Idaho Senator in opposition to further extension of federal unemployment

Roger Madsen the Director of the Idaho Department of Labor sent a letter to Senator Crapo in opposition of the further extension of the federal unemployment benefits on Nov.7 for Thursday’s US Senate Finance committee hearing concerning unemployment. 

Idaho received federal funding as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the Stimulus Act.  Out of the $787 billion act $40 billion was to extend unemployment benefits and increase the benefits by $25 a week.  The leftover funds would be plugged into the current state economy in hopes of saving nearly 1000 Idaho jobs. 

“I am deeply concerned about all Idahoans, especially those who are unemployed.  Our local office employees are doing everything in their power daily to help these people find work,” said Madsen.

$750 million in the federal extended benefits have gone to 20% of the labor force.

In his letter Madsen referred to the unemployment insurance program the most successful social program since its inception but expressed his concern that continuing the extension would deter many from going back to work. He also added that in continuing to accept so much federal funding for the unemployment program was only adding to the country debt deficit, calling the money “borrowed dollars”.

Madsen said, “If we want to give our Idaho businesses the confidence they need to increase hiring, action needs to be taken to reduce the national deficit, and unemployment insurance extensions must come to an end.”

“We won’t let those who are unable to find work through no fault of their own suffer, but Congress would do well to listen to the Idaho delegation’s legitimate concerns about spending money they don’t have,” said Governor Otter in a 2010 press release.  

Gov. Otter continued to explain, “Congress is ruining a great worker-and-employer-funded program by turning it into another open-ended federal entitlement for which Idaho taxpayers are on the hook. Our jobless Idahoans should at least get the benefits.”

In May of 2011 in a news release Governor Butch Otter discussed his Hire One program stating that Idaho businesses that were hiring Idaho workers and therefore improving the economy would receive a tax benefit.

This seemed like a step forward to decrease the almost 10% unemployment rate. 

Accusations that ballot box stuffing shaped the outcome of Russia Elections

In the largest opposition protest Russia has seen in years, people gather to protest the election fraud in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his party are accused of rigging the parlimentary election this weekend.

Estimates have placed the number of protesters as high as 10,000.  The cries of "Russia without Putin" pierce through the air.

 300 protesters were detained to stop them from marching in addition to the estimated 200 arrests.  

Putin's party United Russia won about 50% of the votes, but most are claiming this is due to ballot box stuffing and other forms of election fraud.  Regardless after twelve years the public is sending Putin a message of their weariness of his control of the government.

He first rose to power as acting President in 1999 when President Boris Yeltsin resigned.  He was then elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004 drawing out his career as President until May 2008. He then became Prime Minister and has remained so until now.  If he continues to stay in power for the two next elections he will have done so for a quarter of a century. 

Interestingly enough the only independent election monitoring group called Golos, was disabled on Sunday the day of elections by hackers.  Its director and her assistant's cellphones, social media and email accounts were all hacked as well on the day of elections. Golos is funded by US and European grants.

Planet similiar to earth confirmed

The popularity of imaginings of things with green heads, of life in far off universes, or travel at light speed is evident in our pop-culture and media. A new planet showing signs of similarity with our own planet has recently been confirmed, the planet Kepler 22-b.

So far it is the closet planet to earth with so many similarities.   This planet is also in range of a star similar to our own.  Through the Kepler telescope a team of astronomers have been able to identify about 2,326 possibly earth-like planets.  Over the holidays Kepler 22-b was confirmed as an earth-like candidate.


Kepler b-22 is about 15% closer to its sun making its year shorter at 290 days.  The star's light however is around 25% less than our own, leaving the planet at a mild 22 degrees Celsius.

The team expects to identify many more earth-like candidates in the future. 

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Margaret Bourke White Image

This photograph was taken in the 1950's of an Arab Muslim woman begging on the streets.  Women were not permitted to speak loudly on the streets so she is holding a sign that she is a widow with children. 

Women in the Middle East have long suffered at the bottom of the totem pole of society in these cultures where men are superior. 

In the book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini the reader is allowed access and insight into this complicated society and its age old traditions. 

What is perhaps most fascinating is that book offers a very non biased glimpse of how each separate government has affected these people, especially women.  For instance it was under the communist government that the female characters, representing the female race of that time, was allowed the most freedom at least in the major cities.  The character Laila grew up under communism which enabled her to go to school, as a child experience similar rights of the boys her same age, to see other women holding jobs, going to college and many other freedoms that are later torn from her grasp under the other various governments.

Hosseini follows the life of Miriam, a child born out of wedlock, whose mother dies and who is  given away to be married by a seeminly unlovving father.  Miriam's marriage does not seem so bad at first especially to one raised in such a harsh environment as a child but things soon begin to change.  A little girl named Laila who lives across the street grows up under much different circumstances.  She begins her life with freedoms, she goes to school, she a childhood friend Tarik, and they eventually fall in love.  In a sad turn of events Laila and Miriam both are married to the same abusive hateful husband.  It becomes the story of their survival through domestic abuse, warfare, a country falling apart, and a complete lack of basic women's rights.

A moment of introspection and perhaps critical thinking of my own country was that the US funded the gun-power and helped to get rid of the Communists when in fact by comparison they were the far better government to live under at least for women. 

This novel tells the story of womanhood, friendship, human rights, and family.  It allows a simple and realistic and dare I say it, unbiased glimpse at some of the reasons behind the current state of the Middle East and the harsh unforgiving life women face there.  But not only does it provide readers with a glimpse of the state of affairs but Hosseini puts a human face, a woman's face, on the current events in the Middle East.   





Some Women's rights happenings:

• woman driver receives lashes
• Saudi Arabia Women's suffrage 
• Saudi Arabia Women's right to vote 

Americans in support of sweatshops?

Americans are often accused of being obsessed with rugged individualism.  As a nation we pride ourselves on independence, freedom, and capitalism.  We find ourselves in a nation where the pursuit of happiness is our god given right. 

Perhaps this is why the media seems to be constantly engulfed with cries of injustice.  It seems to have become a game of who cried wolf.  The perhaps overused cliche that "you have to pick your battles" has become my rule.  

For a developing worlds class I'm taking this semester I watched the 2005 PBS documentary China Blue.  It features 17 year old Jasmine, a worker in a jeans factory in China.  She quits school and leaves her home in the rural Sichuan province of China to go to work in one of the big factory. This documentary begins with her journey to the city in search of work.  She finds a post as a thread cutter at the Lifeng factory making denim jeans. 


Jasmine and her other friends, all teenagers some as young as 14 years old live in a small concrete apartment. They have sheets that covers their beds.  They have faucets where they get water and do their laundry by hand.  And although these living conditions aren't desirable by any means they seem doable. But this is just the beginning. 

Jasmine and the girls are forced to consistently work 17 hour shifts with only a couple hours of sleep before the next shift. Often the boss delays the wages saying that he cannot pay them yet.  He talks about how all the workers want is to steal from him and complains of their unfair demands. Jasmine doesn't even get paid in time, or enough to be able to go home for one day that year.  Often they have to pin their eyes open with clothes pins late into the night.  The foreign companies they make the jeans for notify the factories when they come to inspect and the workers are forced to lie about wages, breaks, and working conditions. 

Its disgusting.  Here is a 17 year old girl who should be in school gaining an education that will shape the rest of her life instead she is forced to work to all day and late into the night and yet is not payed enough to pay for medication when she falls ill. 

One of the companies mentioned that outsources to factories in China was Levi's.  According to the Wall Street Journal in 1993 the company after learning of the despicable working conditions that Chinese laborers were being forced to endure supposedly withdrew their business in light of the "pervasive violation of human rights."  (Levi's Faced Earlier Challenge in China)

Yet five years later Levi's announced that would return to China, and then in a 2005 documentary their brand is mentioned as one of the companies supporting these anti-human rights factories where it is obvious that little positive change has occurred in the working conditions, even regarding teenagers?

An article in the Los Angeles Times in 1998 even stated, "Levi Strauss never stopped making clothes in China; its Hong Kong subsidiary continues to manufacture clothes on a contract basis at plants in neighboring Guangdong Province." (Has Levi Strauss Sold Out in China?)

China Blue reveals that the conditions remain unchanged. Big name companies such as Guess?, Levi Strauss & Co, The Limited, Inc. , Tommy Hilfiger, and Wal-mart still continue to use sweatshop to crank out profits, mean while foreign and domestic laborers living in poverty and often children, are forced to pay the price.

Occupy what street

Many mainstream news stations are making a joke of the Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread like fire from New York City across the nation and even the globe.

A protester in Boise, Idaho carried a sign that said, "The only trickle down we're going to get is this rain," as they braved the downpour in October.  They cry that they are the 99%.  They claim to be protesting corruption on Wall Street and the power the banks hold over the government. 

The stereotypical protestors are hippie's who haven't done anything with their lives to begin with. They're causing rackets with their drum circles and supposedly increasing violence in the surrounding areas.Which is somewhat ironic in light of all the accusations of police brutality.

marine hit in the head by police
police throw grenade into crowd trying to help injured protester

Their approach is certainly debatable as their demands all over the board. It's easy to see why they're not being taken seriously.  They are the unemployed.  They are seen as being extremists and or hippies.

But at the same time at least they are trying to make a difference. So many people believe our government has fallen into a state of disrepair due to corruption and debt and yet nothing is being done.  These people at least want change bad enough they are willing to take action.  

scary blogs

So for my Communications 240 class, a journalism class, we have to keep a blog throughout the semester on news related events.  Blogs are scary and foreign things to me.

When I think of blogs I think of cynical intelligent people ranting their daily spouts on the current events of the world.  Then there's the cutesy blogs about their wonderful lives with lots of pretty pictures, usually involving traveling and beautiful places.

So me being the not genius type poor college student going to school in Eastern Idaho I feel that the only option left to me is the woe me journal which is the scariest of all blogs.  Needless to say this must be avoided at all costs.  So although I feel i may like I'm walking on ice i want a good grade.

The whole blog thing in general is newsworthy. It dives into that whole social media issue in a world where anyone can be an author where there is no screening process to deliver your message to society.  I feel like a somewhat traditional person in that this makes me a bit weary but i can see the light.  It opens everything up.  

So now to find somewhat interesting things to write about...