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No snow? No Santa? No way, if we work on warming
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
Published: Thursday, December 24, 2009 12:06 PM EST

We may be at the cusp of an event that could reshape the season to be jolly for eons.

With all the talk about global warming, no one has yet asked the most important question: What will happen to the white Christmas in a warm world? What about Santa, the sleigh, tiny reindeer, and chimneys? The dire consequences from the impact of a balmy life on earth will surely put a damper on good will toward men. Laying off the winter legend because there’s no more winter would be just awful.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate winter, and Christmas only somewhat tempers my distaste for frostbite and snowblowers.

But a rewrite of the winter scenario for a warm-world Christmas Eve might bring us Don Ho Ho Ho skirting the globe with gifts for kids — on a flatbed surfboard being pulled by Rudolph the red-nosed dolphin and his eight fin mates, dropping presents by the palm trees decorated with care.

I’m hoping that picture may be whimsical, but there is no question we have a problem in the making. But there’s still time to change the image of that ghost of a Christmas future.

For that reason, and a few others, it’s good to know that a lot of people were at work saving Christmas in Copenhagen last week.

Coverage and information about the climate summit was widespread as the delegates mulled over serious actions needed to keep humans from burning down the house.

What you may not have heard was that 400 union members — 40 of whom were American — were in on the talks.The global-union delegation was led by our CT@Work friend, Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC. Burrow is the highest-ranking union leader in the world and presented labor’s views on the issue at summit sessions.

“Trade unions support the highest ambitions for binding targets in developed countries and ambitious actions in developing nations that must limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees or less. We urge nations to accept transparency, to ensure trust through a global treaty finalized in the first half of 2010. Wealthy nations must lay the foundations for that trust with the finance and technology to kick start low carbon development, the investment to ensure climate resilience, employment and decent work,” Burrow said.

But Burrow was among those disappointed that more was not done to negotiate a solid agreement by the end of the summit.

Upon adjournment, stepped-up negotiations and world leaders who can work past their differences so everyone can start tackling the difficult problems were both missing.

Financial commitments and politics aside, Copenhagen, in my view, is really less about global warming than it is about bad policy and actions that allow the captains of business and industry to pollute our air, water, and land for the sake of riches the rest of us never touch.There are also no consequences for the atrocious planet pillaging that our children will end up paying for in many ways.

We still have a shot at achieving climate commitments that have consequences greater than a lump of dirty coal in polluter’s stockings. We can stem the tide of poisoning our planet and jump on a huge opportunity for green jobs. We can help poor nations throw out the polluting bums who are exploiting their economic vulnerability by providing resources to those countries.

And we can also use this as a new opportunity to boost America’s green industry, retooling and rebuilding our economic engine while getting the U.S. off the litterer’s list. The solid investment program for our planet suggested by unions and others brings great potential to grow jobs, the economy, fresh air, clean water — and even Christmas trees. “Those investments will transform our economies and create millions of new jobs as we rebuild after the devastation of the global financial crisis. We must all take responsibility in this global challenge,” Burrow said.

But, with all that in play and hopefully, a good agreement next year ready for the 2010 Mexico Summit, my wish to wear sneakers, shorts and Hawaiian shirts in Connecticut in January may be dashed.

But that still won’t prevent me from asking Santa Claus for a clean, cooler earth as my Christmas gift — while he’s still around, anyway.

Leo Canty is a labor and political activist. He lives in Windsor

JournalInquirer.com
Many contenders in these no-holds barred games
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 12:00 PM EST

At this time the world competition for the sport of Throwing People Under the Bus (TPUB) has not received enough recognition to be accepted as a sport for the 2012 Games of the XXX Olympiad in London. But it’s becoming so popular I’m betting by XXXI in Rio we’ll be watching the judges rating style, speed, and accuracy in HDTV.

At Connecticut’s biggest TPUB arena, the state Capitol, trials are being held in just about every hall, caucus room, or office that can fit a contestant and a TV camera. Future TPUB sports reporters, currently deployed at the Capitol bureau, are covering the contests with vigor, enthusiasm, and watchful observance of technique and speed.
Leading in the games, on the second floor of the arena, Gov. Jodi Rell has just received a high score for style and delivery as she threw the state’s poorest children — along with their parents and many others — under the Budget Cuts Express. It was a particularly precise and well-executed throw, tossing the most programs and people in the least amount of time, while also drawing the loudest roars from the people who care the most about the people who are most in need.

TPUB team games can be found in rings even on street corners. Go to any Democratic political event and you’ll find the teams roped in by yellow tape and police barriers, heaving people and programs under the yellow Thomas Minotour.
The Titan Tea Baggers are the stars now. They beat out the Wall Street Greedy Bums, last year’s champs who won the gold — well, actually lost the gold — by throwing every working stiff with a 401(k) under the NYC M184 on Broadway. The Bums lost the belt to the Tea Baggers, who scored higher with their spin-loop dump twist that lobs Sen. Chris Dodd under the bus daily while blaming him for every bad event for the last 165 years.

Dodd was solely responsible for the Great Depression and the Irish potato famine, you know.

There’s a newcomer to the official TPUB Games. She developed her skills by heaving WWE workers under the ropes. But Linda McMahon is finding her stride and may have a future as an Olympic contender. Her best showing so far is the double flip-flop Rob Simmons toss. Her early attempts at chucking scored low but the judges got more keyed into her style and scored her higher after she offered them jobs working on her campaign and free rides on the RAW RAW RINO bus. Now McMahon has a panel of judges who can work on convincing voters that she really knows the difference between a smackdown and a roll call.

If they’re rolling, they’re already on the mat, right?

Then there’s “Fightin’ Joe” — Chris Healy. He’s a Republican Party chair contender who threw more people under the bus than the Bums — mostly Democrats and anyone who seems to look Democratic. His venue is located wherever and whenever a reporter can be found. If you are ever roaming about the Capitol you might hear a zziipp … thwump … thump … screeech. You can bet “Fightin’ Joe” just flipped an unsuspecting Dem lookalike under the shuttle. He’s a chucking champion and popular among media types who don’t want to travel far for a quick matchup to cover.

Good thing most reporters or columnists don’t look or act like Democrats.

All of that makes the TPUB Games so extraordinarily interesting: They are no-holds barred, multidimensional, complex, and allow contestants to say and do things that are totally outside the corporate skybox. These games allow full audience participation, manipulation, and decoration by tire treadmarks. These games are becoming so popular there’s just no way the International Olympic Committee will be able to pass it up, at least as a demonstration sport.

There is one thing that may hamper progress for the sport here, however.

The last couple of governors never really put much emphasis on or funding into mass transit. There just might not be enough buses around for the contenders to use for practice sessions.

There might be a few people who would be happy about that.

Leo Canty is a labor and political activist. He lives in Windsor.

JournalInquirer.com

Adapting to our new multichromatic mosaic
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
Published: Thursday, December 3, 2009 12:08 PM EST

“It don’t matter if you’re black or white,” Michael Jackson once sang. It would be great if we could say the same thing about our country. But we can’t … yet.

About 45 years ago our monochromatic nation’s composition was close to 90 percent Caucasian. America’s white-centric ways dominated everything, from business to government to educational institutions. The culture and upbringing of the population in those times has been a driving force for much of what we do and how we do it now.

But scroll forward 45 years. It’s projected that the U.S. will be less than 45 percent white — quite the demographic swing towards a more multihued melting pot. As that shift is now under way, our culture, language, and behavior patterns are shifting and reforming — quite rapidly — into a new American mosaic.Unfortunately, white American customs are not changing at the same speed. And when it comes to health care, we are moving even slower.

In 2006 the Institutes of Medicine issued a report that concluded we have a problem with disparities in health care for people of color and cultures beyond our traditional pallor. Newer research shows serious differences when comparing minority populations such as African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics with whites. Some minority groups have higher incidence rates of chronic diseases, higher mortality, and generally worse health outcomes.

There are many disease-specific cases of racial and ethnic disparities. For instance, cancer incidence rates among African-Americans are 10 percent higher than for whites. Adult African-Americans and Hispanics have near twice the risk as whites of getting diabetes. And there’s plenty of evidence showing serious problems in how people of different racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds are treated when they get into our traditional health-care environment.

There’s now a better flow of new information that’s coming out for this old and neglected issue. To fix it we need to become more aware of how and why it happens. Then comes the hard part: embracing the fact that our own cultural character may need to change.

New knowledge, new skills, and new beliefs must be consciously put in play to help us adapt to our national color and cultural shift. Medical practices need to be updated to meet the challenges of a dramatic shift in cultural and racial diversity. It doesn’t happen automatically. We essentially need to be reprogrammed at all levels, and Caucasian leaders need to be in the vanguard of change.

Add the numbers and the whole picture shows our country’s face and make-up are changing faster than the transformation needed to end health disparities. There’s been little time to collect and assess data and alter behaviors to help dissolve the problem.But there are signs of hope. The Sustinet health-care bill that survived Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s veto pen became a public act that calls for a panel of experts to examine racial and ethnic disparities, and put in place solutions to stem poorer health-care outcomes for nonwhite citizens.

Sure, sensible public policy is critical to reducing disparities. The wonk in me gets that. But something bigger is at work here. We need to better understand our diversity.

America’s palette is destined to be multichromatic. That’s a beautiful thing. We get to look at and learn more about the rainbow of human presence and how wonderfully different we are. In my book, this is a far sight better than the 1950s, when we all looked and acted the same.

But all of this change — this busting of molds — is going to be hard, especially for the dominant culture that fears losing its grip on numerical advantages. It’s incumbent on all of us to embrace and adapt — the sooner, the better. And we should do so not only because it makes moral sense, which it does, but because it also makes economic sense. We’re spending way too much money on health care and getting too little in return to accept the senseless costs of disparate racial outcomes.

Put another way, it shouldn’t matter if you’re African-American or Caucasian … or Hispanic or Asian or Native American.

I like that song better.

Leo Canty is a labor and political activist. He lives in Windsor.
All CT@Work columns can be found at www.ctatwork.blogspot.com.