From bleak to bleaker: Health care possibilities under President Agent Orange

A post by Lambert Strether on naked capitalism paints a grim future for an already crappy health care legacy.

Community Power updates

This week WGXC will run a three-part segment I did with Dan Duthie, following up on the conversation I had with Will Yandik in October. Listen Wednesday through Friday nights at 6:15PM at WGXC 90.7FM in Greene or Columbia County, or online. In the meanwhile, I really think you should read up on the current state of affairs regarding the Energy Highway/Power Line project, maybe watch a video on the subject, and then call the Governor and let him know what you think at 518-474-8390. Meanwhile, here are links to Community Power Episodes 06 (with Neil Larson) and 07 (with Will Yandik).

Working while black

An interesting look into workplace discrimination from three black men discussing an Atlantic story entitled "Black Workers Really Do Need to Be Twice as Good." The discussion of this article begins at around the 55:00 minute mark and includes a lot of personal experiences of the three commentators (Aaron Rand Freeman, Jarrett Hill, and Shane Paul Neil).
 

Next Community Power Segment this Friday, LIVE at 6:15 pm

Will Yandik of Farmers and Families for Livingston asks of Governor Cuomo if there is an exit from the Energy Superhighway in an editorial in In My Back Yard. I'll be talking with Will about the state of play in the power line project and asking for your support for WGXC 90.7 FM during our Dead Air fund drive (boo!) on Friday, October 23, from 6:15 pm until 7 pm. You can tune in in Greene and Columbia Counties on 90.7FM or stream live over the intertubez. I'll post an edited version of the show here in a few days. You can go ahead and support the station right now by calling (518) 828-0290 or going to our homepage and clicking on the friendly donate now button. Thanks!!

Community Power Segment #6: Neil Larson

Airing on WGXC 90.7FM Acra, Wednesday, September 16, 2015, the sixth segment of Commuity Power, in which I talk to Neil Larson of Larson Fisher Associates about the process of historical resource surveys and the current state of the Community Resource Survey of Livingston. Tune in at 6:15 PM or listen online.

Free e-boook on measuring the impact of cooperatives on communities

Co-operatives and Sustainable Communities: Tools Book | Measuring the Co-operative Difference, a free e-book being made available by Cooperative Difference. From the link:

The Measuring the Co-operative Difference Research Network and the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Co-operatives joined forces to organize an international conference, focused on how and why co-operatives assess their performance and their impacts on society.



Academics and practitioners gathered to share their research and experiences with a variety of accounting and reporting tools and practices. The event offered an unprecedented opportunity to recognize and debate various reporting needs and practices, to hear from practitioners regarding the purpose and methods of reporting in their co-operatives, and to identify the building blocks for the establishment of key supports for co-operatives engaged in performance measuring and reporting.



Over a period of 3 days co-operative practitioners and researchers from Europe, North America and Latin America discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the various tools used by co-operatives, and considered how best to obtain and share reliable and accurate information on co-operative performance and impact. Participants agreed that in addition to being useful for co-operatives as part of their self-evaluation and strategic planning processes, the sharing of information resulting from use of various tools and reporting practices can help co-operatives in the implementation of the strategy for sustainable growth of the co-operative movement, outlined in the Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade.



The key questions posed by the conference organizers were: What do co-operatives report and why? What tools exist and what is missing? Which tools set co-operatives apart from other business forms (and do they measure the co-operative identity)? Which tools are standard in respective industries and are co-operatives leaders or followers in those efforts?



The conference was exploring five interconnected themes:

1. Statistics and data collection
2. Putting co-operative principles into practice
3. Community impact
4. Member and stakeholder engagement
5. Reporting practices (co-operative identity and sustainability)

The chapters in this book are organized according to these five themes. They offer an international snapshot of the work being undertaken in these areas, with the intention of sharing the knowledge and experience obtained thus far. The authors advocate a critical analysis of these materials, and suggest ways forward as practitioners and researchers address the reporting and dissemination challenges identified during the conference.

Good news, everyone! Being a sociopath is not immoral!

This editorial by Harry G. Frankfurt, writing for Bloomberg View, caught my attention. Especially the following paragraph:

Exaggerating the moral importance of economic equality is harmful, in other words, because it is alienating. It separates a person from his own individual reality, and leads him to focus his attention upon desires and needs that are not most authentically his own.

In other words, if you "exaggerate" the moral importance of of economic equality, you run the risk of veering away from sociopathy. So, beware! More basically, the whole editorial seems to be arguing against the strawman argument that people concerned with economic inequality on moral grounds want equality of outcomes. That is not a widely held position by people who argue about the importance of economic inequality.