companies with debt and extract equity form them and then because it looks like the parent is still growing award themselves huge bonuses. It's a shell game. That is what has happened to the news industry in America. The excessive obsession with unnaturally high profits has led to a vicious circle of cutting budgets, providing less services, which is then followed by even more drastic cuts. The local San Antonio paper is a great example of this. Twenty years ago there were two large dailies in my hometown. Both competed with each other for real scoops. Both had book reviews by local writers, providing local jobs. Both covered the local arts and sports scene. Both covered local politics in depth and local and state news in depth. Both had vigorous investigative teams. Both had bureaus in Mexico and both had offices and reporters on the ground in DC. And then corner offices of Gannet and Harte-Hanks were populated with Kinsey-esque managers and the rout was on ... So, today, San Antonio has one daily that is as flimsy and tiny as the local alternative ... And 80% of this happened before ... the internet. All in the name of higher industry profits-not some overwhelming fear of the world wide inter-tubes. So, who's profiting? Certainly not the intellectual vigor of the locals? And certainly not the writers who are all now `journalism entrepreneurs.' The only people who profited are the executives who obsessed over profits, to lard up their own bonus pool ... You can provide a public service with small profits for a long, long time, but if you demand large ones you will destroy it. Just ask the big banks.
Sean Paul Kelley writes:
I don't buy all the hype that the internet is even the primary culprit of the demise of journalism. The primary culprit is the same as it is all over the country, in every industry and in government: equity extraction. Let me explain, in short: when executives expect unrealistic profits of 20% and higher per annum on businesses something has got to give. It's an unnatural and unsustainable growth rate. For the first ten or so years of a small to medium size company's life? Sure. But when you are 3M, or GE? Unrealistic and ultimately impossible. So, when such rates cannot be achieved by organic growth in the business, executives start shaving off perceived fat and before they know it they're cutting off the muscle and then shaving off bone chips. And when they've gotten to the bone chips they borrow other people's money to buy new companies, load up those companies with debt and extract equity form them and then because it looks like the parent is still growing award themselves huge bonuses. It's a shell game. That is what has happened to the news industry in America. The excessive obsession with unnaturally high profits has led to a vicious circle of cutting budgets, providing less services, which is then followed by even more drastic cuts. The local San Antonio paper is a great example of this. Twenty years ago there were two large dailies in my hometown. Both competed with each other for real scoops. Both had book reviews by local writers, providing local jobs. Both covered the local arts and sports scene. Both covered local politics in depth and local and state news in depth. Both had vigorous investigative teams. Both had bureaus in Mexico and both had offices and reporters on the ground in DC. And then corner offices of Gannet and Harte-Hanks were populated with Kinsey-esque managers and the rout was on ... So, today, San Antonio has one daily that is as flimsy and tiny as the local alternative ... And 80% of this happened before ... the internet. All in the name of higher industry profits-not some overwhelming fear of the world wide inter-tubes. So, who's profiting? Certainly not the intellectual vigor of the locals? And certainly not the writers who are all now `journalism entrepreneurs.' The only people who profited are the executives who obsessed over profits, to lard up their own bonus pool ... You can provide a public service with small profits for a long, long time, but if you demand large ones you will destroy it. Just ask the big banks.
I don't buy all the hype that the internet is even the primary culprit of the demise of journalism. The primary culprit is the same as it is all over the country, in every industry and in government: equity extraction.
Let me explain, in short: when executives expect unrealistic profits of 20% and higher per annum on businesses something has got to give. It's an unnatural and unsustainable growth rate. For the first ten or so years of a small to medium size company's life? Sure. But when you are 3M, or GE? Unrealistic and ultimately impossible.
So, when such rates cannot be achieved by organic growth in the business, executives start shaving off perceived fat and before they know it they're cutting off the muscle and then shaving off bone chips. And when they've gotten to the bone chips they borrow other people's money to buy new companies, load up those companies with debt and extract equity form them and then because it looks like the parent is still growing award themselves huge bonuses. It's a shell game.
That is what has happened to the news industry in America. The excessive obsession with unnaturally high profits has led to a vicious circle of cutting budgets, providing less services, which is then followed by even more drastic cuts. The local San Antonio paper is a great example of this. Twenty years ago there were two large dailies in my hometown. Both competed with each other for real scoops. Both had book reviews by local writers, providing local jobs. Both covered the local arts and sports scene. Both covered local politics in depth and local and state news in depth. Both had vigorous investigative teams. Both had bureaus in Mexico and both had offices and reporters on the ground in DC.
And then corner offices of Gannet and Harte-Hanks were populated with Kinsey-esque managers and the rout was on ... So, today, San Antonio has one daily that is as flimsy and tiny as the local alternative ... And 80% of this happened before ... the internet. All in the name of higher industry profits-not some overwhelming fear of the world wide inter-tubes. So, who's profiting? Certainly not the intellectual vigor of the locals? And certainly not the writers who are all now `journalism entrepreneurs.' The only people who profited are the executives who obsessed over profits, to lard up their own bonus pool ...
You can provide a public service with small profits for a long, long time, but if you demand large ones you will destroy it. Just ask the big banks.
So why isn't the failure of the health-care reform initiative an epochal example of the failure of leadership? Democrats know who I mean... Or perhaps you don't agree that having dumped the public option and the Medicare buy-in to get Lieberman and/or Snowe, Senate Democrats have neither of those two votes, so they're looking around for some piece of the store that has not yet been given away. They've forced millions of Americans to buy insurance, which is useless. I don't need insurance against something that's certain to happen, I need health care. Most of those Americans can't afford insurance, so government will have to pony up the money that supplies the insurance companies with profits. Why do I have to pay taxes that get handed over to insurance companies? And they've removed any hint of a competitor for those insurance companies. Medicare won't expand, and we'll all have no option but to purchase insurance from private corporations with histories of lawlessness, dishonesty, and disregard for public welfare. Do you believe that having insurance means you're covered when you get sick? Ask the 1.5 million Americans who filed for bankruptcy last year, of whom over 60 percent are estimated to have been driven to the extreme by problems that included significant medical bills. Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine. "Unless you're a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you're one illness away from financial ruin in this country," says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. "If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that's the major finding in our study." [...] Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.
So why isn't the failure of the health-care reform initiative an epochal example of the failure of leadership? Democrats know who I mean...
Or perhaps you don't agree that having dumped the public option and the Medicare buy-in to get Lieberman and/or Snowe, Senate Democrats have neither of those two votes, so they're looking around for some piece of the store that has not yet been given away.
They've forced millions of Americans to buy insurance, which is useless. I don't need insurance against something that's certain to happen, I need health care. Most of those Americans can't afford insurance, so government will have to pony up the money that supplies the insurance companies with profits. Why do I have to pay taxes that get handed over to insurance companies?
And they've removed any hint of a competitor for those insurance companies. Medicare won't expand, and we'll all have no option but to purchase insurance from private corporations with histories of lawlessness, dishonesty, and disregard for public welfare. Do you believe that having insurance means you're covered when you get sick? Ask the 1.5 million Americans who filed for bankruptcy last year, of whom over 60 percent are estimated to have been driven to the extreme by problems that included significant medical bills.
Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine. "Unless you're a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you're one illness away from financial ruin in this country," says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. "If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that's the major finding in our study." [...] Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.
"Unless you're a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you're one illness away from financial ruin in this country," says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. "If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that's the major finding in our study."
[...]
Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.
