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Archives for February 2017

by Catherine Read

In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi – Exploring Gender Identity

In the Darkroom Susan Faludi(Feb. 2017) This book is so many things. At its most basic, In the Darkroom is an exploration of identity. It’s also an intimate account of a daughter’s reconnection to her parent after decades of estrangement. That reconnection came in the form of an email from her father Steven Faludi that was signed, “Love from your parent, Stefánie.” The email announced that at the age of 76, her father had undergone sex reassignment surgery in Thailand and was now a woman.

I have more than a passing understanding of the multifaceted aspects of gender identity. And yet . . . Susan Faludi takes the question of identity to a whole new level and shows the many layers and overlapping aspects of how we see ourselves. Gender is only one of those facets that creates our sense of self. And she explores how gender can also be conflated with other aspects of identity, like Jewishness.

Faludi is a researcher, writer and journalist and a well known feminist too. Yet, I was not familiar with any of her other books or articles before reading this one. She gives a thoroughly researched account of the science and psychology around the work of early “sexologists.” In 1919 in Berlin, [Magnus] Hirschfeld established the world’s first institute to study sexuality, which issued one of the earliest scientific reports on transsexual surgery.

Yet Hirschfeld espoused an ethic directly at odds with the dualism that would come to prevail in the United States later in the century. “The number of actual and imaginable sexual varieties is almost unending,” Hirschfeld wrote in 1910. “In each person there is a different mixture of manly and womanly substances, and as we cannot find two leaves alike on a tree, then it is highly unlikely that we will find two humans whose manly and womanly characteristics equally match in kind and number.”

And there we have it in 1910 – the concept that gender is on a spectrum and is not just a binary.

There is also a fascinating chapter on how feminism and feminists have dealt with the question of transgender women. That has been quite an evolution and she pulls from many published works to show just how varied and passionate the views are among transwomen themselves.

This book also provides a fascinating history of Hungary. While that was most unexpected, I enjoyed learning the history of this country through the story of her father’s life and his family’s history there. It is the most personal of journeys through a country’s long and fraught existence and it comes to life through the impact it had on individuals whose stories emerge through Susan’s relentless pursuit of surviving family members.Read More

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books, Women Tagged With: Feminism, Holocaust, Hungary, Identity, Sex Reassignment Surgery, Susan Faludi, transgender

by Catherine Read

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

Rise of the Robots- Martin Ford(Feb. 2017) I will never hear the phrase “jobs and the economy” again without thinking of this book. The steady advancement of technology into every aspect of our lives is slowly replacing much of our current labor force. There is no politician, no public policy, no regulatory voodoo or tax magic that is going “bring back jobs.” We need to stop believing that just because someone stands up and speaks those words that somehow they will be true.

Here’s the truth: In a free market economy where technology continues to replace human labor, we cannot add jobs fast enough for the ones being eliminated. We continue to add people to the workforce but the jobs are literally disappearing.

Technology can perform routine tasks faster, more reliably and at less expense than human labor. The recession revealed this painful fact when huge numbers of white collar workers were laid off and never rehired. In the aftermath of the recession, companies have bounced back with greater earnings than before and with a SMALLER WORKFORCE. The job growth in communities across the country has been mostly in low wage service sectors.

Martin Ford puts together the data in a compelling and very readable format.

The bottom line is that, despite all the rhetoric about “job creators,” rational business owners do not want to hire more workers: they hire people only because they have to. The progression toward ever more automation is not an artifact of “design philosophy” or the personal preferences of engineers: it is fundamentally driven by capitalism. The “rise of ‘technology-centered automation'” that Carr worries about took place at least two hundred years ago and the Luddites were unhappy about it. The only difference today is that exponential progress is now pushing us toward the endgame. For any rational business, the adoption of labor-saving technology will almost invariably prove to be irresistible. Changing that would require far more than an appeal to engineers and designers: it would require modifying the basic incentives built into the market economy.

Continuing to replace people with technology produces a whole host of related issues. Goods and services might end up being cheaper to produce, but who will buy them? Creating communities of people barely able to subsist will not feed a huge American economy that depends on consumer spending.

And what about our current system of taxation based on individual income? . . . we ought to transition to a form of taxation that asks more from those businesses that rely heavily on technology and employ relatively few workers. We eventually will have to move away from the idea that workers support retirees and pay for social programs, and instead adopt the premise that our overall economy supports these things. Economic growth, after all, has significantly outpaced the rate at which new jobs have been created and wages have been rising.Read More

Filed Under: Blogging, Entrepreneurship, Good Books, New Ideas, Political Tagged With: Artificial Intelligence, Automation, job creation, Martin Ford, Technology, US economy

by Catherine Read

Virginia’s Fight for Non-Partisan Redistricting – Inside Scoop

(Feb. 13) Catherine Read talks with Olga Hernandez of the League of Women Voters in Fairfax, VA. Olga was previously president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia and has been deeply involved in the fight for non-partisan redistricting for decades. The LWV is currently working in collaboration with the non-profit OneVirginia2021 to educate the voting public about the issue of “gerrymandering” – the process by which the legislature draws district lines to pack voters into districts that ensure incumbents keep their seats year after year. The drawing of district lines happens every 10 years following the U.S. Census, which provides the population data that is the primary criteria for creating the districts. The next redrawing in Virginia will be in the year 2021 – which will coincide with a Governor’s race and the re-election of all 100 House of Delegate seats.

In 2015, the last election where all 100 House of Delegates seats were up for re-election, $45 million dollars was spent in Virginia and nothing changed. Every single incumbent was re-elected to office and many seats went uncontested all together. Brian Cannon, Executive Director of OneVirginia2021, is leading the fight to bring attention to the issue. A recently released documentary entitled “GerryRIGGED” is being shown around the Commonwealth of Virginia. Olga Hernandez has organized three showings on Thursday, Feb. 23rd – one at the Greenspring Retirement Community in Springfield, and two sold out showings at Cinema Arts in Fairfax City. The documentary is available on DVD and organizations around the state have an opportunity to bring this issue to the public.

The documentary “GerryRIGGED” interviews legislators and elected officials from both political parties. Democrats and Republicans have both contributed to this untenable state of affairs in Virginia and the practice goes all the way back to Patrick Henry who promoted redrawing a district line in order to block the political ascension of James Madison.

Delegate Ken Plum has introduced legislation in the House of Delegates every year since 1982 (when Democrats controlled the House) and every year such bills have been defeated.  In recent years, bills on non-partisan redistricting have been passed out of the Senate only to be killed in subcommittee hearings in the House. Three bills passed out of the Senate this month sponsored by Senators in both parties, including SJ 290 sponsored by Senator Janet Howell (D) and Senator Jill Vogel (R). Those bills were killed by a vote of 5-2 at an Election subcommittee hearing held at 7 am on Feb. 14th, despite the testimony of the sponsoring Senators. Senator Jill Vogel made her case at a press conference the day before, but to no avail.

GerryRigged Virginia
Congressional Races in Virginia 2012

The mission of OneVirginia2021 is to “advocate for the adoption of an amendment to the Virginia Constitution that will establish an independent, impartial commission to apply a fair and transparent process in drawing political districts after the 2020 census.”

While the efforts to amend our state constitution is a long slow process, OneVirginia2021 is also pursuing relief through the courts. There is a case pending that is asking the court to hold the legislature to the standard currently set by the Virginia Constitution which clearly states that “Every electoral district shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory . . .”  Follow updates to that case at http://www.onevirginia2021.org/compact/

Non-Partisan redistricting is a goal we must strive to reach if Virginians want better government. The hyper-partisanship and political gridlock threatens our ability to create good public policy. It’s not the biggest problem we need to solve, but it’s the first problem we need to solve in order to solve all the other ones.

The League of Women Voters continues to work on the issue of bringing non-partisan redistricting to Virginia. Organizations across the Commonwealth are reaching out to OneVirginia2021 to help educate voters about the impact of gerrymandering on good government.

For more information or to obtain the documentary GerryRIGGED email [email protected] and follow them on Twitter at @1VA2021.

Filed Under: Blogging, Inside Scoop, Political, TV Shows, Virginia Tagged With: Brian Cannon, Gerrymandering, GerryRIGGED, House of Delegates, Janet Howell, Jill Vogel, Ken Plum, League of Women Voters, Non-Partisan Redistricting, Olga Hernandez, OneVirginia2021, Virginia

by Catherine Read

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

Walkable City Jeff SpeckMost significantly, generalists—such as planners and, one hopes, mayors—ask the big-picture questions that are so often forgotten among the day-to-day shuffle of city governance. Questions like: What kind of city will help us thrive economically? What kind of city will keep our citizens not just safe, but healthy? What kind of city will be sustainable for generations to come? These three issues—wealth, health, and sustainability—are, not coincidentally, the three principal arguments for making our cities more walkable.

This is an engaging and readable book written by Jeff Speck of Washington, DC. I was captivated by the very first page and read all the way through to the annotated footnotes (which are quite interesting.)

Since I live in a small city, located in the middle of a huge county, next to our Nation’s Capital, this is not an academic exercise. We are in the midst of making decisions about redevelopment and roads that will impact Fairfax City for the next 50 years. If a project turns out to be ill conceived or poorly executed, we will still be stuck with it for decades.

The most striking aspect of this book is how “counter-intuitive” Speck’s advice appears to be. In other words, we tend to accept what I would term “commonly held notions” about traffic, roads, parking, economic development, housing and public transportation. SURPRISE! Just because a lot of people believe something to be true, doesn’t make it true. It just makes it something a lot of people believe.

So let’s try some data analysis, case studies, some actual . . . science.

One of my favorite “aha” moments is about Induced Demand.

Induced demand is the name for what happens when increasing the supply of roadways lowers the time cost of driving, causing more people to drive and obliterating any reductions in congestion.

Speck points out that “there have been so many incentives for driving, cars have behaved like water, flowing into every nook and cranny where they have been allowed.” So our quest to widen roads and reduce congestion only creates capacity for more congestion. Logical – right? So why do we continue to build more roads to try to “ease congestion” when the data shows it just creates more?Read More

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books, Political, Virginia Tagged With: Fairfax City, Jeff Speck, parking, sidewalks, Transportation, Urban Planning, Walkability, Walkable City

by Catherine Read

Center to Champion Nursing in America – Inside Scoop

(Feb. 6, 2017) Catherine Read interviews Winifred V. Quinn, PhD, Director of Advocacy & Consumer Affairs for the Center to Champion Nursing in America. The CCNA is a collaborative effort of the AARP Foundation, AARP and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Quinn talks about the hurdles facing Certified Nurse Practitioners (CNPs) in providing healthcare services in each of the 50 states. Requirements differ from state to state as far as physician oversight/collaboration with CNPs in the services they deliver to patients. States with rural populations have been the first to remove barriers to nurses providing services “to the full extent of their education and training.” More recently, the Veterans Administration has created a policy that allows nurses to provide services to the full extent of their education and training through VA facilities regardless of restrictions in place within individual states.

In the second segment, Catherine is joined by Andrea Brassard, PhD, RN, and Senior Strategic Policy Advisor to the Center to Champion Nursing in America. Dr. Brassard still engages in providing clinical nursing services on a limited basis in addition to assisting in CCNA’s policy creation. She brings a unique perspective to the benefits and challenges of allowing Certified Nurse Practitioners (CNPs) and Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) to provide a full spectrum of healthcare services for which they have been trained. She points out that Nursing is consistently ranked as the No. 1 “Most Trusted Profession” in the United States and speaks to the varied skills nurses bring to their profession.

David DeBiasi, Associate State Director of AARP Virginia, joins Catherine in the third segment to talk about how the Affordable Care Act influenced modifications to the physician oversight requirement of Certified Nurse Practitioners here in Virginia. Instead of moving forward, Virginia’s policy moved “sideways.” The tweak to the policy has not allowed CNPs to practice to the “full extent of their education and training” and the resulting consultative/collaborative model has created a business model that doesn’t work for CNPs. While CNPs are required to collaborate with a physician in delivery of healthcare services through file reviews, physicians are not required to collaborate with CNPs. This has created instability in these relationships that undermines the creation of a viable business model.

Ultimately, the delivery of healthcare services in areas where there is a shortage of General Practitioner Physicians relies on removing barriers to nurses practicing to the “full extent of their education and training.” This realization that friction points are impacting the delivery of healthcare services have spurred states across the country to develop and pass less restrictive policies. Virginia currently does not have pending legislation in the 2017 Legislative Session. Going forward, it’s in the best interest of the public to understand these issues and why it’s important to advocate for nurses who will ultimately provide the bulk of the care for an aging American population.

Nursing is increasingly moving from clinical settings to community settings. Baby Boomers started Center to Champion Nursing in Americahitting 65 in 2011 and will continue to hit that benchmark in enormous numbers through 2026. These are savvy consumers who fully expect to “age in place” in their homes and not in institutions. Quality of care for this growing population of Americans hinges on less restrictive policies for CNPs and APRNs and supporting healthcare models that are financially feasible for nurses to deliver healthcare in a variety of settings that meet the consumer’s needs.

Filed Under: Blogging, Inside Scoop, Political, TV Shows, Virginia, Women Tagged With: AARP, Andrea Brassard, APRN, CNP, David DeBiasi, Healthcare, Nursing, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Virginia, Winifred Quinn

by Catherine Read

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

(Feb. 2017) I loved spending time with Michael Eric Dyson – in my car and in my kitchen. Hearing him read his own words felt very intimate to me.

He subtitles this book a sermon but I felt it was a conversation. I was not being lectured to or preached at. He refers to the listener often as “beloved” and that moniker felt genuine to me. His purpose in reaching out to us is to draw us in to see a world we may not understand.

My first thought after finishing this book is that ignorance is a choice. People walk among us harboring prejudice and biases because they have chosen not to know the world – not because anyone is preventing them from knowing the world.

I would highly recommend this audiobook. The fact that “sermon” is in the title might put a lot of people off, but don’t be put off.

The thought of spending what precious years I have on this earth living an unexamined life is anathema to me. It also perpetuates beyond my lifetime the institutional racism and sexism that plagues our country. That is not the legacy I want to leave behind for my children and grandchildren.

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to see this book chosen by bookclubs across America as a work they want to read and discuss? It’s necessary to change people’s hearts before you change their minds. Michael Eric Dyson approaches his subject that way and his words are very compelling.

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Books, Political Tagged With: Black Lives Matter, Eric Michael Dyson, racism, White Privilege

Catherine S. Read
I believe in the power of community and the ability of one person to make a difference.

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