Those Numbers Concerning Sexting

An Associated Press-MTV poll has found more than a quarter of young people have been involved in some form of sexting — sharing by cell phone or online sexually explicit photos, videos and chat — despite the sometimes grim consequences involving conviction in some states for those who do it, with lifelong registration as a sex offender.

This news story comes this week as I heard Rick Steves do a travel show on public television. He said that the most compelling moment of his piece was when an Iranian woman crossed the street to tell him that she did not want her daughter to grow up to be like Britney Spears. That, Steeves said, was the universal human conflict in the secular world. It was the same conflict which defined American politics.

It was 12 months ago that I wrote this piece. Read it again in light of todays’ Associated Press-MTV poll about sexting.

In the age of abundance, with an abundance of ideas, in the ongoing age of ideology, comes a story about a survey by the Minneapolis-based Search Institute –an organization that foster in “all sectors of society a healthy development and thriving among children and adolescents” –of a group of young people who are “spiritual,” who are not at all religious. A newly released Search Institute survey of 6,853 young people ages 12 to 25 indicates that 55 percent of the respondents are spiritual, not at all religious. Miriam Cameron, a University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing professor, said the results confirm what she has observed in her classes. Nearly one-third of these young people said they don’t trust organized religion.

“Spirituality is bigger than religion,” said co-director of the institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Peter Benson. “One of the things we have to focus now is disentangling spiritual development from religious development.” According to the website, Dr. Benson became Search Institute’s president in 1985. Prior to 1978, he was chair of the psychology department and chair of the program in human development and social relations at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He hold a Masters in the psychology of religion from Yale University. In an age of ideology, I wonder the reason it is, the basis that Yale offers a Master’s program in the psychology of religion, so that years later we can get these survey results. It sounds like Dr. Benson’s focus is funding his own program, and creating a need along the way, with the help of corporate sponsors.

Most students pay tuition to listen, read, and study what the experts have to say. Except those on scholarship. “We’re not paying enough attention to what our kids are saying,” Gene Roehlkepartain, co-director of the institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence said. “We need to listen more and talk less.” Yeah, Gene Roehlkepartain. Buy you kid another Ipod. You were not supposed to worship your kids, Gene. Why are kids, ages 12 to 25, being asked this nonsense? Your kids might not like taking physics or calculus either. These are the years you are supposed to have passed on a tradition that they had to learn. My 30-month old niece does not like to eat vegetables. Or potatoes. She has to anyway. Yeah Gene! How can we disentangle God and His history, from religious development, from spiritual development? Can we hold class outside?

Nearly one-third of these young people said they don’t trust organized religion. Do they provide locks at their church? What did they lose? Was it another kid or organized religion that stole their cellphone? What else did they not trust? Were any other questions ever asked?

If you ever were looking for an arsonist, you started focusing on 3 factors: Motive. Opportunity. Accelerants. Search Institute mission statement is collaborating with partners (foundations, corporations, schools, communities, faith-based organizations, and other systems) to broaden and deepen commitments, capacity, and effectiveness in fostering healthy development and thriving among children and adolescents.
In this case the Search Institute, Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence who funded the study, hopes to profit from their own survey, based upon their website. This was not exactly the Gallup Poll, where surveyors had disinterest. Search Institute would seem to aim at a secular society, to add to the divison between religions, serving “all sectors of society, including K–12 and higher education, faith communities, youth-serving organizations, social-service organizations, families, businesses, and the public sector.”

According to the news article, “The disconnect between spirituality and religion” was clear in the comments from young people. Drawing a line between spirituality and religion, University of Minnesota senior David Horn said, spirituality ‘doesn’t make distinctions, and religion is all about making distinctions.’” It sounds like the issue once again is relativism. Religion was providing an absolute moral authority. Distinguishing right from wrong. And this did not seem fair.

Or maybe the young, educated in secular schools without any religious training, are ignorant about specific belief, and the history of a belief. Even by the time they get to college and are thought to be the best and the brightest. Serving “all sectors of society,” the survey either shows the need in society for more teaching of theology and philosophy, or the need to encourage ignorance. Most Doctors of Divinity spend time actually studying theology and philosophy before they are allowed to teach and preach.

Speaking as the daughter of a minister, Miriam Cameron said she doesn’t think religions needs to feel threatened by the growth of spirituality. “Not at all. Many of my students equate religion with dogma and spirituality with harmony. Spirituality works well with most religions. The only ones it doesn’t work with are the angry people who say that everyone else’s image of God is wrong. … The spiritual view of God is much more inclusive.” Dr. Cameron’s viewpoint seems to include an American culture bias and fails to see the dimension of spirituality that is fueling the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. From my reading, Islamic dogma was not responsible for the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, as one example. Dr. Cameron seemingly does not believe there can be anger among those of the New Age “spiritual,” not religious. Dissecting her comment, she mixes apples with people and oranges, when she begins to discuss angry people in the midst of th discussion of spirituality and religions.

Few religious professionals would equate dogma with theology.

One of the things I came away with studying history, was that the human condition remains unchanged. Two hundred years ago there were slaves in this country. Actually in a lot of places. A lot of people never really asked the “why” question. My conclusion is that the basic human condition involves a degree of laziness. There were slaves because landowners were lazy. That laziness, to one degree or another, was still around.

“If that’s the way they really feel,” said the director of youth ministry for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Terry Dittmer, said, “it means that we have some serious questions that we need to ask ourselves.” It is the Missouri synod’s fault? Or maybe Mr. Ditmer is looking for a new response in the growing secular world.

Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill for or die for, and no religion too. Mr. Lennon, I don’t have to imagine much any more.

The Center for Spiritual Development concluded its report with a suggestion that the place to start is with conversations, asking young people open-ended questions such as, “What is most important in your life?” and “What does being spiritual mean to you?” I actually would start with the basics. Like asking about God before asking what spiritual meant. Like asking about the Greatest Commandment. Do you know God? Do you want to know God? Do you want to make an academic commitment to study God? You might have to buy a book and actually spend some time.

In other news, according to Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, which surveyed 29,760 students over the past year at 100 random high schools nationwide, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test. That is a lot of stealing. I wonder if this was by the same nearly one-third of the young people who said they don’t trust organized religion.

These surveys give me pause to quote a high school biology teacher: “If ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

Perhaps those grim consequences involving conviction in some states for those do sexting, with lifelong registration as a sex offender, will call the question as to public policy that keeps some sins subject to public notice to neighbors. Where there is no registration kept on those convicted of homocide.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

In January 2009, UnitedHealth based in Minnetonka, Minnesota agreed to shut down their Ingenix database and settled a lawsuit with the New York Attorney General by paying $50 million, it was reported in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. According to an item in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, the investigation by the New York Attorney’s General office uncovered a fraudulent and conflict-of-interest-ridden reimbursement system, which the state of New York then proceeded to replace with a not-for-profit company, FAIR Health Inc., to be headquartered at Syracuse University.

That $50 million was used to form a new, independent database at Syracuse University. After settlements with other similar companies, the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday
a new independent database for consumer reimbursement as part of this Upstate research network in what sounds to be a reformed plan for Ingenix’s health care reimbursement database. Only this time allegedly with “transparency, accountability and fairness.” Funded by the litigation of Mr. Cuomo. Offering no defense of the operations at UnitedHealth here, public policy in New York apparently involves using the courts to transfer jobs to their state under the umbrella of the health care debate?

This new research network, reportedly funded with nearly $100 million in settlement money recovered during an investigation by Cuomo’s office into how the health-insurance industry reimburses consumers for out-of-network health care charges, “will develop a new Web site where for the first time consumers can compare prices before they choose their doctors.”

This is an innovative way for state government to create new jobs in their own state.

48 Hours

Hush money.

The Telegraph had the news of David Letterman’s revelation that he had sexual relationships with female employees of his show. Letterman said after his monologue last night on the air that he had received a demand by an alleged extortionist, according to CBS an employee of “48 Hours,” to either pay $2 million or risk his relationships being made public.

Letterman’s own production company according to the Los Angeles Times, does have a sexual harassment policy in place which does not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees, said a spokesman for Worldwide Pants.

After making a living off as a comic over Monica Lewinsky and Eliot Spitzer jokes, Letterman put the spin that the real story was about extortion, and the “threat” to him over his “creepy behavior.” According to Nick Allen of the The Telegraph.co.uk, during the CBS “Late Show with David Letterman,” Letterman revealed earlier that day he appeared before a grand jury about an alleged extortion attempt connected to his sexual liasons with women who worked for him which would clearly involve issues of sexual harassment in his admitted “creepy stuff…relationships.”

The Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, with a perceived timing orchestrated by Worldwide Pants, held a press conference within 14 hours to announce the specifics, revealing charges brought against CBS News producer Robert “Joe” Halderman.

Worldwide Pants. Caught without their pants on. “We have a written policy in our employee manual that covers harassment. It is circulated to every employee every year. Dave is not in violation of our policy and no one has ever raised a complaint against him.” So said the statement. Letterman’s own production company. Letterman did not believe in sexual harassment? He was an agnostic when it came to sexual harassment? What about the people who did not get the promotions that his staffers got in the Worldwide Pants world?

Thursday CBS said the “48 Hours” employee charged with attempted grand larceny was suspended from his job. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau in a press conference revealed the charges against CBS News producer Robert “Joe”Halderman. Mr. Halderman has not gotten the same public forum to address the world that Letterman was given about his alleged wrong doing. There also was no word on how CBS was dealing with the issues of sexual harassment, if corporate policy was violated. What a time for those human resource staffers. Apparently CBS feels extortion from an entertainment star was a worse offense than sexual harassment of female staffers, or the collateral damage of sexual harassment.

Fox News New York has reported that according to a search warrant, Robert “Joe” Halderman’s girlfriend Stephanie Birkitt was one of the women that Letterman slept with. According to Fox News New York, Ms. Birkitt is Letterman’s former assistant. Fox News New York has reported that the search warrant states the package Halderman sent Letterman contained copies of parts of Stephanie Birkitt’s diary and correspondence.

Entertainment Tonight showed later featured appearances of Stephanie Birkitt over the years on “Late Show with David Letterman” from venues like the Winter Olympics.

Letterman was quoted on his show as saying: “I was worried for myself. I was worried for my family. I felt menaced by this. And I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done.

According to Nick Allen of the The Telegraph.co.uk, “The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show.”

Letterman described how three weeks ago he had got in his car early in the morning, found a letter within a package saying: “I know that you do some terrible, terrible things and that I can prove you do some terrible things.” The package contained the proof, Letterman said. He called his lawyer to set up a meeting with the alleged extortionist, with two subsequent meetings, the last one resulting in the delivery of the fake check. Robert “Joe” Halderman allegedly had threatened to write a screenplay and a book about him unless Halderman was given money.

According to Nick Allen, Letterman admitted on Late Night Show Thursday night to having “had sex with women who work with me on this show. My response to that is yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would. Especially for the women.”

According to Nick Allen of the The Telegraph.co.uk, after telling all to his audience Letterman lightened the mood. “I know what you’re saying. I’ll be darned – Dave had sex.”

So it was about hush money? The bizarre experience? The audience had scattered laughter throughout the confession.

Yeah. On with the show.

“It’s been a very bizarre experience. I felt like I needed to protect these people. I need to protect my family. I need to protect myself. Hope to protect my job.”

The bizarre experience! For the audience. An inappropriate place to make the revelation, by a host with an inappropriate sensibility about himself. A repeat offender. Someone who had to be making overtures. But on with the show. Before we gave it all too much thought. One-liners.

It might be a while before the president is going to be booking an appearance again.

Maybe Bill Clinton will show up next week to offer some support. Or guest Host Elliot Spitzer? What a time for those staffers trying to line up guests for next week.

The age of television. Performance enhancement egos and salaries. When the era of Rocky the Squirrel of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota was replaced by the era of Vigara sponsorship.

On the Loss of Perspective

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

There is more and more this comparative approach to life. The increasing secularization of the western world along with developments in modern science effectively have killed the Judeo-Christian God. In its place, comes the celebration, the substitution, called diversity.

In its place, life lacks purpose and nothing has any importance. Instead people retain only their own multiple diverse and fluid perspectives. This is the world of modern America where, without need for editorial comment, 40% of all births are out of wedlock, where there have been 50 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. The loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which a human can cling and by which a person can orient one’s self. This in the age where American government grapples with how to deal with government employees who, in the name of America, tortured. In the same age,American government had no trouble allowing soldiers who raped in Iraq to be tried. This is the world of modern America which was not supposed to believe in caste systems. In an America, where during Watergate not even the president was above the law.

The ‘death’ of God eventually leads to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of objective truth. Welcome to the age of diversity and moral relativism. It is the philosophy of the American public school system. When the struggle for the grasp for the truth has never been harder, if you relied on the modern media that in comparative approach to life, for justice and equality.

Another Minsky Moment

According to Elizabeth Moyer in Forbes in November 2008, fighting the financial crisis has put the U.S. on the hook for some $5 trillion, one report says. According to a report by the inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, government’s maximum exposure to financial institutions since 2007 could total nearly $24 trillion. The watchdog overseeing the federal government financial bailout, Neil Barofsky, examined the 50 programs set up by the Federal Reserve as well as by the Bush and Obama administrations, and sent his report to Congress. Barofsky was to give testimony today to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

By the end of October 2008, more than half of the U.S. banks were pretend banks. A failure by the government to support the U.S. financial system could lead to “a depression,” Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat told reporters in September 2008. “To do nothing is to risk the kind of economic downturn this country hasn’t seen in 60 years.” Now, we were all going to have pretend dollars in those pretend banks. Like Citibank and all the other that needed rescue.

Those pretend banks? Providing a broad glimpse at how TARP recipients used federal capital, the report shows 43% of the banks used the money to meet capital or reserve requirements set by regulators. “Absent an infusion of capital [the bank] was unable to continue to meet the needs of its retail and commercial customer base,” one institution wrote.

What was the scale of the problem?

World GDP $47 trillion

World stock valuation $121 trillion

Bond market $85 trillion

Credit derivatives $473 trillion

Bloomberg had reported the total bailout and loan guarantees, the stimulus, totaled $9.7 trillion. As a result of big banks in too many businesses, this republic is threatened. This was not just a sub-prime crisis when people cannot buy homes and cars from a banking system. And the rest of us cannot sell. Where half of the banks are on the brink.

In a world with street smarts, you learned eventually that the “gang” problem had come to a neighborhood near you. Now you learned that the
same thing happened in the world of pretend banks.

With the system of government, why did we let financial institutions concoct a fix to the problem that in their greed they created? It was a worldwide bailout which would take 30 years or more to resolve and end up costing more than $350 trillion in the credit derivatives written, from what I had read.

No one would escape the world of “pretend” banks, where 43% of the banks used the money to meet capital or reserve requirements because there was no money there.

This was the latest version of gang warfare afflicting modern society.

What did you want to own in all of this? China’s reaction to this question, with currency, would determine the next chapter of American history.

Summer Recess

The outlook on future economic behavior: One in five people in California who desire full time work are not now working. That rate reached 23.5 percent Oregon this spring,, 21.5 percent in both Michigan and Rhode Island, and 20.3 percent in California according to a New York Times analysis of state-by-state data. The rate was just under 20 percent this spring in Tennessee and Nevada.

Mortimer Zuckerman, the chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report wrote today in the Wall Street Journal: “Unemployment has doubled to 9.5% from 4.8% in only 16 months, a rate so fast it may influence future economic behavior and outlook. How could this happen when Washington has thrown trillions of dollars into the pot, including the famous $787 billion in stimulus spending that was supposed to yield $1.50 in growth for every dollar spent? State budgets are drowning in red ink as jobless claims and Medicaid bills climb. Next year state budgets will have depleted their initial rescue dollars. Absent another rescue plan, they will have no choice but to slash spending, raise taxes, or both. As paychecks shrink and disappear, consumers are more hesitant to spend. The combination of a weak job picture and a severe credit crunch means that people won’t be able to get the financing for big expenditures, and those who can borrow will be reluctant to do so. The paycheck has returned as the primary source of spending. Businesses will not start to hire nor race to make capital expenditures when they have vast idle capacity.”

I would not be buying stocks with this kind of economic forecast. The next 12 months are going to be the hardest in 70 years. And in my view, Congress and the president have the same insight into how to resolve pending current affairs as FEMA did during Hurricane Katrina.

Register of Deeds

“It’s always been there, but like any fad, it takes awhile to catch on,” she said. “In the last three months, I have gotten more phone calls from parents. Great parents from wonderful communities. This crosses all borders. I think parents are just freaked out.” This was some expert talking. Apparently she spoke to parents about it in her school district. About sexting.

“It’s always been there?” The New World Order. Oh those “Once upon a time” stories. Back in the 1990s. Those kids had grown up.

The 1990s. It was about 10,000 points of light. Those 10,000 points of light. Now with cell phones and genitalia.

As their parents have fumbled and stumbled along with them, the new young generation has grown up. This was the New World Order. Those 10,000 points of light in cell phones. With cameras. Who were the supplies of phones for these 13 year-old?

About that sexting. State legislatures were getting into the act. In the New World Order, these state legislatures stayed in sessions too long composing new laws in a world that they themselves don’t understand. In a misguided attempt at protecting the public health, unable or unwilling to address the fiscal matters of budgets, they were trying to establish laws about sexting. Soon everyone would be a registered sex offender, for acts committed at the age of 14.

If you had not heard, sexting is the art of sending graphic images and videos text. Yeah, it was an art form. During the days still of the declared War on Terror, when you were not looking, a New World Order had cropped up.

This state had entered a new era for registered sex offenders. And these sex offenders. were our kids. The registers would be filled with young kids. It was a new generation that did not trade baseball cards. Like sexting, without the bubblegum. There had to be a song in all of this. This public register of sex offenders was growing too big. It was politicians fumbling and stumbling, generally coming to grips with fear, trying to balance an office for the public register of deeds, without surveys and Platt maps, and without a Torrens system of registration of title to land.

Under the current law in Vermont, teens who text message explicit photos could be prosecuted as sex offenders. So the Vermont legislature currently had a proposed bill which would make sexting legal in Vermont for 18-years old and younger. It was a bit of a reversal of the logic used regarding the requirements for drinking. But composing new laws? This state had entered a new era for registered sex offenders. And these were our kids.

All this while take your daughter-to-work day quietly bit the dust. Out of some new fear? It used to be in April. I think the nation was afraid what would happen with sexting. It used to be legislatures passed some kind of budgets, before going home for the year. Legislation and legislators never quite worked the way it all was intended. In the Too Big To Fail era.

Father-daughter dance, mother- son breakfast, had been replaced by cell phones. For safety. For peace of mind.

In the Too Big To Fail generation, fumbling and stumbling in Vermont, parent turned legislator, not really knowing what to do. With sexting. State legislatures wanting more control over the world, but not knowing how.

“So what are you in for?”

“I was found guilty of possessing child porn. I will be registered as a sex offender for life, when I get out. When I get out, I will be 17.”

Shrinkage

I live in a country that seems indifferent for the most part to the difficulty in different parts of the world. All politics was local. No one wondered what was going on in Mexico or Canada, much less the Baltic nations. One day you wake up to discover that those gangs and drugs in the inner city that you moved to the suburbs to escape…..well that there was no real escape.

By this time next year, the three Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania as well as Russia, Hungary, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Serbia and Georgia, all with negative outlooks, risk being downgraded by Fitch Ratings. “That is a clear signal how we see the direction of creditworthiness in the region,” with their reliance on exports and a consumption-fueled credit boom, Fitch Ratings reported. They seem to be the Moody’s of Europe.

The worldwide credit drought has left Eastern Europe among the most vulnerable in the global economic slump. The worldwide credit drought has left banks with more than $2 trillion in losses and write-downs.
Fitch estimates economic contraction of Latvia’s economy by 12 percent this year, with 10 percent contraction in Estonia and Lithuania.

Edward Parker of Fitch Ratings said: “Real economic activity is still falling quite rapidly. This year will be by far the deepest recession since the early years of transition” to free market economies from Communism in 1989.
With the return to growth in 2010, Fitch is forecasting a 1.4 percent rate of growth which will be “a very weak recovery. It’s not going to feel like much of a recovery,” Parker said. “We’re still going to see rising unemployment, pressure on bank balance sheets and public finances and some political pressures stemming from that.”

Emerging Europe will see its recession deepen before improvement that may lead to credit rating downgrades in about half the countries which will be determined by the ability of countries to keep with the condition imposed by the International Monetary Fund in the way of spending cuts after they have received bailout money. Fitch Ratings is assessing balance of payment trends, the ability of countries to refinance external debt, economic policy responses to the hardships and success in attracting international aid when deciding on rating cuts.

Among the poorest countries in the region with the weakest credits are Moldova at B-, Ukraine at B, and Georgia at B+. These poorest countries are with weaker governmental institutions, more vulnerable to sharp declines in capital inflows. The strongest countries credit-wise in the region are the Slovakia and the Czech Republic at A+, and Poland at A-. Slovakia’s Euro-region membership makes it a “safe harbor.”

Better placed than other East European countries, because of lower deficits, credible exchange rates, and a lack of previous fast credit expansion, both Poland and the Czech Republic are to withstand “global shocks” in the assessment of Fitch Ratings.

Some political pressures stemming from that? In Moldova, the recent scene following a recent parliamentary election was of demonstrators gathering in front of the country’s Parliament, calling for an end to communism, claiming the election result was fraudulent. According to the Prague Post, “The demonstration morphed into a riot when a portion of the crowd dodged police barricades and infiltrated the government complex, ransacking and setting fire to the premises. In what Stela Brailean, 23, called an overblown response, Moldavian communist authorities then reportedly commenced mass arrests, communication blackouts, and various intimidation techniques to repossess their grip on power, drawing the attention of European democracies. ‘The communist party is introducing restrictions, persecuting people, installing a totalitarian regime,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Moldova bureau chief Vasile Botnaru said in a telephone interview from Chisinau. “If it escalates, it’s absolutely a danger for democracy.’”

“The worsening economic situation in the country – the poorest in Europe – has widened the ideological gap between the pro-Western youth in the capital and left-leaning older generations nostalgic for the communist promise of economic security. Another gap, said Alina, exists between the country’s ethnic Romanian majority and Russian minority, a clash further fueled by an ongoing dispute over Moldova’s secessionist Trans-Dniester region, a frozen conflict zone jointly administered by a regional government, Russia and Moldova since a 1992 ceasefire.”

Networking

Over the past 6 months the world has seen the Achilles’ heal of Wall Street that has been populated by the new Ivy League graduates of the last decade. What it is that has been passed along to the next generation. It was not just the professional athlete and his/her agent that are money grubbers:

From Frank Rich of the New York Times:

“In the bubble decade, making money as an end in itself boomed as a calling among students at elite universities like Harvard, siphoning off gifted undergraduates who might otherwise have been scientists, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists or inventors. The Harvard Crimson reported that in the class of 2007, 58 percent of the men and 43 percent of the women entering the work force took jobs in the finance and consulting industries. The figures were similar everywhere, from Duke to the University of Pennsylvania. Dan Rather, on his HDNet television program in December, reported that at Penn this was even true of “over half the students who graduated with engineering degrees — not a field commonly associated with Wall Street.”

In the Shadows

 

Fairness.  You expected it in the courts.  With judges.  I expected it with the daily newspapers.

Today it as reported on the Workday Minnesota website that last September when the Twin Cities labor community rallied outside a Wayzata’s office for Wayzata Investment Partners, the Minneapolis Star Tribune did not cover that story.  The rally concerned the attempt of Wayzata Investment Partners, the private equity investment firm, to impose dramatic concessions in workers’ wages and benefits on Cascade Pacific Pulp, a longtime union paper mill in Halsey, Oregon. The rally was in the wake of the Republican National Convention and was an attempt to get visiting protesters in town to support steelworkers from Oregon.  It was not a local story but the “anarchist” website, self-described, had directed their supporters to stick around for an extra day or two to attend the rally.

 

David Brauer of MinnPost has since reported in the last month that Wayzata Investment Partners was the largest creditor of Avista Capital Partners as revealed in documents filed in the bankruptcy procedure of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Avista Capital Partners had purchased the Star Tribune in December 2006. 

 

It might be fair to conclude that the Minneapolis Star Tribune will not be fairly covering the story of their own bankruptcy. 

For anyone cheering for the paper to survive, this news does call the question how Avista can declare one business bankrupt yet continue to operate businesses that operate oil rigs and manufacture wound care products.  In the world of investments, it no longer was the doctrine of survival of the fittest and the hunger that goes with the quest, but simply one of money for money’s sake, when the end justifies the means.  

 

Most of the news today was about the ground hog seeing its shadow, without mention what was lurking in the shadows. 

 

Fairness.  I expected it with the daily newspapers.