Security police block access to houses rented by Sunni minority for worship
Sunni Muslims in Tehran have been banned from congregating at prayers marking the end of Ramadan.
Iran, a Shia country, ordered its Sunni minority not to hold separate…
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--In Helmand's Loy Bagh district, Eid has given British troops and Afghans a chance to swap notes about their cultures
You may have noticed I've been off Divine dispatches duty for a week or two. If you've been following my religion on frontline…
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--Under a new Florida law, people applying for welfare have to take a drug test at their own expense. If they pass, they are eligible for benefits and the state reimburses them for the test. If they fail, they are denied welfare for a year, until they take another test.
Mandatory drug testing for welfare applicants is becoming a popular idea across the U.S. Many states - including Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Louisiana - are considering adopting laws like Florida's. At the federal level, Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has introduced the Drug Free Families Act of 2011, which would require all 50 states to drug-test welfare applicants. (See photos inside Colorado's marijuana industry.)
And the focus isn't even limited to welfare. In July, Indiana adopted drug tests for participants in a state job-training program. An Ohio state senator, Tim Grendell, recently said he plans to introduce a bill to require the unemployed to take a drug test before they receive unemployment benefits.
Drug-testing the needy has an undeniable populist appeal. It taps into deeply held beliefs about the deserving and undeserving poor. As Alabama state representative Kerry Rich put it, "I don't think the taxpayers should have to help fund somebody's drug habit."
But as government policy, drug testing is being oversold. These laws do not do what their supporters claim. And more importantly: they are likely to be unconstitutional. (See a TIME feature on your right to privacy.)
Drug testing proponents like to argue that there are large numbers of drug users going on welfare to get money to support their habits. The claim feeds into long-standing stereotypes about the kind of people who go on welfare, but it does not appear to have much basis in fact.
Several studies, including a 1996 report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, have found that there is no significant difference in the rate of illegal-drug use by welfare applicants and other people. Another study found that 70% of illegal-drug users between the age of 18 and 49 are employed full time.
Drug-testing laws are often touted as a way of saving tax dollars, but the facts are once again not quite as presented. Idaho recently commissioned a study of the likely financial impact of drug testing its welfare applicants. The study found that the costs were likely to exceed any money saved.
Read why drug tests do not always work.
That happens to be Florida's experience so far. A Florida television station, WFTV, reported that of the first 40 applicants tested, only two came up positive, and one of those was appealing. The state stands to save less than $240 a month if it denies benefits to the two applicants, but it had to pay $1,140 to the applicants who tested negative. The state will also have to spend considerably more to defend the policy in court.
Given that cost-benefit reality, it is hard to escape the suspicion that what is really behind the drive to drug-test benefits applicants is a desire to stigmatize the needy. The fact is, there are all sorts of people who benefit from government programs. Businessmen get state contracts, farmers receive crop subsidies and retired state workers receive pensions. The pro-drug-testing movement, however, is focusing exclusively on welfare recipients - an easy target. (Read about ER doctors testing for drugs without a patient's consent.)
Policies like Florida's will almost certainly end up in court - and there is a good chance that they will be struck down. The Fourth Amendment puts strict limits on what kind of searches the state can carry out, and drug tests are considered to be a search. In 1997, in Chandler v. Miller, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to strike down a Georgia law requiring candidates for state offices to pass a drug test.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said that the drug testing was an unreasonable search. The state can impose drug tests in exceptional cases, when there is a public-safety need for them (as with bus and train operators, for instance). But the Fourth Amendment does not allow the state to diminish "personal privacy for a symbol's sake," the court said. (Read whether schoolteachers should be drug-tested.)
Drug testing welfare applicants does not seem to meet the Chandler test since there is no particular safety reason to be concerned about drug use by welfare recipients. In 2003, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Michigan's drug testing of welfare applicants as a Fourth Amendment violation.
If Florida and other states are really concerned about drug use, they should adopt stricter laws and better enforcement policies aimed at the whole population, not just the most vulnerable. But these laws are not really about drug use. They are about, in these difficult economic times, making things a little harder for the poor.
Minas Polychronakis has been repairing the soles and shining the shoes of New Yorkers since 1970 at Minas Shoe Repair. Today he has one big dream, and it is to be back in business at the former location of the twin towers, in the yet-to-be-completed 1 World Trade Center.
Minas Shoe Repair was one of the first tenants of the World Trade Center in 1977. For almost 24 years, Minas' shop was located in the mall at the World Trade Center on the lower concourse, near 2 World Trade. On Sept. 11, 2011, he and his family lost nearly everything when the shop was destroyed.
Lost with Minas Shoe Repair was 14 million square feet of commercial office space in Lower Manhattan. Roughly 750 companies vanished, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York. As a result, 65,000 jobs were relocated. Employment fell 5% from 2001 to 2005. More than 20,000 residents were temporarily without a home, as many small shops and retailers were gone for good.
"There was nobody around. No companies. People were afraid. They [didn't] want to come to work," Minas says, describing the first few years after the attacks. "It was bad."
At the time, he had two other smaller shops in downtown Manhattan, but neither brought in anywhere near the business the WTC store did. For years after losing his shop Minas struggled to make ends meet.
He needed $5,000 a week to break even, but he received only $1,000 a week in government subsidies.
He used his house as collateral, maxed out his credit cards, and bought supplies on credit (offering an IOU instead of credit cards). Minas eventually racked up more than $400,000 in debt.
Minas could have moved uptown after Sept. 11, but he felt an obligation to remain downtown near the trade center site.
"This area was good to me, and I feel I have to stay here," Minas says. "I had a choice after Sept. 11th to move uptown [or] midtown. But I said, 'No, I stay here.'"
In December 2003, Minas opened a new shop at 67 Wall Street, about a half-mile from the trade center site. "And again the same story. There [were] no people. I said, 'No, I am not going to give up.'"
A decade later, business in downtown Manhattan is starting to pick up. Some might even say it's booming.
As Arab governments continue to topple and as citizens of said countries tweet the revolution, it seems logical that social media has at least a little bit in some way aided rebel uprisings. Not so much, says Yale's Navid Hassanpour. "Full connectivity in a social network sometimes can hinder collective action," he wrote in a study reports The New York Times's Noam Cohen. His study found that Tweeting and Facebooking can help spread a message, but it can also create confusion, and when it comes to action doesn't do much. And he's not the first to counter the belief that Twitter fueled the Arab Spring.
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When Hosni Mubarak shut down the Internet in the middle of the Tahrir square protests, things heated up even more -- sans access to Twitter argues Hassanpour. Basically, the disruption got people away from their computers and off of their asses. "It implicated many apolitical citizens unaware of or uninterested in the unrest; it forced more face-to-face communication, i.e., more physical presence in streets; and finally it effectively decentralized the rebellion on the 28th through new hybrid communication tactics, producing a quagmire much harder to control and repress than one massive gathering in Tahrir."
This happens because ties made on social media aren't particularly strong adds Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker. "The Internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections with marvelous efficiency. It’s terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world. But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism."
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But that doesn't necessarily mean social media has nothing to do with these revolutions. The Internet makes information move faster Todd Wolfson, an assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers and a community organizer in Philadelphia, told Coen. In these uprisings there was "an accelerant role for social media," but that it "cannot and does not create that kind of mass motion." Sure people learn and discuss through Twitter, but that's all adds Evgeny Morozov author of Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom in The Guardian. "These digital tools are simply, well, tools, and social change continues to involve many painstaking, longer-term efforts to engage with political institutions and reform movements argues."
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Yet, without these tools would these revolutions happen at all? No, explains Tunisian revolutionary and blogger, Slim Amamou in an interview with Global Voices:
"In 2008, there were uprisings in Redeyef, similar to what happened in Sidibouzid. But back then it seems that the internet community did not reach a critical mass. And then at that time, Facebook got censored for a week or two. I don't remember if it was related. But it was like a training for this revolution. People think that this revolution happened out of nowhere but we, on the Internet have been trying for years, together and all over the Arab world. The last campaign that mobilised people was for Khaled Said in Egypt, and we Tunisians participated. And you have to remember that Egyptians (and people all over the world) participated in the Tunisian revolution: they informed, they participated in Anonymous attacks and they even were the first to demonstrate for Sidibouzid in Cairo. So, yes Internet was very important."
OK, so not irrelevant, but there's something special happens when you take that Internet away. "We become more normal when we actually know what is going on--we are more unpredictable when we don’t--on a mass scale that has interesting implications."
Quick! What’s the first word that leaps to mind when you think of Texas governor turned presidential wannabe Rick Perry: cowboy? Bible-thumper? gun-toting, trash-talking, Tea Partying zealot?
I have another one for you: disciplined.
Not comfortable with that? How about “focused”—or “empirically minded”?
As Perry races up the polls to become the latest Republican “it” candidate, Democrats and GOP pointy-headed types are unloading both barrels on Governor Goodhair for his loose lips, Texas swagger, and all around anti-intellectual, brass-knuckles political style. When Perry suggested that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke would be treated “pretty ugly” down in Texas, Karl Rove publicly derided the governor’s remarks as unpresidential. From a poll position in the low single digits, rival candidate Jon Huntsman has had even more fun gigging Perry’s statements on evolution, climate change, and secession.
But in between their snickering and sneering, critics would do well to get serious about dealing with Perry. The governor may come across as a rodeo clown, but when it comes to campaigning, he has a long, proud—and undefeated—history of political savvy, respect for experts, and an awesome ability to stay on message.
Among Perry’s key assets is a loyal, long-serving campaign team widely admired, and even feared, across the Lone Star State. Led by veteran New Hampshire operative Dave Carney, Team Perry is shrewd, flexible, ruthless, and—ironically, considering the gov’s fire-aim-ready rep—obsessed with hard data and the science of campaigning. (For details, check out Sasha Issenberg’s new book, Rick Perry and His Eggheads.)
“This is a team that does not go with gut instinct or seat of the pants,” stresses Mike Baselice, who has been Perry’s pollster for more than two decades. “It’s empirical-research driven.”
Carney in particular is “a guy driven by numbers and driven by data in a profession of people driven by instincts,” notes a Republican consultant with close ties to the governor. As a result, he says, the team “understands how to spend campaign resources and where to spend them.”
Despite years in the business—Carney was a special assistant to Bush 41 and a top consultant to Bob Dole’s 1996 White House run—Perry’s key strategist doesn’t accept even the most basic campaign conventional wisdom on faith. “Just because something has been done a certain way before doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be done again,” says Perry veteran and campaign spokesman Mike Miner.
Case in point: in 2006, after reading the wonky Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, Carney called up the book’s Yale-prof coauthors, along with a couple of other poli-sci academics, and invited the lot of them down to study Perry’s 2006 race and determine what gets people to the polls. Among the group’s notable findings: grassroots organizing is well worth the money, TV spots pack a short-term punch, robo-calls and yard signs are pretty much useless, and newspaper endorsements are actually a net negative, at least for Texas Republicans.
“We found out that, by a 6 to 1 margin, Republican primary voters are less likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by their metropolitan newspaper,” marvels Baselice.
Armed with its findings, Team Perry was ready and raring to stomp Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 gubernatorial primary.
Of course, no amount of research will save you if your candidate is a disaster. But here again, Perry is not the half-cocked yahoo his critics assume. Oh, sure, the governor has a mouth on him and is prone to colorful gaffes—such as chalking up the BP oil spill to “just an act of God.” But Texas political watchers from across the spectrum have stressed to me over the years that, come crunch time, Perry buckles down and stays relentlessly on message. And his campaign team works hard to ensure that message is neither too broad, too cluttered, nor too complicated.
“A good messenger understands the landscape and focuses on the one or two things that voters are focused on and care about,” observes the Republican consultant.
It takes time and repetition to “burn in” a message, agrees Baselice, assuring me that, as Perry gears up, “there won’t be a new message every other day.”
Equally important, because the core team has been together so long (Baselice first worked with Perry in 1990, Carney and communications chief Ray Sullivan signed on in 1998, and media guy Dave Weeks has been with him since the mid-’80s, when both were still Democrats), Perry trusts his people enough to get out of their way. “There are candidates out there who like to design their own direct-mail pieces,” chuckles Baselice. Perry, he says, is more of the mind, “That’s your job. I need to go out and meet the voters.”
Notes the loyalist, “This is a team that knows what Perry wants and knows how to get him where he wants to be.”
When need be, that path plows straight into the mud. Like his boss, Carney has a reputation for playing hardball. During Perry’s 2002 race against Democrat Tony Sanchez, the campaign ran ads vaguely linking Sanchez to Mexican drug traffickers who had been caught laundering money through his bank. The thinly veiled racism of the message was heavily criticized—and devastatingly effective.
Now and again, Carney dances right up to the legal line. In a recent profile of the strategist, the Texas Observer details, among other incidents, Carney’s run-in with the Federal Election Commission over his 2004 efforts to get Ralph Nader on the New Hampshire presidential ballot with an eye toward siphoning votes from Democrat John Kerry. Damning reports were issued but no criminal charges filed, and the case was ultimately dismissed.
Now Team Perry will need to bring its A game, and then some. The road to the Republican nomination—not to mention the White House—is far longer and winds through vastly different terrain than anywhere Perry has traveled thus far. And the governor’s cowboy charisma ultimately may not serve him well (or well enough) among the broader Republican electorate.
But these are wild, unpredictable political times. And as Miner gleefully notes, “People continually underestimate him—and those people are home watching reruns of Miami Vice now.”
Watch out, Time Warner. Apple may be poised to remake the television industry just as it did the music industry
It's long been rumored that Apple will make deeper inroads into the television industry than it has already with iTunes and Apple TV — Steve Jobs once described the latter as a mere "hobby" project. Now, with Jobs out as CEO, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple may launch a subscription television service. (As with many Apple rumors, details on such a subscription TV service remain vague.) With the cable industry struggling to compete with internet offerings, could Apple be the one to kill cable TV the way it transformed the music industry?
Apple could crush cable: The tech giant may very well "kill the cable box like it killed the music CD," says Mike Elgan at Computerworld. Apple often replaces "old-and-busted content-consumption products and services with new-hotness Apple solutions." The cable industry is certainly busted, just as the old music model was. Apple TV and iTunes already provide a great user experience. Apple just needs to cut deals with TV studios to offer a more affordable subscription service instead of just hawking episodes a la carte.
"Elgan: How Apple will kill cable TV"
Looking gaunt and frail, this is Steve Jobs seen for the first time since his surprise departure from Apple last week.
This picture, taken outside the technology mogul’s California home, fuelled fears that Jobs was nearing the end in his eight-year battle with pancreatic cancer.
The 56-year-old Apple founder looked even thinner than he did during his last public appearance two months ago.
Jobs, who founded Apple in his garage in 1976, seemed almost too weak to hold himself up as he prepared to get into a waiting car in Palo Alto, northern California.
He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt, black shorts and sandals instead of his familiar turtleneck and jeans for the trip to nearby San Francisco, the city where he was born.
Jobs made no direct reference to his health problems in his letter of resignation to the Apple board last week.
He wrote only that he had always said he would step down as CEO if he felt he could no longer do the job to his high standards.
A steady stream of flowers and gifts have arrived since the announcement at the house where he has mostly remained behind closed doors with his wife and four children.
Jobs had surgery to remove a tumour after being diagnosed with a rare type of pancreatic cancer in 2003 and had a liver transplant two years ago in a further attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.
Although Apple shares took a 5 per cent hit after Mr Jobs stepped down, market fears were allayed because he was staying on as chairman.
A personal trainer's tips on workouts you can do at home
Sarah Hewitt, a strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer, says there are many activities you could do to help reach your 15 minutes of exercise a day.
Take the stairs instead of…
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--China leads growth in sales, traffic and pollution, as hopes falter that it might pioneer a shift to hybrid and electric vehicles
I am starting this post snared in traffic on Beijing's third ring road, breathing exhaust fumes and taking it on faith…
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--Climate change protests could be drowned out by the clamour against plans to curb pollution generated by big companies
Among the indigenous peoples of islands that few have heard of in the Torres Strait, off the north-eastern tip of Australia, there…
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--Malaysia didn't want me to enter the country to gather evidence about how ethnic Indians were treated by colonial Britain
In the Hollywood film The Terminal Tom Hanks plays (with obligatory mangled foreign accent) a character who is trapped in New…
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--Relations between Israel and post-revolution Egypt are proving tetchy – but ordinary people hold the keys to peace
It has been a tense week in Egyptian-Israeli relations. It all started when unknown assailants crossed from Sinai to carry out a…
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--Climate change protests could be drowned out by the clamour against plans to curb pollution generated by big companies
Among the indigenous peoples of islands that few have heard of in the Torres Strait, off the north-eastern tip of Australia, there…
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--Listerine maker is alleged by Oral Cancer Prevention International to have blocked sales of disease detection kit
A company that makes an oral cancer detection kit has launched a $60m lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, claiming that the…
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--Trials show that people who think they've done something healthy, even if they haven't, smoke more and believe they are invulnerable to diseases
We all have irrational fears – flying is plainly scarier than getting in a car – and we all have odd…
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--Friday is Women's Equality Day in the US, yet routine street harassment blocks that goal for many women. But we can act
A man dubbed the "Upper East Side Groper" allegedly groped at least a dozen women in Manhattan before getting caught earlier this…
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--Met police spokesman says London residents are concerned over deaths of three men after police used Taser or pepper spray
The recent spate of deaths following incidents involving police has stoked tensions among London communities ahead of the…
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