PRI: Public Radio International

Grassroots movement afoot in Canada to raise taxes on top earners

PRI's The World — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:52:00 -0500

Meet Dr. Michael Rachlis. He wants to give more of his money to the Canadian government.

“I think that we feel as higher income earners, that we want to live in a society, which is more equal, which is healthier, and we’re prepared to pay for it.”

Rachlis recently started the organization Doctors for Fair Taxation. He’s part of a growing tax revolt going on in Canada. People there want to pay higher taxes.

Rachlis doesn’t like the rising inequality he’s seeing in Canada. He blames it partly on tax rates that have been cut dramatically over the past three decades. Rachlis points to research that shows that more economically equal societies are healthier societies.

“So, I’m prepared to pay more taxes to live in a higher quality society, and of course I always have to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, the esteemed U.S. Supreme (Court) Justice, who said that he didn’t mind paying taxes because he thought he was purchasing civilization,” Rachlis said.

Rachlis is calling for a modest tax increase for the top 10 percent of wage earners. He isn’t a lone voice crying into the Canadian wind. In Ottawa, progressives recently came together for a two-day “Fair Tax Summit.”

Speakers uttered phrases like “paying taxes being a noble enterprise.” There was lots of griping about how tax cuts have disproportionately befitted the top 1 percent of Canadians, and about the impact tax cuts have had on Canadian infrastructure and education.

Of course there are plenty of people in the United States also calling for higher taxes, especially on the wealthy, like Warren Buffett.

But in Canada, this idea seems to be gaining broader support. A recent poll found 64 percent of Canadians would be willing to pay “slightly higher taxes” to protect social programs. In the U.S., polls consistently show about 2 to 5 percent of Americans think they pay less than their fair share.

So how do two cultures, living side by side, come to view taxes so differently?

“There is a sense that in Canada, we’re comfortable with government, it’s something that we need to have in our lives, and something that we are willing to pay for,” said Michael Smart, an economist at the University of Toronto.

He says the average American and average Canadian now pay about the same in income tax. That varies, though, based on where you live and your marginal tax bracket. But Smart says the differing attitudes about paying those taxes can be tracked back to the origins of the two nations.

“As many people know, the United States was founded pretty much on a principle of not wanting to pay taxes to their overlords," Smart said. "Canada’s story is very different. In fact, our origin myth is that we were founded by the people who didn’t want to stay in the United States, who were loyal to the British crown and came here. And I think that idea has stayed in our culture and in our politics.”

Now, before you start to think all Canadians live to be taxed, let’s take a step back.

“I don’t think it’s at all clear that they (Canadians) do like paying taxes anymore than anyone else,” said Finn Poschmann, vice president of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, a conservative think tank in Toronto. “It’s a fairly routine finding in surveys, that if you can ask people if the government should finance something that they believe is good, that they will say, yes, the government should finance it.”

For example, if you ask people if they support education or healthcare, of course they’ll say yes, argues Poschmann. But if you ask people if they're willing to pay higher taxes, Poschmann says you’ll get a different result.

Poschmann says there are plenty of Canadians who want lower taxes. But he says the Canadian system of government requires more compromise, so anti-tax crusaders in Canada are much more moderate and muted than in the United States.

“Nothing like the salience of the anti-tax movement in the U.S. represented by the Tea Party movement," Poschmann said.

Many people in Canada, from all political stripes, were intrigued by the Tea Party.

“I think as Canadians, we view it with a little bit of horror and a kind of voyeuristic fascination in some ways, because it is pretty foreign to our experience,” said Shelia Block, an economist with the Wellesley Institute, a progressive think tank. She’s thinks Canadians are under-taxed.

The challenge for progressives is how to get the word out.

This advertisement comes from the group “Make Poverty History.” It’s promoting what it calls “The Robin Hood Tax” in Canada. Their proposal: Tax the banks.

Several groups are now running pro-tax ads in Canada. Rachlis is encouraged by what he’s seeing.

“It looks like in Ontario we’re going to have our first increase in personal income tax rates in 20 years and so the pendulum, it’s going to swing in the other direction in Canada,” he said. “I’m very happy. As we say, ‘Tax us, Canada is worth it.’”

Mongolian way of life threatened by dramatic climate change

PRI's The World — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Mongolia’s nomadic herders make up roughly half the country’s population, but their traditional lifestyle is seriously threatened by climate change.

In a broad green valley near Mongolia’s border with Siberia, two Mongolian girls tend shaggy yaks while their parents invite guests into their nearby ger—a traditional round felt tent.

Inside, the hosts offer tea in tiny cups, heavily salted and made with yak milk, boiled over a crackling fire. Next come chips of dried yak cheese.

Watch a video of the Festival of Games in Mongolia at TheWorld.org.

The couple, Hurelchuluun and Bayambaa, are nomadic herders. As is common here, they rarely use a last name. They’ve tended livestock in this part of Mongolia for about 20 years. Their guests are Clyde Goulden, a scientist from Drexel University in Philadelphia, and his Mongolian wife, Tuya.

Goulden has worked in Mongolia for about two decades, and for the last few years he’s been interviewing local herders. The meetings always follow the same basic pattern — first comes the tea, then the cheese, then pleasantries, then the questions. From his methods, you might think he’s an anthropologist. But he’s actually an ecologist.

He’d been studying Mongolian forests and grasslands when he noticed that his research site had warmed up dramatically. He soon learned that since the 1940s, Mongolia as a whole has warmed more than almost anywhere else on Earth—about 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Goulden wanted to know what this meant for the region’s nomads. So he began interviewing them.

As always, today’s visit continues with standardized questions, like “have the seasons changed?

Hurelchuluun and Bayambaa tell him that the weather has gotten much worse in recent years, especially with unusual sudden cold and hot spells.

“Sudden cold is causing the biggest problem,” Bayambaa said. “Extreme weather … is causing the death of animals.”

The couple also complains of changing rainfall patterns. Goulden says he hears this often — that instead of gentle, light rains that might last for two or three days, the region these days mostly gets short downpours. He says locals call these “rains that don’t wet.” Instead, the water runs off into creeks, leaving behind dry soil and poor grass.

The herders say this is a huge problem.

“If the grass is not growing well,” Hurelchuluun said, “then what the animals will eat? If the animals die, what’s the future for us?”

It’s a common lament, Goulden said. He says herders also complain it’s gotten harder to predict the weather. They used to be able to forecast and prepare for conditions by watching things like how smoke moved away from stoves pipes, what field mice stored away in autumn, or whether ibex moved to summits or valleys in winter.

But Goulden says these omens don’t work anymore.

“The weather has become much more unpredictable, so it’s much more difficult for them to anticipate what the next winter might be,” he said.

Despite the dismal news, today’s interview, as usual, ends on a festive note. The family invites the Americans to dinner, and offers them a local delicacy: stuffed yak intestine. Hurelchuluun breaks out his accordion, and his best vodka. They toast to friendship and long life, and sing into the night.

Goulden has had scores of such encounters. In a country with inadequate weather records and poor official information on the health of its crucial grasslands, herders have turned out to be a remarkable repository of information, about both regional climate change and how ecosystems are responding. He said they’ve noticed problems scientists had not predicted.

The interviews also illuminate the human side of the dramatic changes global warming is bringing to Mongolia.

“Almost every Mongolian can feel the impact of climate change in their daily lives,” said Erdenechuluun Zorigt, the environment adviser to Mongolia’s president.

Zorigt goes so far as to say that climate change threatens Mongolia’s future. Its potential impact on the ecology, economy and culture is that worrisome.

Such fears are shared by many Mongolian leaders. Nyamaa Enkhbold, vice chairman of the country’s Parliament, says that’s because climate-related changes are happening in Mongolia “perhaps more rapidly than any other place in the world.”

Among other things, Enkhbold says that 60 to 70 percent of Mongolian territory is already under threat of desertification. That’s bad news for the roughly half of the country’s people who still need healthy pastures to raise livestock. Enkbold says desertification could eventually wipe out Mongolia’s ancient nomadic lifestyle. Herders would have to flee the countryside, leaving behind their traditions and livelihood.

It’s already happening in Ulaanbaator, Mongolia’s only large city. The population is swelling with former nomads, whose white tents carpet hillsides around the capital. They leave herding for many reasons in this rapidly changing country, but changing weather patterns is a common theme.

It’s unlikely that this human flood will end. But ecologist Clyde Goulden hopes his research might help at least some herders find ways to adapt to their new conditions, and preserve their ancient nomadic traditions.

Jordan struggling as Syrian refugees stream across the border

PRI's The World — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:00:00 -0500

At an aid center in Ramtha on the northern Jordanian frontier, just across from Daraa, Syrian refugees line up for boxes of rice, sugar and tea. Daraa is where the 14-month Syrian uprising began.

Mohammed Ahmed Iyad of the aid group Kitab and Sunna, said the group is struggling to provide accommodation.

“Frankly, Ramtha is full to capacity,” he said. “There are very few available apartments now, so we must house three families together in one.”

Housing isn’t the only problem. Jordan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations refugee agency, are loathe to open up a new camp, even though one has already been set up. Jordan doesn’t want to further damage already strained ties with Syria, and the UN has said it’s hard to get people to move home once a camp is opened.

So for the moment, Jordan has opened its public schools to educate refugee children and its state hospitals to care for wounded and ill refugees.

But for one of the world’s ten driest countries, the real challenge is getting everyone enough water. The infrastructure can’t keep up with the need. Jordan can only pipe out water once a week to fill storage tanks on people’s roofs. If the power goes out or pumps are damaged, then not a drop flows. If you use up all the water in the tank before it’s refilled, you pay for a water truck to fill it back up. That’s something neither refugees nor poor Jordanians can afford to do.

Riyadh Farid runs a gas station and car wash in Amman. He said he never has enough water at work or at home.

“I always have to buy extra water from the water tankers. Water that comes from the government supplies is never enough. Of course with Syrian and Iraqi refugees flooding in and Gulf Arabs coming for their summer vacations, this only puts more pressure on our system,” Farid complained.

Faird alluded to another problem as well: the annual summer influx of tourists.

“Already there are huge traffic jams. We’re being invaded by Gulf Arabs even more so now with the problems in Syria, Egypt and Libya,” said taxi driver Hussein Nour Al-Abed.

Al-Abed spends his day driving the hilly streets of Amman and normally he likes nothing better. But he’s dreading this summer.

“They’re not going to those hot spots,” he said. “Our streets are clogged and rents are going through the roof. Just wait, food, drink and transportation prices are going to be hiked too.”

Hotel clerk Ahmed Najjar said it’s tough to see Arabs from the Gulf flinging money around when Arab refugees and impoverished Jordanians are suffering.

The UN refugee agency representative to Jordan, Andrew Harper said the international community must do a lot more to help Jordan and its people bear the burden.

“It’s easy for the international community to be talking big about Syria,” Harper said, “but what we actually need to see is a lot more support to the agencies working on the ground to provide protection and assistance to Syrians, but also to the Jordanian government and the communities.”

But Harper said given the worldwide interest in the Arab democracy movements over the past year, money to help refugees hasn’t materialized, especially in Jordan. The U.N. appeal to raise $84 million for Syrian refugees, for example, hasn’t been met in the two months since it was launched. And if money isn’t forthcoming, Jordanians and the Arabs they’re hosting are going to be facing an especially long, hot summer.

Whooping cough epidemic reported in Washington State

Here & Now — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:12:00 -0500

There's an epidemic of whooping cough under way in Washington State.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is usually prevented with a combination vaccine that children receive early in life. In fact, the last time Washington State saw this many cases of whooping cough was in the 1940s, before that vaccine was even available.

Public health officials say there is nearly 1,300 cases so far this year, more than 10 times last year’s numbers.

For more information about testing for and getting vaccinated against whooping cough, visit HereandNow.org.

Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, chief of Communicable Disease and Immunizations for King County, Wash., said a number of factors could be contributing to the uptick, including a change in the vaccine. A new vaccine was created in the 90s that minimized side effects, but appears to be effective for a shorter period of time, Duchin said.

"Lots of arm swelling, certain number of seizures," Duchin said of the old vaccine. "This vaccine was created to (produce) fewer side effects."

There's also whooping cough's cyclical nature. Periods of low risk will be followed by period of high risk, every three to five years, Duchin said.

"This year we're seeing one of the largest outbreaks in memory," he said.

But there's another factor as well.

“We do have a large number of people in Washington state who don’t immunize their children fully, and clearly that’s not helping the situation at all,” Duchin said.

According to a federal study of kindergarten-age children released last year, Washington State had the highest percentage of parents nationally who voluntarily exempted their children from receiving one or more vaccines, out of fear of side effects or for philosophical reasons.

"We know a large proportion of our cases are in unimmunized people," he said. "Older kids and adults sometimes aren't aware they're recommended to have a Tdap, or pertussis booster, so we have many unimmunized adults, many teens haven't yet gotten their vaccinations. So there are significant numbers of unimmunized people contributing to this as well."

Duchin said the situation certainly isn't so bad that if you were walking around Seattle that you'd actually notice the outbreak. And it's certainly not so bad people should avoid the state, Duchin said.

"But, the disease causes severe illness, hospitalization and even death in infants, and that's what we're most worried about," he said. "But in older children and adults, it causes prolonged cough illness that can be quite disruptive."

From a public health perspective, efforts are focused on preventing whooping cough from afflicting infants and children. They do that by trying to make sure anyone who comes into contact with infants and pregnant women has been vaccinated, that anyone who's sick knows to stay away from from infants and pregnant women, and that pregnant women get the vaccine as well.

"That vaccine will not only protect the newborn in the most vulnerable period in the first few months, but also will protect the mom from getting pertussis and spreading it to the baby when its an infant," Duchin said.

In addition to those factors, there's some concern that the pertussis bacteria may have changed over time, making it less susceptible to protection from the vaccine. It's unclear right now, Duchin said, and deserves further study.

Obama, Romney, trade barbs, seek to define the other in advance of election

The Takeaway — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:21:00 -0500

In a video documentary posted on the website RomneyEconomics.com, President Barack Obama's campaign team attacks Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital.

The ad paints a picture of Romney as a job killer, who put Americans out of work and "sucked the life out of [them]." As one person featured in the ad says, "it was like watching an old friend bleed to death."

RomneyEconomics.com is run by the Obama campaign and is meant to highlight stories that they think paint Romney's time at Bain in a negative light. A short-version of the video is expected to air on TV in five states as well.

In response, the Romney team has put out its own ad, hailing Romney as a job creator who can save struggling American cities.

Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich said this is an effort by the Obama campaign to define Romney, before Romney can define himself, and using a tactic developed by the campaign of Newt Gingrich.

"Remember Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a vulture capitalist, saying there's a difference between creating jobs and lifting people up, and just tearing people down," Zwillich said. "This is pretty much the same message coming from the Obama campaign."

But Romney counters with examples of companies that have excelled after Romney's company intervened. He cites Sports Authority, Staples and Domino's as exampled of how his venture capital firm helped other companies.

"There is another part of the Romney response to this that is going on this week in terms of defining Mitt Romney's opponent," Zwillich said. "The Romney campaign is going hard at the question of debt and spending this week, how the debt has increased under President Obama."

That's Romney's attempt to defining Obama, and create his own advantages. He's promoting that message in a speech in Des Moines.

Economic turmoil in Europe could be key that turns U.S. elections

The Takeaway — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:56:00 -0500

Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama may find themselves watching events unfold in Europe with a little uneasiness.

After all, Europe's political calendar may create the perfect economic storm, one that could blow across the Atlantic and decide who wins election in November to the next four-year term as President of the United States.

François Hollande is being inaugurated today after French voters rebuked incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy and his emphasis on austerity. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was dealt a stinging rebuke by voters over the weekend.

But all of this pales in comparison to the debacle Greek voters are facing. With no indication that a government can be formed based on the returns for this month's elections, the country is looking at calling new elections for June. The government, whenever its elected, will be expected to decide whether to stick to their promise of austerity or give it up, which will likely lead to loss of European bailout funds, loan default and ultimately, expulsion from the euro zone.

The ramifications of that decision might also extend all the way to the White House and present a nightmare for President Obama.

Justin Vaisse, senior fellow on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, explains that two different scenarios could both influence the November elections. For example, new figures out Tuesdays showed that while 11 European countries are already in recession, the euro zone itself managed a zero percent growth rate. Not good, but not recession. If Europe as a whole descends into recession, it could be trouble for the U.S. economy and, consequently, for Obama.

"More (nations) could join (the recession), especially if François Hollande and Angela Merkel don't find a way to stimulate growth in the next few weeks," Vaisse said. "A stronger recession in Europe would contaminate the U.S. economy by virtue of the very strong investment and trade links between the two sides of the Atlantic."

Vaisse points out that while the elections in France and Germany have been billed as a rebuke of austerity, neither country has really seen significant austerity measures of any kind. It's more like fear of austerity measures, he said.

"For the U.S., the message to some extent is that austerity should not be pushed too far," Vaisse said. "However, there's also danger ... of sounding like a French socialist. I can see, right now, the spot on TV that Mitt Romney would run against Barack Obama, saying 'Obama is rejecting austerity. He's adopting the policies of European socialists.' That would be bad."

So it cuts both ways, Vaisse said.

The other scenario that could negatively impact the United States is if Greece continues to fail to form a government, Vaisse said. If that happens, the country won't be able to follow through on its budget cut promises, would lose the European bailout funds and would default. That could be a major shock to the global economy.

"Greece is a very strong country in terms of economy, it's 1.5 percent of the total euro zone. It doesn't look like a big deal," Vaisse said. "But it actually a big deal because we don't know if ever Greece leaves the euro, which is now not the most certain solution but may happen, we don't know if it will be an orderly exit, or a messy exit with Greece just stopping paying."

A messy exit could poison economies across the euro zone, which could spread to the United States. Vaisse compared the impact of that to the fall of Lehman Brothers in the United States when the Great Recession started in 2008.

Vaisse said that could also pose a problem for Obama because even if the shock is small and short-lived, the timing would be such that it makes the U.S. economy right when the incumbent president needs the economy to be improving.

"It might effect the world economy and the especially the U.S. economy in August and September and October. That's the months that political scientists tell us really count in terms of making electoral choices for a large part, or a swing part, of the election," Vaisse said.

European artists protest budget cuts by destroying their art, including at museums

PRI's The World — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:09:00 -0500

At the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, in Casoria, Italy, near Naples, times are tough.

The museum’s art director, artist Antonio Manfredi, says his institution is struggling to make ends meet. He wants to highlight what he considers government indifference to the museum’s financial woes.

So he’s begun burning the museum’s art collection, one piece at a time. The museum has embarked on a controversial campaign to protest budget cuts to the arts.

Manfredi says his contemporary art museum has pleaded for the past seven years with local officials and patrons to provide support. But so far, no luck. So Manfredi came up with what seems like a desperate plan.

“The government cuts the money for institutions, for cultural institution, OK, so we’ll start burning art from the museum," he said.

He’s totally serious. Last month, he started burning paintings and other works to get some attention. He’s basically holding the art work hostage.

“We destroyed six paintings, some photos, and one wood sculpture, so this is not a joke.”

Manfredi says a similar fate awaits the rest of the museum’s collection if government funding doesn’t materialize. He says he’ll burn three paintings a week.

“If the political institutions don’t think the art and the culture is important for the country, the artists can destroy this art, no problem," he threatened.

John Brown is all for it. He’s an artist and art director in Wales. He contributed one of his own pieces, made out of paper, to burn in symbolic protest.

“In fact I was working on a piece called 'Manifesto, which was actually underlying a political statement on our (Welsh) government which makes manifestos that people vote for and when they get into power they scrap the manifestos," Brown said. "So I made a sculpture, an empty manifesto basically, because it was something that would attract a lot of attention and it actually has.”

Brown says a video of the burning has generated thousands of hits, and mostly supportive comments.

“There is a case to me made that art is important to the human experience and that’s what I believe," Brown said.

As for those who say the protest is destroying the very art the museum is trying to save, Brown brushes that off. He says art doesn’t have to exist in a physical form — it can live on in your mind. Manfredi’s not backing down either.

“Next we will destroy a marble, abstract, carved sculpture.”

It’s not clear how long Manfredi will keep up the campaign. But Italy’s economy is in serious trouble and more funding for the arts doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now.

Thousands of Portugese fleeing sinking economy, with many headed for Brazil

PRI's The World — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:35:00 -0500

Brazilians for decades had to look beyond their shores for work. But these days, the South American nation has flipped the script.

A burgeoning oil and gas industry and preparations for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics are the latest fuel feeding Brazil’s economic engine. Among the places people are rushing away from and heading to Brazil? The country's former colonial master, Portugal.

Ines Sousa came to Brazil for a new start. In January, the 25-year-old from Portugal decided to leave her home country and join her Portuguese boyfriend, 5,000 miles away in Brazil.

“I came with two bags to live here and I didn’t know the place. I’ve never been before. I came to live and work here,” Sousa said.

Unemployment in Portugal stands at more than 15 percent. And Portugal is enduring its third recession in four years.

Sousa realized her master’s degree in international relations wouldn’t be enough to secure her a good job back home. She’s not alone. Sousa is one of thousands of Portuguese flocking to Brazil.

“I really love Portugal. It’s an amazing country and I really want to live there later. But now, I wouldn’t be able to pay for a room. Your family and yourself invest so much money and time and patience and for such a long time. It’s really hard to live there now,” Sousa said.

Sousa works part-time at a non-governmental organization while she looks for permanent work. Her boyfriend, Francisco Cruz, had an easier time when he moved here a few months earlier. But he’s a civil engineer.

In his industry, business is especially good, with lots of construction projects underway in preparation for the upcoming 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. So he and others like him are seizing the moment.

“In Portugal, things are really bad because of the crisis. And here things are so good, and even better for engineers because there’s so much work to do, so many things to do. So I noticed if I wanted to move to come here, it was the right time to come,” said Cruz.

Brazil’s government says the number of Portuguese workers in Brazil shot up from 277,000 in 2010 to at least 330,000 last year – and that’s just the people here legally.

This isn’t the first time the Portuguese have looked to their former colonies for their own economic survival. Sousa’s grandparents made the same journey decades ago. But unlike that generation, which earned a reputation for being hard-working, manual laborers – many of today’s Portuguese migrants are armed with college degrees and better.

“This is the saddest thing of all. Portugal is a country that could give us a good education and prepare us for this competitive world but couldn’t give us a job and that’s just crazy,” said Rui Matos da Costa, a Portuguese lawyer who’s lived in Brazil since last year.

While Brazil’s economy has taken a dip recently, it’s still relatively strong. In April, it surpassed the United Kingdom as the world’s sixth-largest economy. Da Costa says the shared language and bilateral cultural exchange through television and film made Brazil a natural choice. He’s now licensed to practice law in both Portugal and Brazil.

Over a plate of traditional Portuguese pastries, da Costa explained that he saw a struggle ahead at home in Portugal – for all generations.

“Right now, people feel like there’s no future. Not only for my friends of my age, but for my parents as well. It’s really hard right now. There is no Portuguese dream,” da Costa said.

That’s the prevailing attitude among the many Portuguese who now call Rio home. As they have so many times before, they seem to have accepted their fate. And Brazil has accepted them – despite Portugal’s one-time subjugation of its former colony.

“We treated them really bad and now, we kind of need them. And they’re being better for us, than we were to them. I think it’s fair to say it,” da Costa said.

In Rio, it certainly seems like the past is the past.

“They come here, they do well. But they are really hard workers. That’s for certain. Brazil accepts everyone,” said Jose Barros, a Brazilian who has spent 30 years working as a waiter at a Portuguese restaurant. He says Brazil welcomes all immigrants, and the Portuguese are no exception.

Although visa regulations don’t always make it easy for migrants to work here legally, many are desperate enough to come anyway, hoping permission to work will work itself out. Economist Marcelo Neri says the current situation is a win-win for everyone: The Portuguese need jobs and Brazil needs more skilled workers.

“The labor market is doing pretty well and there’s a lack of well-educated people. I think Brazil is really a land of opportunity. Especially during the current scenario, to work here, you earn good money, there’s a need for highly skilled professionals,” Neri said.

Hugo Gonçalves, a Portuguese journalist based in Rio, recalled the outrage when officials back home – including Portugal’s prime minister – actually advised people to leave the country if they couldn’t find work.

“I guess he was being honest, but if you’re the prime minister, it’s your job to provide that people from that country can stay in that country. At least that,” Gançalves said. “When you say you have to go, even if it’s sincere, it’s almost like you’re saying, well, ‘I don’t care anymore.’”

Back at her new place, Sousa says she’s planning to stay for at least a few years. But being so far from home was hard from the start.

“I came to Brazil in January and my grandmother died two weeks after. It’s weird for me – it’s like a cycle and Brazil is in the story. It was really sad because I couldn’t be there,” Sousa said.

And there’s the looming question of how the hemorrhaging of Portugal’s best-educated generation will affect the ailing country if, and when, it ever gets back on its feet.

'Black metal' musician elected to Greek Parliament with anti-immigrant political party

PRI's The World — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:06:00 -0500

The election to parliament of a bass player from the Greek Black Metal band Naer Mataron has the Greek media scrambling to find connections between facism and heavy metal.

Chaos, as Greeks like to say, is a Greek word. And Greeks might agree that the election of a Black Metal musician to a country’s legislature does not bode well for political stability. This is the band that everyone in Greece is talking about these days.

Giorgos Germenis will represent the Golden Dawn political part and the Greater Athens district in parliament. He’s known by the stage name “Kaiadas.” That’s the chasm in ancient Sparta where children were thrown to their deaths after being judged unfit to meet the rigors of Spartan life.

See a video of Naer Mataron performing at TheWorld.org.

Golden Dawn isn't exactly what you'd call a mainstream political party. Academics say it has neo-Nazi and facist leanings, though the party rejects those labels. The party has promised to get all immigrants out of the country, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail and has contemplated mining the country's border with Turkey. In the current election, it won 7 percent of the vote, enough to claim seats in parliament for the first time — 21 of them.

It's not often that a Black Metal band gets to bask in the glow of the mainstream media spotlight. But it's even less common that the bassist of a Black Metal band becomes a member of parliament.

“Black metal is a type of heavy metal, but it's more aggressive and more atmospheric,” said Stefanos Stefanopolous of webzine Rockway.gr. “Instead of clean vocals, the singers are using growls. They are more brutal vocals.”

Stefanopolous says Black Metal lyrics often concern Satanic and pre-Christian pagan themes and Naer Mataron is pretty much run of the mill.

“He wasn’t a well-known musician here in Greece,” Stefanopoulos sais. “And to be honest, not many webzines were paying attention to Naer Mataron. It was just another black metal band, a mediocre one, so no one was really paying attention.”

That’s changed now. The Greek media are looking for connections between Naer Mataron’s music, their bloody ghoulish stage attire and Golden Dawn’s politics.

Germenis says there's none. Take the song, “Death Casts a Shadow Over You,” from Naer Mataron’s latest album “Praetorians”.

Germenis says “Death Casts a Shadow Over You” is a song about the feelings black metal fans have when they hear the band performing live on stage. It's a metaphor, he says, for the shadow they feel covering them as the band plays.

As for politics, Germenis says there’s an easy solution for Greece’s myriad economic problems. First the country needs to resolve its sea border issues with neighboring countries. There’d be big money in gas and oil exploration that would return Greece to greatness. He blames unspecified “interests” for holding Greece back.

“We, Golden Dawn, say that Greece is a rich country,” Germenis said. “In order to rebuild Greece, we also need to revitalize our factories and small workshops. In this way, Greece can stand on its own two feet. We won’t need the European Union or anyone else. We’ll just need Greeks.”

With coalition-building in Greece now in limbo, it’s unclear what affect Germenis and Golden Dawn will have on Greek politics. But Stefanopolous says there is one definite side-effect of his accension to politics: Black metal has gotten a black eye.

“Black metal already had a bad name,” Stefanopolous said. “Most musicians claim to believe in Satanism and stuff. They are blasphemers. They already had a bad name, but now it’s even worse. Now you are a satanist and a nationalist too.”

Greek democracy isn’t looking so great either. Greeks are already talking about if the new parliament will form rather than when. If not, then another round of elections will have to be held.

More than 40 percent of Americans expected to be obese by 2030

The Takeaway — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:00:00 -0500

A new study predicts that 42 percent of American adults will be obese — a category beyond overweight — by the year 2030.

That presents new challenges, but also, opportunity. Jen Petersen, an urban sociologist and Principal of Petersen consulting, worked on the Living Streets Project in Los Angeles, focused on improving public health through city planning.

Petersen's hopeful that we can turn around that trend by making changes to how we grow our roads, highways and public transit systems.

"So long as we keep widening cities, widening streets, widening bus seats, we'll have widening butts to fit in them," Petersen said. "It's the fat man's pants phenomenon. Let them out and the fat man will continue to expand. What I and many urban planners believe is that we need to plan for a very different kind of future. To build different kinds of environmental conditions, around what incubates our bodies, in cities."

We have to re-introduce people to the idea of walking, biking and eating health food, Petersen said.

"There's a lot of reward in that that has nothing to do with how you look or what is your health, but actually how you feel and how you connect with other people," Petersen. "Those are wonderful transitional incentives. Those are ideas and feelings we all share."

Keith Davis is working to accomodate America's bigger, more obese future and the end of their lives. He's the owner and operator of Goliath Coffins, a company that makes caskets for the morbidly obese.

"It's been a business that has been growing every year. Both in size of caskets and in volume," Davis said.

But Davis isn't celebrating the fattening of America. He says he'd much rather Americans lost weight to stay healthy.

"This is not a desirable thing to be happening to the United States or the world. We even ship overseas. Obesity is not sure here, it's everywhere," he said.

Davis has been building oversized caskets since the early 1990s. Until then, casket manufactures would build something special if the existing casket weren't big enough, he said.

Davis' company started when his father decided to retire and start a small business that only built caskets for larger folks. It wasn't envisioned to be a large market in terms of sales. Soon after, though, he realized he had a full-fledged business on his hands.

"From 1990 to 1994, we went from 33 inches wide to 36 inches wide. From '94 up to the present, we went from 36 inches wide up to 52 inches wide," Davis said. "Our widest casket has been 64 inches wide. Our longest casket's been 8-foot-6."

People have known about America's weight problem for decades. Petersen is hopeful, though, that mechanisms in place now will make the difference in turning around America's growing waistlines.

"We have a lot of space here, but we have poorly allocated it for large, scattering of things rather than tight-knit things," she explained. "What we have on our side is a global economy whose privileged position actually increasingly depends on density."

Economically, Petersen said, there are incentives to tighter up America, just as there were once incentives to widen out.

Mark Duplass discusses the Hollywood trend of writing for the lovable losers

Studio 360 — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:00:00 -0500

A new kind of leading man has taken hold in Hollywood: the lovable loser.

Steve Carrell, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill — they're not suave and handsome, they’re geeks and schlubs. Judd Apatow introduced these characters as comedy stars (starting with The 40-Year Old Virgin), but the emerging master of the genre is Mark Duplass.

Together with his brother Jay, Mark Duplass has written and directed smart, affecting comedies about these losers. Their latest film, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, stars Jason Segel as a 30-year-old stoner settled in to his mother's basement.

But Duplass sees more to characters like Jeff than a loafing slacker who can’t grow up.

“He believes so deeply that the universe has something great in store for him,” Duplass said. “He’s willing to wait patiently like a springed coil and he won’t subscribe to anything in life that’s mediocre. So you can say that he’s a slacker or you can say he has the utmost integrity. His ambition just happens to look very sedentary.”

A hallmark of Mark and Jay Duplass’ films is a comic intimacy. Instead of the bigger, more ambitious plotlines common in Hollywood, their focus is “epically small ... those little glances that happen between couples and siblings and friends that make the audiences work for it and tune in. Finding big themes and big relatable human interactions in very, very small moments," Duplass explained.

A key to that feeling of authenticity is improvisation. The scripts are often just templates for the scene that the actors will realize on set, sometimes shocking themselves and each other. Take a particular a scene from Cyrus in which Jonah Hill’s character is driving an uncomfortable wedge between his mother, played by Marisa Tomei, and her boyfriend, John C. Reilly.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, because the actors don’t actually know,” Duplass said. “And that’s hard to come by.”

Immature, unambitious — Duplass himself is the polar opposite of the boy-men he puts on screen. Next month he’s starring in two films, Your Sister’s Sister and Safety Not Guaranteed; he has a recurring role on the FX show The League and if that wasn’t enough, another Duplass brothers film comes out, The DoDeca Pentathalon.

The brothers are so productive, he thinks, because they balance each other out.

“Left to my own devices I’d probably make ten mediocre movies a year and I’d be dead by 40. And Jay, left to his own devices, would make three-quarters of the greatest film ever made before he died but he’d never finish it," Duplass said.

Columbia University janitor graduates with degree in Classics

The Takeaway — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:21:00 -0500

In the early 1990s when Yugoslavia was being torn apart by civil war, Gac Filipaj, a part-time law student, decided to get out.

He fled to New York City and became a custodian at Columbia University, because it was the best higher-education institution around. After learning some English, Filipaj began taking classes before his 8-hour janitorial shifts in the afternoon.

This real-life "Good Will Hunting" story has a happy ending too: After 12 years as a student and a janitor, Filipaj graduated this year at the top of his class with a degree in Classics. That's 124 credit hours.

"I asked one of my English teachers in a high school where I first started taking English, which one is the best school in New York. Best university. He told me that is Columbia, and I told him that I would like to go and work there and" take classes," Filipaj said.

Because he worked there, he was able to take English classes at the school and eventually enroll in college courses as well. It was slow, but it paid off.

Over time, he had to adjust his schedule at accommodate the classes he needed to take. Sometime he took classes in the morning before heading to work in the afternoon. Other times he'd take a class in the middle of his shift and then stay late at work to make up the hour that he missed.

But for the most part, he attended classes in the morning and worked the second shift, 4 p.m. to midnight, as a janitor — in some of the classrooms he'd just sat in.

"And then I would come home, after midnight, and I would start to study," Filipaj said.

With a classics degree, Filipaj said his goal wasn't necessarily to find a better job, though that's certainly a nice benefit, but to make more of himself. He says he wanted to "learn something new" and satisfy his love for languages.

"Latin is an interesting language and their culture, Greco-Roman culture, is very interesting," he said. "But, of course, who wouldn't get something better after that person invests so much work to get a degree and to make himself or herself better."

Now that he's made it, he's still looking for that full-time job. And he's still trying to comprehend what exactly it is that he did.

"I still cannot evaluate quite clearly the entire finalization of my work," he said. "I enjoy this moment little-by-little, and step-by-step. (The same way) I started. Passing one class, gaining credits."

Perhaps for that reason, or perhaps because he just likes school, Filipaj is talking about going back to school to get a master's degree.

"I got used to work and read and study," he said.

No agreement yet as Greece tries to form a government and population fumes

Here & Now — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:22:00 -0500

In Greece, party leaders headed back to the negotiating table Monday, after failing to agree Sunday on a new coalition government.

The national elections eight days ago ended in a deadlock, with no party winning enough seats to form a government.

President Karolos Papoulias has tried various combinations of majority and minority parties with little positive results. A last-ditch effort was held Monday night in Greece, but no break-through was reached. According to the BBC, meetings will continue on Tuesday.

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The radical far left Syriza party says it won't back any coalition that supports continued austerity measures. The moderate Democratic Left party in Greece says it won't join pro-bailout parties in a coalition without Syriza.

If nothing changes, Greece will have to go forward with new elections and is increasingly likely to go back on its austerity measures, lose its European loans, default on its debts and be forced out of the euro zone. That potential downward spiral has changed Greece and its people — and not really for the better.

The BBC’s Richard Galpin, the former Athens correspondent, recently traveled back to Greece to see what has changed as the country struggles with the weight of its debt and its budget cuts.

"I was based here during the heady days of the Athens Olympics in 2004, when the country was riding high," Galpin said. "Now, here in Athens, it feels so different. It's quite shocking, seeing how run down some parts of the city are."

Galpin described buildings covered in graffiti and scarred by the anti-austerity riots that have become a regular part of life.

Many Greeks are now trying to get out of the country. George Neris, the head of Synthesis Media Company in Athens, has run a network of art exhibition spaces in Greece for years. He's planning to move to the United Kingdom.

"Unemployment now is at 20 percent or more," he said to the BBC. "One of the ways you can do something about it is go some place where there are jobs. This way, you decrease unemployment overnight and you go some place where there are jobs and you start working."

According to the latest figures in Greece, about 25 percent of people have lost their jobs in the current economic downturn, Galpin said. For people under 25, the situation is worse: about 54 percent are without work.

The numbers are still climbing. That's exactly what's behind the vote that sent austerity-backing parties to defeat. But it's also presented serious problems in mental health.

"Suicide is much more common," Galpin said.

In 2011, according to one psychiatrist who mans a helpline for people considering suicide, there were twice as many calls as there were in 2010. And in 2012, the numbers are climbing even higher.

Facebook IPO raises question about company's future, innovative spirit

The Takeaway — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:44:00 -0500

Facebook will beging trading its stock publicly on Friday in what is a highly-anticipated IPO.

Doubts about CEO Mark Zuckerberg's managerial skills and concerns that the company is being overvalued have dampened the hype, but the business and technology worlds are still buzzing in anticipation of Friday's offering. Whatever happens, though, Facebook is in for changes, especially if it's valued at $100 billion, which some experts have speculated.

Henry Blodget, CEO and editor-in-chief of Business Insider, doesn't think profits for the social media giant will slow down anytime soon.

But there are warning signs for potential investors. Mark Zuckerberg has made clear his emphasis going forward will be Facebook's social mission, not its business mission.

"That should scare any investor," he said. "It's heresy on Wall Street. Most CEOs are supposed to say, 'What I get up in the morning for and every minute of the day is focused on creating shareholder value.'"

Zuckerberg doesn't care about that. Blodget said he cares about funding the "social mission" of Facebook. He projects that Zuckerberg will make short-term decisions over the next few years that will drive investors crazy.

But Douglas Rushkoff, author of "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age," projects that an eye toward money-making will kill Facebook's innovative spirit and hurt the company in the long run. That's an accusation that's often leveled at tech startups.

Some have compared Zuckerberg's style to that of Steve Jobs, and while the comparison may be apt, it also offers a cautionary tale.

"If Steve Jobs is in the example, it works a whole lot better 10 years later," Rushkoff said.

Jobs was famously fired from his own company but later returned to take Apple to the point where it's among the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, when measured by market capitalization.

Rushkoff believes the skills of a good CEO are usually different from the skills of the sort of inventor that produces Facebook, or the Apple computer.

"Really balancing the needs of your employees, the needs of your customers, the needs of your technology and then the needs of those many, many shareholders out there," Rushkoff said.

Blodget thinks people are selling Zuckerberg short and that he's learned a tremendous amount about what it means to manage a large company.

"He's built a great team underneath him. He has very carefully delegated the pieces of the business he's not interested in, namely the business itself, finances, the IPO, dealing with investors, to other executives who are supremely talented," Blodget said. "He meanwhile has focused on Facebook's service. Thus far, in his eight years at the helm of the company, he's had a very good vision for where things are going and how the product should work."

Rushkoff said he's disappointed in how Facebook's IPO is structured. He cited Google's more innovative IPO, where the price was arrived at via auction and bidding by regular investors, and not large institutions as is common and as will be done with Facebook.

"I felt like if (Zuckerberg) was going to come in and really shake things up, what about coming up with a more social way to develop an IPO," Rushkoff said.

Documentary film 'The Other Chelsea' depicts Ukraine's poor, corrupt side

PRI's The World — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:40:00 -0500

Several European leaders are threatening to boycott the Euro 2012 soccer tournament in Ukraine next month over alleged abuse of jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

She just ended a hunger strike.

The tournament is one of Europe’s biggest sporting events, and it’s likely to attract tens of thousands of fans. Some of the matches will be held in the city of Donetsk, a coal mining city in eastern Ukraine.

It’s also the setting of an award winning new documentary by a German filmmaker called “The Other Chelsea.” The name is a reference to Donetsk’s professional soccer club, Shakhtar. The film follows a group of coal miners from Donetsk in 2009, the year Shakhtar won the Europa league tournament, a first for a Ukrainian team.

But “The Other Chelsea” isn’t just about soccer. It’s about the other Ukraine, the one that didn’t support the 2004 Orange Revolution, and that still considers Moscow its capital, not Kiev.

Jakob Preuss, the film’s director, got interested in this part of Ukraine after working as an election observer in 2004.

“I was sent to Donetsk probably because I speak Russian,” Preuss said. “I was deeply impressed by this divide in the country between east and west, orange and blue.”

Preuss’s film shows the country’s starkest divide — between rich and poor. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Donetsk; it’s Ukraine’s Appalachia.

“I have these coal miners who are the losers of the breakdown of the Soviet Union, who live in really horrible conditions, still working in this mine which is really dangerous,” Preuss said.

They’re also fanatically devoted to their soccer team.

“You have this new political elite, the oligarchs, who also go to the stadium, because if you want to become something in Donetsk, you have to be there,” he said.

The oligarchs are up in the VIP box, rubbing shoulders with Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov. He owns the club, and never misses a game.

Preuss wasn’t able to get an interview with the reclusive Akhmetov, but he did get to know another Donetsk oligarch, an ambitious young politician named Kolya.

“He’s really representative of this very corrupt, Machiavellian elite,” Preuss said.

Kolya actually has a copy of Machiavelli in his flat, not to mention a picture of Stalin on his office wall. He lives like a prince, despite his small salary as a city councilman.

“Normally people go into business, make a lot of money, and then they go into politics just to protect their wealth and have the immunity — and play around with politics to make even more money,” Preuss said.

But Kolya got rich from politics, by steering government contracts to his construction companies.

“All Ukrainian politicians in parliament, on paper they’re not supposed to have businesses, but they’re all millionaires or billionaires,” Preuss said. “This is so normal there that Kolya didn’t even think not to tell me, which shows what a mess this country is in.”

In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Kolya calmly explains the way the political system works in Ukraine.

“In your Europe, the judiciary protects both government and opposition,” Kolya says. “Here, the judiciary only protects the people in power. If you lose the election, you go to jail.”

Like former presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko.

“This has been quoted a lot of times in Ukraine,” according to Preuss, “because people couldn’t believe that this guy would say it so bluntly.”

But Kolya’s not the only blunt talker. Preuss introduced the audience to Stepanovitch, a pit-worker in his late sixties who’s spent his whole life in the mines.

In the film, Stepanovitch said, “I think all these millionaires are thieves and bandits. Our whole system, everyone in power, they’re all criminals.”

Stepanovitch, whose son was killed in a mining accident, thinks life was better back when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

“Even when times were bad,” he said in the film, “at least we stuck together.”

His girlfriend, Valentina, who works in the mine’s front office, agreed.

An irrepressible flirt, she sports an enormous blond beehive and leopard skin outfits, despite her not exactly girlish figure.

Preuss said when Valentina attended the premier of “The Other Chelsea” in Kiev, she received a standing ovation.

In fact, audiences throughout Ukraine — east and west — love this film, perhaps because Preuss doesn’t just show the miserable living conditions of the coal miners, but also their warmth, humor and humanity.

“A Ukrainian told me yesterday that for him, post-Soviet people are often like coconuts. They’re a little bit hard on the outside, but they’re soft inside. And Europeans and Americans are like peaches, soft on the outside, but hard on the inside," Preuss said.

More killed as Syrian cease fire teeters on brink of irrelevance

BBC, Reuters, New York Times — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:29:00 -0500

Dozens of people were killed in Syria over the weekend, including reports of at least 23 Syrian soldiers, as the army and rebels continue to spar despite both saying they'll adhere to a United Nations-backed cease fire.

In Rastan, near the key city of Homs, at least 30 people were killed in one particularly violent clash. According to the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, speaking with the BBC, three troops carriers were destroyed in the fighting, killing the Syrian soldiers. The clash, which if born out, would be the deadliest for Syrian forces since the clashes began in early 2011.

The Syrian Observatory told the BBC that Rastan was under artillery bombardment by Syrian forces, an effort to put down the protests that have continued unabated since the Arab Spring began last year.

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"The city, currently an opposition stronghold, has been fiercely contested during the Syrian uprising and control of the town has changed several times," the BBC wrote. "Separately, the army has raided a Sunni village north of Hama, killing five people, the Observatory said."

All signs are that neither the Syrian government nor the rebels intend to abide by the U.N. cease fire, which has seen nearly 200 peacekeepers deployed to the country in an effort to stop the violence. So far, though, they have been ineffective.

According to the United Nations, some 9,000 people have died in Syria's ongoing civil war.

Hopes for a peaceful end to the violence are fading with each passing day. The Arab League invited opposition officials to Cairo for negotiations to end the violence, but political bickering and in-fighting among the opposition leaders has made that challenging, Reuters reported.

"The SNC will not be going to the meeting in Cairo because it (the Arab League) has not invited the group as an official body but as individual members," Ahmed Ramadan said to Reuters.

Western leaders are hoping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will step down, but he's being supported by allies in Russia. According to Reuters, western officials have no interest in a Libya-style military intervention, and Russia has warned against arming the rebels.

Meanwhile, Syria continues its violent crackdown on rebel forces, including extensive use of artillery and rocket fire aimed at rebel strongholds, like Rastan.

In South Korea, activists try to support single mothers

PRI's The World — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:57:00 -0500

On Sunday, families across the United States celebrate Mother’s Day. But there was a special mother’s day celebration on Friday in South Korea, dedicated to women who raise children on their own.

Being a single mom can be hard anywhere, but it’s especially challenging in Korea.

Kim Jee-young, a single mother in Seoul, said that earlier this year she and her son lived in a shelter after losing their apartment. She said they had nowhere else to go.

“It’s very difficult in Korea for an unwed mother to live with her parents,” Kim said. “There is a tremendous prejudice toward single mothers and it’s an embarrassment to the family. My parents would feel ashamed to have us living with them.”

Kim is not her real name. She asked to hide her identity because of the stigma associated with being a single mom.

Unwed motherhood is often kept a secret in South Korea, much like in the United States more than 50 years ago. But on Friday, the stories of women like Kim were told at the second annual Single Mother’s Day ceremony in Seoul.

It’s not just family abandonment. These women sometimes get fired from their jobs, and they’re treated like social outcasts, said Choi Hyung-sook, who heads an advocacy group for unmarried mothers. She’s one herself. Choi said most pregnant single, women in South Korea have only two choices.

“When I was eight months pregnant, my brother told me that I should have an abortion,” Choi said. “If not that, then I should put the baby up for adoption.”

Choi said after she gave birth, she did bring her infant son to an orphanage, but quickly changed her mind. International adoption has long been the last resort for pregnant single women in Korea, who were told they were unfit to be mothers.

It started in the 1950s, after the Korean War. Since then, at least 150,000 Korean babies have been sent overseas — most to the United States. Some of those adoptees have come back to Korea as adults, like Jane Jeong Trenka. She was born in 1972 and adopted with her sister by a family in Minnesota.

Now she advocates on behalf of unwed Korean mothers. Trenka is president of TRACK, Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea, a group that opposes international adoption.

She said South Korean policies continue to make it financially difficult for single women to raise children on their own.

“Because Korea is so prejudiced against women having children out of wedlock, they prioritize their money in a way that favors orphanages over being cared for by your own mom,” Trenka said.

Shannon Heit, who is 30, said the way unwed mothers are treated in Korea made her and other adoptees want to support them and get involved in Single Mother’s Day.

“We imagine our own mothers, if they had such support from people like us, or from politicians or the government, maybe it could have been different” for them, she said.

Heit added she’s glad to see that, these days, more single mothers, like Kim Jee-young, are willing to keep their children.

As for Kim, she said for now, things look pretty good. She has a part time job and she’s also studying to become a realtor.

But she begins to tear-up, when she talks about her son’s future. She said she’s worried about when he gets older, when teachers and other parents find out his mother isn’t married.

Then he too will feel ashamed.

With economy plummeting, food scavenging on the rise in Spain

PRI's The World — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Spain's unemployment rate is the highest in the euro zone.

The stock exchange in Madrid saw improvements Thursday: Investors were comforted by the government's decision to take over Bankia, one of the country's largest banks. But the upswing offered little relief to the masses of unemployed Spaniards struggling to make ends meet.

A 62-year-old Romanian immigrant spent the morning at Merca Madrid, Spain's largest wholesale food market. Supermarket and restaurant buyers frequent the market for fresh produce and seafood, but he was there to scavenge food for his family.

"I'm unemployed and I can't find work, I need to find a way to survive," he said. "The local government no longer has money to pay for people like me. I have a family — a wife and two daughters who live with me. Our apartment costs about $800 a month plus utilities."

Groups who work with the poor in Spain say food scavenging is becoming more and more common, as are visits to soup kitchens and other charities. Gabriela Jorquera, with the Madrid network in the fight against poverty, said welfare payments are running out and the recession can be felt across society.

"We're seeing younger and younger people falling into poverty," Jorquera said. "Single parent families and immigrants have been especially hit by the crisis. The number of Spain's working poor has been growing at an alarming rate. Over the last two years, two million more people have entered this at-risk category bringing the total to over 12 million."

Jorquera thinks the government should boost welfare payments and invest in job training and education, but the country is in the midst of an economic crisis. Since the Spanish housing market collapsed in 2008, banks have taken on toxic loans and foreclosures have further burdened the economy.

The government approved it's fourth bank rescue package in three years on Wednesday, a package totaling $30 billion dollars. Friday morning, the Spanish government announced it will force banks to set aside more funds to cover a €175 billion exposure to the real estate sector. With limited public funds available, the government is left with little maneuvering room, and even Spaniards with jobs are concerned.

A construction supply warehouse loader in Barcelona said he thinks his job is safe, but his two grown children with law degrees have not been as lucky.

"The two of them are living at home with me," he said. "I used to think at this age with their schooling finished, my kids would've flown the nest, but these days it's impossible."

Many young people have chosen to live with their parents, but for immigrants like the man at Merca Madrid, relying on family is not an option.

"Who is going to hire a guy who is 62?" he asked. "No one is going to hire me just so I can reach retirement and quit. One must trust in the future, that it will bring us something better."

Computer programmers new rockstars of music world

Studio 360 — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:00:00 -0500

Hackers, who became anathema to the music labels at the dawn of digital file sharing, are now key players in the industry.

At the Rethink Music conference in Boston last month, programmers, developers and tinkerers showed up for a 24-hour coding frenzy — a hackathon at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development (NERD) Center — in an effort to make the coolest app that could transform music.

Music executives who once treated hackers almost like criminals treat programmers today "like they would treat emerging artists," explained Paul Lamere, a computer scientist who attended. "They're almost like the talent scouts from the 60s and 70s."

The events are not for the faint of heart.

"I've slept three hours in the last two and a half days," saids CJ Carr, a veteran at his third hackathon. "It was all over the place intellectually and emotionally — and physically. When Microsoft closed around 8:30 p.m., I went to Echo Nest, (an app development house). They had another hackathon going all night."

One team programmed a system that captures a dancer’s movement and generates music from it — helpful if you can’t follow a beat. Carr’s invention was a sonnet generator. Give it a few keywords and it will search various databases online to assemble some facsimile of lyrics:

Where I can score some of that heroin brown
When sex is a pretext to a disease
Gone to set the score, gone into the town
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
But if it takes a cheap, tawdry scene
Stay on the scene, like a sex machine

Some of the projects might seem silly, useless, and impossible to monetize. But today it’s hard to tell the silly and useless from the next big app.

Carr’s sonnet generator didn’t recreate Shakespeare, nor guarantee a road to riches, but "I got three people who wanted to hire me,” he said, “so there's your monetization right there."

Try Swingify, a hackathon-invented app that turns every song into a swing song.

Mo Willems remembers author Maurice Sendak

Studio 360 — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:15:00 -0500

American literature lost one of its literary giants this week.

Best known for his breakthrough 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak's long, colorful career involved one wild rumpus after another. Sendak’s work was often powerfully dark, in the manner of the old Grimms’ fairy tales.

Wild Things might be a nightmare, with its chaotic dreamscape and its ferocious, smothering monsters, but children loved it, critics loved it, parents loved it. It changed the way America thought about books.

"You have to remember, he's from a generation where picture books were considered trash," said Mo Willems, an acclaimed children's book author who was reared on Sendak. "We don't have that problem anymore. I don't have to worry about whether somebody considers my work art or not."

When Willems set out to write his first book, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, he turned instinctively to Sendak.

“Because I didn’t really know what I was doing I needed to steal some material,” Willems said. “So the best place to go was Where the Wild Things Are to find inspiration, particularly in terms of design and craft.”

Sendak was frequently ill as a child and confined to bed. The Holocaust loomed large in the minds of his immigrant Jewish family. He hid his homosexuality for much of his life. This early exposure to disillusioning experiences crept into Sendak's books in fantastical ways — as in In the Night Kitchen, where a child is put in an oven to bake.

"He was called ‘Morose Sendak’ by most of his friends," Willems says.

But he also believed children were capable of dealing with the disappointments of the world.

"Even as a child, I was well aware that childhood sucks!” Willems said. "I felt a kinship with Max in Where the Wild Things Are. I felt put upon.”

Although Willems’ books are much more lighthearted, like the Pigeon series and the Knuffle Bunny trilogy, they’re informed by that melancholy.

"It's just not easy to be a child," he said. "If you're doing something you want to do and somebody doesn't want you to do it, they can literally, physically lift you up and fly you into another room. You have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. I mean, it's a terrible time."

Sendak’s Max — sent to bed without supper, embarking on death-defying adventures, and finally, arriving home to find supper waiting for him, still hot — gave generations of childhood permission to acknowledge that life can be hard.

"I don't think I saw it as grim,” Willems recalled, “so much as liberating."