OPINION - Another Look at Gun Control

The Rachel Maddow Show
MSNBC 12/17/2012

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QUESTION: Why should gun control laws (like No Plastic Guns or Assault Weapons Ban) have an expiration date?

IMHO control laws should NOT have an expiration date.

MEXICO - The Wal-Mart Payoff Scandal

"The Bribery Aisle: How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs to Get Its Way in Mexico" by DAVID BARSTOW and ALEJANDRA XANIC von BERTRAB, New York Times 12/17/2012

NYT Video link

Excerpt

SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACÁN, Mexico — Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town’s bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs. Pineda’s field.

One major obstacle stood in Wal-Mart’s way.

After years of study, the town’s elected leaders had just approved a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to limit growth near the pyramids, and they considered the town’s main entrance too congested already. As a result, the 2003 zoning map prohibited commercial development on Mrs. Pineda’s field, seemingly dooming Wal-Mart’s hopes.

But 30 miles away in Mexico City, at the headquarters of Wal-Mart de Mexico, executives were not about to be thwarted by an unfavorable zoning decision. Instead, records and interviews show, they decided to undo the damage with one well-placed $52,000 bribe.

The plan was simple. The zoning map would not become law until it was published in a government newspaper. So Wal-Mart de Mexico arranged to bribe an official to change the map before it was sent to the newspaper, records and interviews show. Sure enough, when the map was published, the zoning for Mrs. Pineda’s field was redrawn to allow Wal-Mart’s store.

Problem solved.

Wal-Mart de Mexico broke ground months later, provoking fierce opposition. Protesters decried the very idea of a Wal-Mart so close to a cultural treasure. They contended the town’s traditional public markets would be decimated, its traffic mess made worse. Months of hunger strikes and sit-ins consumed Mexico’s news media. Yet for all the scrutiny, the story of the altered map remained a secret. The store opened for Christmas 2004, affirming Wal-Mart’s emerging dominance in Mexico.

The secret held even after a former Wal-Mart de Mexico lawyer contacted Wal-Mart executives in Bentonville, Ark., and told them how Wal-Mart de Mexico routinely resorted to bribery, citing the altered map as but one example. His detailed account — he had been in charge of getting building permits throughout Mexico — raised alarms at the highest levels of Wal-Mart and prompted an internal investigation.

But as The New York Times revealed in April, Wal-Mart’s leaders shut down the investigation in 2006. They did so even though their investigators had found a wealth of evidence supporting the lawyer’s allegations. The decision meant authorities were not notified. It also meant basic questions about the nature, extent and impact of Wal-Mart de Mexico’s conduct were never asked, much less answered.

The Times has now picked up where Wal-Mart’s internal investigation was cut off, traveling to dozens of towns and cities in Mexico, gathering tens of thousands of documents related to Wal-Mart de Mexico permits, and interviewing scores of government officials and Wal-Mart employees, including 15 hours of interviews with the former lawyer, Sergio Cicero Zapata.

The Times’s examination reveals that Wal-Mart de Mexico was not the reluctant victim of a corrupt culture that insisted on bribes as the cost of doing business. Nor did it pay bribes merely to speed up routine approvals. Rather, Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited. It used bribes to subvert democratic governance — public votes, open debates, transparent procedures. It used bribes to circumvent regulatory safeguards that protect Mexican citizens from unsafe construction. It used bribes to outflank rivals.

ALSO:

INDIA - Elections in State of Gujarat

From around the world....

"In India, Modi Is a Popular, Polarizing Figure in Politics" from News Desk, PBS Newshour 12/17/2012

Narendra Modi, chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, is running for a fourth term in elections that wrap up this week. Results are expected Thursday. He's hailed for his efforts to revive the economy in western India but also criticized for violence that occurred during his watch several years ago.

"He's given us water, roads, everything," said a Gujarat resident, J.P. Makwana, through a translator in a report airing soon on the NewsHour (featured above). "That is why people love him. He does what he says."

But he also has his skeptics. Another resident Mohammed Sheikh said the city's progress is limited to the Hindu areas. "We get no aid from the Modi government," he said. "Does it look like we live well here?"

India, a Hindu-majority country, has the world's largest Muslim minority at 177 million people.

In early 2002, tensions between the two groups in Gujarat came to a head. The burning of 58 Hindu pilgrims on a train unleashed a series of retaliatory attacks on Muslims, and many Muslims displaced by the violence still live in temporary housing in the city's ghettos.

Modi, who has served as chief minister of Gujarat since October 2001, never apologized to the Muslim community for the assaults and some say isn't doing enough to help the riot victims.

In 2005, he was denied a visa to enter the United States due to religious freedom concerns.

FOOD - The Climate-Friendly Diet

"Food for 9 Billion: Four Steps Toward a Climate-Friendly Diet" from News Desk, PBS Newshour 12/17/2012

Excerpt

By Roni Neff of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

We won't stop climate change through individual action alone, but together, we can make a real difference. Here are four simple things we can do:

1. Eat less meat and dairy, especially beef and lamb. Livestock are by far the biggest producers of greenhouse gases in the global food system. In the U.S., most livestock-related emissions come from the animals' digestive systems and from the fertilizer used to grow their feed.

If an American family of four ate no meat or cheese one day a week, it would be like taking a car off the road for five weeks a year, according to estimates by the Environmental Working Group. If we all did it, it would be like not driving 91 billion miles.

2. Waste less food. Farmers have to grow far more food than we actually need because 40 percent of what they produce gets thrown away, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. That comes at a huge cost in greenhouse gases. Food waste in landfills also produces methane, which is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Try not to buy more than you can eat, and make creative use of your leftovers. Be aware of portion size and of falling into the trap of eating food just because it's there. Buy food that's less than perfect so the store won't toss it out. It also helps if you compost your kitchen scraps.

3. Use less energy. Stores and restaurants generally don't provide information about the energy used to produce, process and bring us our food, but we can make some guesses.

Highly perishable, out-of-season produce often comes by airplane, one of the most fuel-hogging vehicles. Processed foods take a lot of energy to produce. And the energy we use to transport, store and prepare food also contributes a surprisingly large share of food's greenhouse gas emissions.

Make fewer car trips to the store. Can you bike or walk? And consider buying Energy Star appliances. And cover your pots when you cook.

4. Support sustainable food systems. Pound for pound, sustainably and locally produced foods may not always be the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases. But climate-friendly eating also means doing all we can to shore up our food system so it can withstand what climate change has in store for us.

The best way to do that is by shifting toward more sustainable production methods and more efficient local and regional distribution systems. Buying from responsible producers in your area -- and the restaurants and stores to which they sell -- helps strengthen that system.

There's much more we can do, from examining our other food choices beyond meat and dairy to planning ahead, slowing down and appreciating the foods in front of us. And after we're done voting with our forks, we can vote with our ballots, emails, phones and wallets.

Demand that government and businesses step up and take action on greenhouse gases. If they hear from us enough, they'll do it -- and we will have done our part to assure that we can enjoy our meals tomorrow as much as we enjoy them today.

The "Food for 9 Billion" series is a NewsHour collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting, American Public Media's Marketplace and Homelands Productions.

MEMORIAM - Sandy Hook Victims

"Funerals Begin for Shooting Victims of Sandy Hook, New Details on Shooter Lanza" PBS Newshour 12/17/2012

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): A holiday season that should have been alive with the joy of children is now instead a season of mourning their loss in Newtown, Conn. The first of the funerals took place today for the victims of the massacre at an elementary school.

Ray Suarez begins our coverage.

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Flowers streamed into funeral homes around Newtown, as the shock and horror of Friday gave way to grim rituals of grief. Mourners in black waited under gray skies to attend services for Jack Pinto and Noah Pozner, two of the 20 first-graders killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.

And, everywhere, it is clear the townspeople are still reeling.

"Honoring the Sandy Hook Shooting Victims"
PBS Newshour 12/17/2012

EDUCATION - Smartphone/iPad Apps and Preschoolers

"Apps Give Preschoolers a First Look at TV Shows" by ELIZABETH JENSEN, New York Times 12/16/2012

Excerpt

In 2014, the preschool cable network Nick Jr. plans to introduce a television show featuring a little boy, his miniature pet dragon and a magic stick.

But the show, “Wallykazam,” will not be new to users of smartphones and tablets. Educational applications built around it will start appearing in app stores late next year, making “Wallykazam” Nickelodeon’s first major show to be introduced as a mobile product first, said Steve Youngwood, Nickelodeon’s executive vice president and general manager for digital media.

Driving the change, at Nickelodeon and other preschool television brands, are parents who are increasingly putting mobile devices into preschoolers’ hands and laps.

According to new research commissioned by Sesame Workshop, producer of PBS’s “Sesame Street,” mobile device ownership is booming as TV set ownership declines. Eighty-eight percent of the parents surveyed said they owned a television, down from 95 percent in 2010.

Twenty-one percent said their children first interacted with “Sesame Street” someplace other than television, with YouTube and PBS.org the top alternative sources. (PBS said separately that its free PBS Kids Video app, which has been downloaded 2.4 million times, reached 120 million streams of PBS Kids shows in November, surpassing 100 million for the first time.)

“On-air does still drive digital,” said Diana Polvere, Sesame Workshop’s vice president for market research, citing the 79 percent of viewers who still come to television first. But given the rapid changes, she said, Sesame’s research will now be conducted every six months instead of every two years.

Nickelodeon’s research, done in April and updated in October, shows striking growth in educational app use. In October, 27 percent of United States households with children ages 3 to 5 had an iPad, up from 22 percent in April. In those households, 40 percent of preschoolers used the iPad for educational apps, up from 27 percent in April.

CALIFORNIA - Democrats' Supermajority

"With a Supermajority, California Democrats Begin to Make Plans" by ADAM NAGOURNEY, New York Times 12/16/2012

Excerpt

The Democratic Party has controlled the California Legislature for a nearly unbroken stretch of 42 years. Yet control goes only so far: it takes two-thirds of the Legislature to enact a host of important legislation in this state, meaning that even the diminished Republican Party has been able to easily frustrate Democratic ambitions.

But with a swell of electoral victories in November, the Democratic Party has now crossed that boundary and controls two-thirds of both the Senate and the Assembly, giving it the kind of unfettered power that no party has had here for 80 years.

This does not appear to be a passing advantage. Even Republicans say that changes in electoral demographics mean that, with the exception of a few brief lapses caused by vacancies, Democrats could hold a supermajority at least through the end of the decade.

Yet in the “be careful what you wish for” department, Democrats are beginning to confront the struggles and complications that come with being in charge of the store. This authority came at least two years earlier than most Democrats had projected. And it is unleashing years of pent-up Democratic desires — to roll back spending cuts, approve a bond issue to rebuild the state’s water system, amend the state’s tax code, revamp California’s governance system — that had been largely checked by the Republican minority.

At the same time, it is stirring concerns from Democrats, among them Gov. Jerry Brown, that the situation may inspire an overreach that could make the party’s reign brief. By contrast, some Democrats argue that handled correctly, the next two years could provide an opportunity to lock in long-term control.

“The center of gravity of the Democratic Party will be restraint, but some people can’t help themselves,” Mr. Brown said in an interview. “The supermajority is not a permanent condition. It’s something that can be lost far more easily than it can be gained.”

The demand became apparent even before the new Legislature was sworn in this month. State Senator Ted W. Lieu, a Democrat, proposed reinstating an automobile registration fee that was repealed under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That fee was a rallying point of what many saw as excessive taxation here; its elimination created a $4 billion revenue shortfall. Mr. Lieu pulled back at the urging of Democratic leaders.

“Democrats have unrestricted, unchecked power in the executive and the legislative branch today — and they have not had that for decades,” said James L. Brulte, a former state lawmaker running for state Republican leader. “If you are a Democrat, the good news is that your party is 100 percent in charge of state government. If you’re a Democrat, the bad news is that you don’t get to blame anybody else if things go wrong. So Democrats own it.”

IMHO this is good, things can get done without the obstructionist, rich before everyone else, Republicans.

BUT the Democrats own the California 'store' and get whatever blame for failures. You can bet that Republicans will lead the charge on blaming, whether deserved or not.

CONNECTICUT - These Tragedies Must End

"‘These Tragedies Must End,’ Obama Says" by MARK LANDLER and PETER BAKER, New York Times 12/16/2012

Excerpt

NEWTOWN, Conn. — President Obama vowed on Sunday to “use whatever power this office holds” to stop massacres like the slaughter at the school here that shocked the nation, hinting at a fresh effort to curb the spread of guns as he declared that there was no “excuse for inaction.”

In a surprisingly assertive speech at a memorial service for the 27 victims, including 20 children, Mr. Obama said that the country had failed to protect its young and that its leaders could no longer sit by idly because “the politics are too hard.” While he did not elaborate on what action he would propose, he said that “these tragedies must end.”

The speech, a blend of grief and resolve that he finished writing on the short Air Force One flight up here, seemed to promise a significant change in direction for a president who has not made gun issues a top priority in four years in office. After each of three other mass killings during his tenure, Mr. Obama has renewed calls for legislation without exerting much political capital, but the definitive language on Sunday may make it harder for him not to act this time.

“No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society,” he said. “But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.” He added that “in the coming weeks I’ll use whatever power this office holds” in an effort “aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”

“Because what choice do we have?” he added. “We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

Mr. Obama, speaking on a stark stage before a table of votive candles for each victim, mixed his call to action with words of consolation for this bereaved town. When he read the names of teachers killed defending their students, people in the audience gasped and wept.

The service came as new details emerged about the terrifying moments at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday. Authorities said Sunday that the gunman, Adam Lanza, shot his mother multiple times in the head before his rampage at the school and that he still had hundreds of rounds of ammunition left when he killed himself. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut said Mr. Lanza shot himself as the police were closing in, suggesting that he may have intended to take more lives had he not been interrupted.

The president’s trip here came amid rising pressure to push for tighter regulation of guns in America. The president offered no specific proposals, and there were no urgent meetings at the White House over the weekend to draft legislation. Administration officials cautioned against expecting quick, dramatic action, especially given the end-of-the-year fiscal crisis consuming most of Mr. Obama’s time.

But the administration does have the makings of a plan on the shelf, with measures drafted by the Justice Department over the years but never advanced. Among other things, Democrats said they would push to renew an assault rifle ban that expired in 2004 and try to ban high-capacity magazines like those used by Mr. Lanza in Newtown. The president also said he would work with law enforcement and mental health professionals, as well as parents and educators.

ALSO:

"A Painful Duty: Consoling a Town Preparing to Bury Its Children" by CARA BUCKLEY, New York Times 12/16/2012

"The Nation Heads Back to School With New Worries About Safety" by MOTOKO RICH, New York Times 12/16/2012

HEALTH - Gulf War Syndrome Update

"Paper Links Nerve Agents in ’91 Gulf War and Ailments" by JAMES DAO, New York Times 12/13/2012

Excerpt

Reviving a 20-year debate over illnesses of veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a new scientific paper presents evidence that nerve agents released by the bombing of Iraqi chemical weapons depots just before the ground war began could have carried downwind and fallen on American troops staged in Saudi Arabia.

The paper, published in the journal Neuroepidemiology, tries to rebut the longstanding Pentagon position, supported by many scientists, that neurotoxins, particularly sarin gas, could not have carried far enough to sicken American forces.

The authors are James J. Tuite and Dr. Robert Haley, who has written several papers asserting links between chemical exposures and gulf war illnesses. They assembled data from meteorological and intelligence reports to support their thesis that American bombs were powerful enough to propel sarin from depots in Muthanna and Falluja high into the atmosphere, where winds whisked it hundreds of miles south to the Saudi border.

Once over the American encampments, the toxic plume could have stalled and fallen back to the surface because of weather conditions, the paper says. Though troops would have been exposed to low levels of the agent, the authors assert that the exposures may have continued for several days, increasing their impact.

Though chemical weapons detectors sounded alarms in those encampments in the days after the January 1991 bombing raids, they were viewed as false by many troops, the authors report.

But a significant number of medical experts have cast doubts on the sarin gas theory over the years, and several said Thursday that the new paper did little to change their minds.

Dr. John Bailar, an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago who led a group that studied gulf war illnesses in 1996, said there was still no clear evidence that troops might have been exposed to levels of sarin significant enough to have a biological effect.

Dr. Bailar said that the stress of war rather than chemical agents might be a more likely cause of the veterans’ problems. “Gulf war syndrome is real,” he said, using the term for a constellation of symptoms. “And the veterans who have it deserve appropriate medical care. But we should not kid ourselves about its causes or about the most effective means of treatment.”

Nearly half of the 700,000 service members who were deployed in 1990 and 1991 for the gulf war have filed disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and more than 85 percent of those have been granted benefits, the department has reported.

Many of those veterans have reported long-lasting problems, including chronic pain, memory loss, persistent fatigue and diarrhea, some of which had no clear causes. Many veterans insist that their problems are not the result of stress but have a biological basis.

OPINION - Michigan Workers' Paradise Lost

"Workers’ Paradise Lost" by THOMAS J. SUGRUE, New York Times 12/13/2012

THE 211 Bar and Grill is a little watering hole near Michigan’s Black Lake, in a place that natives call “up north.” Its walls are adorned with prizewinning pike, deer heads, even a wolverine. But its most striking ornament is a patch of wall where visiting autoworkers proudly scrawl their union affiliations: “Fighting Local 600.” “Local 22 — Hamtramck.”

That wall testifies to more than 75 years of union power in Michigan. Given that history, many were surprised this week when Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed legislation preventing unions from forcing workers to pay dues. But, in fact, it’s been a long time since Michigan was a workers’ paradise.

The 211 Bar opened in 1946, a turning point for labor. That year saw one of the greatest strike waves in American history, and the United Automobile Workers elected the indomitable Walter P. Reuther its president. By 1950, he had forged the “treaty of Detroit,” ushering in an era of prosperity. Autoworkers won decent wages, health insurance, unemployment benefits and a pension plan. Unionization benefited nonunion workers too, because even nonunion employers needed to offer higher pay and benefits to compete with union pay packets.

Unionized workers used their wages and benefits to become homeowners. They could put their kids through college. They did not have to fret about bankruptcy when a medical crisis struck. They were cushioned against the scourge of cyclical unemployment.

And they could even get a taste of the good life, buying little summer cottages and hunting cabins in places like Black Lake. In the 1960s, the U.A.W. even built its retreat and conference center there.

Michigan’s unions, which at their height represented 45 percent of the state’s workers, became a powerful political force. Detroit’s Labor Day parade was a mandatory stop for Democratic presidential candidates (though, tellingly, President Obama skipped it in 2012).

Labor leaders advised Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Reuther stood with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on behalf of racial equality (even though some rank-and-file white unionists were skeptical), and he worked with Kennedy and Johnson to expand education, antipoverty and health care programs.

On the state level, even Republicans could not disregard unions. Gov. George Romney, who came to politics as a former auto industry executive, supported Michigan’s 1965 law giving collective bargaining rights to public employee unions.

That influence and prosperity were hard won — and fragile. No sooner did labor gain political clout than its opponents began trying to curb its power. In 1947, a coalition of pro-business Republicans and Southern Democrats pushed through the Taft-Hartley Act, which allowed states to pass right-to-work laws. Within two decades 19 states, all in the South and Mountain West, had right-to-work laws.

Low union density allowed these Sunbelt states to attract employers in search of low wages and weak regulations. Job flight — first to nonunion states, then to low-wage bastions overseas — hit hard, especially in Michigan. Union membership dropped to 17.6 percent of Michigan’s work force in 2011. In comparison, anti-union and early right-to-work states like Alabama and Arizona had higher union density in 1964 than Michigan today.

Meanwhile, income inequality has spiked, middle-class wages have barely improved and blue-collar jobs are lower paying, less secure and less likely to offer health care and pension benefits. It’s no coincidence that incomes have stagnated as union power has waned: the historian Colin Gordon found that inequality had been greatest in right-to-work states and that declining union membership accounted for a third of the rise in inequality during the 1980s and ’90s.

Today, unions face high obstacles to organizing, from corporate anti-union campaigns to weak enforcement of labor laws. The strike, once crucial to union bargaining power, is now inconsequential: it depends on community support, which is hard to muster when fewer than a fifth of a state’s workers are in unions.

This doesn’t mean Michigan’s unions are powerless. But they have used their dwindling resources to influence elections and shape policies like taxation, health care and infrastructure spending, rather than confronting employers directly. At a moment when the voting machine has replaced the picket line as the last bastion of union strength, right-to-work advocates hope to weaken what remains of the movement’s clout. Without a strong voice representing them, Michigan workers will remain outmatched in what was already a tough defensive battle for economic security.

In Michigan, it’s no longer a given that a blue-collar job is a ticket to the middle class. The scribbled names on the 211 Bar wall might well be the last traces of the disappearing world of the once prosperous Michigan worker.

EDUCATION - College Institutional Debt

"Degrees of Debt: Building a Showcase Campus, Using an I.O.U." by ANDREW MARTIN, New York Times 12/13/2012

Excerpt

Some call it the Edifice Complex. Others have named it the Law of More, or the Taj Mahal syndrome.

A decade-long spending binge to build academic buildings, dormitories and recreational facilities — some of them inordinately lavish to attract students — has left colleges and universities saddled with large amounts of debt. Oftentimes, students are stuck picking up the bill.

Overall debt levels more than doubled from 2000 to 2011 at the more than 500 institutions rated by Moody’s, according to inflation-adjusted data compiled for The New York Times by the credit rating agency. In the same time, the amount of cash, pledged gifts and investments that colleges maintain declined more than 40 percent relative to the amount they owe.

With revenue pinched at institutions big and small, financial experts and college officials are sounding alarms about the consequences of the spending and borrowing. Last month, Harvard University officials warned of “rapid, disorienting change” at colleges and universities.

“The need for change in higher education is clear given the emerging disconnect between ever-increasing aspirations and universities’ ability to generate the new resources to finance them,” said an unusually sobering introduction to Harvard’s annual report for the fiscal year ended in June.

The debate about indebtedness has focused on students and graduates who have borrowed tens of thousands of dollars and are struggling to keep up with their payments. Nearly one in every six borrowers with a student loan balance is in default.

But some colleges and universities have also borrowed heavily, spending money on vast expansions and amenities aimed at luring better students: student unions with movie theaters and wine bars; workout facilities with climbing walls and “lazy rivers”; and dormitories with single rooms and private baths. Spending on instruction has grown at a much slower pace, studies have shown. Students end up covering some, if not most, of the debt payments in the form of higher tuition, room and board and special assessments, while in some instances state taxpayers pick up the costs.

Debt has ballooned at colleges across the board — public and private, elite and obscure. While Harvard is the wealthiest university in the country, it also has $6 billion in debt, the most of any private college, the data compiled by Moody’s shows.

At the Juilliard School, which completed a major renovation a few years ago, debt climbed to $195 million last year, from $6 million in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2002. At Miami University, a public institution in Ohio that is overhauling its dormitories and student union, debt rose to $326 million in 2011, from $66 million in 2002, and at New York University, which has embarked on an ambitious expansion, debt was $2.8 billion in 2011, up from $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the Moody’s data.

The pile of debt — $205 billion outstanding in 2011 at the colleges rated by Moody’s — comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in academia. After years of robust growth, enrollment is flat or declining at many institutions, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. With outstanding student debt exceeding $1 trillion, students and their parents are questioning the cost and value of college. And online courses threaten to upend the traditional collegiate experience and payment model.

At the same time, the financial crisis and recession created a new and sometimes harrowing financial calculus. Traditional sources of revenue like tuition, state appropriations and endowment returns continue to be squeezed, even as the costs of labor, health care for employees, technology and interest on debt have generally increased.

EGYPT - The Forgotten in the Political Dispute

"In Cairo Crisis, the Poor Find Dashed Hopes" by KAREEM FAHIM, New York Times 12/13/2012

Excerpt

A faded poster of Hosni Mubarak hangs on a wall in a crumbling neighborhood here, reminding residents of an empty pledge to find jobs for young people. Down the street, a campaign banner for his successor, Mohamed Morsi, hangs across the road, a reminder of more recent promises unkept.

In the neighborhood, called Boulaq, so long neglected that houses regularly collapse, there was little expectation that Mr. Mubarak would provide. But Mr. Morsi’s disregard has been much harder to take.

“We had high hopes in God, that things would improve,” Fathi Hussein said as he built a desk of dark wood for one of his clients, who are dwindling. “I elected a president to be good for the country. I did not elect him to impose his opinions on me.”

Away from the protests and violence that have marked the painful struggle over Egypt’s identity in the run-up to a referendum on Saturday on a constitution, residents of Boulaq have their own reasons to be consumed with the crisis. The chants of the protesters, for bread and freedom, resonate in Boulaq’s alleyways. In many of its industrial workshops, passed from struggling fathers to penniless sons, disappointment with the president, his Muslim Brotherhood supporters as well as the leaders of the opposition grows daily.

There is a sense in Boulaq that the raging arguments would be better resolved in places like this, where most Egyptians live, carrying the burdens of poverty with no help from an indifferent state, and where the revolution’s promise of dignity is long overdue.

MIDDLE EAST - Afghan and Pakistani Talks About Taliban

"Afghan and Pakistani Officials Meet to Discuss Border Conflicts and the Taliban" PBS Newshour 12/13/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region by 2014, putting pressure on Afghanistan to rectify its relationship with Pakistan and find a political solution to the ongoing conflict between the two countries. Margaret Warner reports.

SCIENCE - Genetic Link For Addiction?

"Scientists Say Bottoms Up to Find the Connection Between Genes and Addiction" PBS Newshour 12/13/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Scientists have not found one master alcoholism gene in DNA but rather several that may affect a person's susceptibility. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien goes under the influence to examine the genetic science behind alcoholism and other addictions, and how the answers point to great challenges in curing substance abuse.

MILES O’BRIEN (Newshour): So far as I know, there's no law against reporting under the influence.

Here we go. Party. So, here goes something. That wasn't too bad.

A stiff dose of 30 grams of pure ethanol, mixed with Diet Coke, the equivalent of three stiff drinks chugged in eight minutes or less.

MAN: And give it a blow. Good. Perfect. Just keep blowing, keep blowing.

MILES O’BRIEN: A bottoms-up moment to help get to the bottom of the link between addiction and our genes.

Marc Schuckit is a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego.

MEDICARE - Raising Age of Eligibility Question

"Lawmakers Consider Raising Medicare Age of Eligibility as Budget Compromise" PBS Newshour 12/13/2012

Excerpt

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): And that brings us to a big part of the Medicare debate. Should the eligibility age for future retirees be raised from 65 to 67?

Many Democrats have pressured the president this week to oppose any attempt to do so. But in an interview with ABC News, President Obama indicated he may be open to the idea as part of a compromise.

We have our own debate about this and its potential impact.

Neera Tanden is president of the Center for American progress. She previously worked for the Obama administration working on health care reform. And Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former deputy secretary of health and human services in the George W. Bush administration. He served as Mitt Romney's health care policy adviser during the just completed presidential campaign.

"What's the Best Way to Control Medicare Costs?" by Kaiser Health News, PBS Newshour 12/13/2012

SYRIA - Russia Will Not Support Assad

"Russia Offers a Dark View of Assad’s Chances for Survival" by ELLEN BARRY and STEVEN ERLANGER, New York Times 12/13/2012

Excerpt

The outlook for Syria’s embattled president darkened considerably on Thursday when his most powerful foreign ally, Russia, acknowledged that he was losing the struggle against an increasingly coordinated insurgency and for the first time said it was making contingency plans to evacuate its citizens from the country, the Kremlin’s last beachhead in the Middle East.

"Russian Diplomat Urges Political Deal in Syria to Avoid Unending Civil Conflict" PBS Newshour 12/13/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Having been an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia is now watching the leader lose ground to the rebels. Judy Woodruff talks to Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, who says that while Russia is not supporting Assad, it remains strong in its rejection of outside military intervention in Syria.

POLITICS - Fiscal Cliff Negotiations 18days To Go

"Poll Shows Among Public President Obama Has Strong Hand for Budget Negotiations" PBS Newshour 12/13/2012

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SUMMARY: While Republicans hold fast to the conviction that spending cuts -- not tax increases -- will fix America's debt problems, new polls reveal the public strongly supports President Obama's approach to the budget. Ray Suarez talks to Pew Research Center's Andy Kohut who says what Americans want most is compromise and balance.

SYRIA - Syrian Rebel Coalition Internationally Recognized

"U.S., International Governments Formally Recognize Syrian Rebel Coalition" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 12/12/2012

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad faced new pressure at home and abroad today. A coalition of opposition groups won recognition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. And rebel fighters pressed their attacks in and around Damascus.

Across the Syrian capital, it was increasingly clear that no one and no place is safe. Amateur video showed burned-out cars from a blast near the Justice Ministry. And state television aired footage of emergency workers after three bombs exploded outside the Interior Ministry.

The attacks highlighted an upsurge in rebel assaults around Damascus and elsewhere. The New York Times reported the Syrian military is now fighting back with Scud missiles, firing at least a half-dozen in recent days. Against that backdrop, President Obama announced Tuesday that the U.S. will now formally recognize the Syrian opposition movement.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We have made a decision that the Syrian opposition coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population.

GWEN IFILL: Hours later, the friends of Syria meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, took the same step. The U.S. became one of 114 nations to endorse the Syrian National Council, created just last month under international pressure.

Deputy Secretary of State William Burns:

WILLIAM BURNS, U.S. deputy secretary of state: In a growing number of towns and villages, a new Syria is being born. The regime of Bashar al-Assad must and will go. The sooner he steps aside, the better for all Syrians.

GWEN IFILL: Despite showing signs last week of a possible shift in Russia's position, the decision didn't go down well in Moscow, which opposes outside action against the Assad regime.

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov:

SERGEI LAVROV, Russian foreign minister (through translator): As the coalition has been recognized as the only legitimate representative, it seems that the United States decided to place all bets on the armed victory of this very national coalition.

GWEN IFILL: But no weapons have been promised, and a spokesman for the coalition said it needs real support. The U.S. has resisted sending arms, amid fears they might wind up in the hands of Islamic extremist groups.

Just this week, Washington branded one such group, the Al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq. But the head of the opposition council said today the Islamist fighters are partly responsible for the latest rebel gains.

MOUAZ AL-KHATIB, Syrian National Council (through translator): The decision to consider one of the fronts facing off to the regime as a terrorist group needs reconsideration. We affirm that all weapons used by the revolutionaries aim for the fall of this tyrannical, criminal regime.

GWEN IFILL: There was no dissent over the Marrakech meeting's decision to send increased humanitarian aid and other non-military support. The U.N. now estimates that half-a-million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries, with two million more displaced within Syria itself.

"As Syrian Rebels Receive Endorsement, Will They Also Get Military Assistance?" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 12/12/2012

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SUMMARY: While the endorsement of the Syrian National Council could pave the way for more international aid, questions remain over whether countries such as the U.S. will provide military assistance to rebels. Gwen Ifill talks to Atlantic Council's Fred Hof and National Defense University's Murhaf Jouejati about what's next for Syria.

NORTH KOREA - Their Long-Range Missile

"Defying International Warnings, North Korea Launches Long-Range Rocket" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 12/12/2012

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): And now to North Korea, where a successful rocket launch echoed in world capitals today.

We begin with a report narrated by John Sparks of Independent Television News.

JOHN SPARKS: In a country where there is little to shout about, except on the evening news, today brought something special.

"It's the proud result of the Workers' Party's policy on science and technology," bellowed the newsreader.

The last time they tried this, back in April, North Korea's multistage rocket disintegrated a few minutes after takeoff.

But, this time, it seems they got it right. The only pictures we have got come from the control room's big-screen TV, but we can see the rocket leave the launch pad and climb into the upper atmosphere.

And we're told it put a satellite, the Shining Star-3, into orbit. This country may not be able to feed its own people, but its engineers can fire things into space.

"It's made with our own technology and our own strength," says the director of the command center. The country's boyish-looking supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, has disregarded the will of the international community and enhanced his own credentials with the military at home.

Some hoped he'd take a more reformist approach one year after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, but those hopes have been dashed, it seems.

In South Korea, protesters took to the streets burning flags and portraits. And the international community added its voice, too, the worry, that the launch has more to do with the development of long-range missiles, missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons.

"Science and Politics Behind North Korea's Long-Range Missile Test" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 12/12/2012

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SUMMARY: Though Kim Jong-Il passed away in December 2011, his son Kim Jong Un continues his father's policies with the latest rocket launch. Margaret Warner talks to David Wright of Union of Concerned Scientists and Han Park of University of Georgia about the politics and consequences for the launch, including proliferation concerns.

POLITICS - Fiscal Cliff Negotiations 19days To Go

From the originator of Our-Way-or-No-Way......

"Anti-Tax Crusader Grover Norquist Compares Balanced Approach to 'Pink Unicorns'" PBS Newshour 12/12/2012

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SUMMARY: Since 1986, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge has been signed by politicians promising to oppose increases to the marginal income tax rate. But some Republicans say they may be willing to break the pledge to avoid the fiscal cliff. Judy Woodruff talks to pledge creator Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

Watch Grover Norquist on Balanced Approach to 'Pink Unicorns' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.