I see that Walmart threatened to move out of Washington, D.C. if the city raised its minimum wage to 12.50.
The D.C. council raised it anyway.
Bravo to D.C. for calling Walmart’s bluff. Let’s hope the Mayor signs the measure; evidently, he’s expressed some concerns, since Walmart was proposing to create jobs and to expand into neighborhoods currently underserved by retail.
Those neighborhoods deserve to be served, and jobs are important–but are they worth $6000 of taxpayer subsidy for each person Walmart employs? Because that’s what the research shows: for every job Walmart creates, taxpayers are filling the gap between the low wages being paid and what workers need to survive. Walmart employees are overwhelmingly dependent upon the social safety net for food, housing and medical care.
Walmart has a great business plan: Those of us who pay taxes subsidize Walmart’s costs of doing business. So long as they can get away with paying below-subsistence wages, our tax dollars will continue to fatten their bottom line.
Defenders of these rapacious business practices defend Walmart by pointing to the low prices of their merchandise. Low prices benefit consumers, particularly poorer consumers. But keeping prices low does not require paying poverty wages.
The big box store most famous for its stockpiles of toilet paper and $1.50 hot dogs also has a reputation for paying its workers a higher wage than most of its competitors. The average Costco worker made about $45,000 per year, Fortune reports. By comparison, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club, a Costco competitor, pays its workers $17,486 per year, according to salary information site Glassdoor.com….Costco’s insistence on treating its workers well hasn’t come at the expense of the company’s bottom line. The retailer’s profit jumped 19 percent to $459 million last quarter, while Walmart’s sales suffered during the same period.
So that claim about helping low-income shoppers by offering bargain prices doesn’t fly–Costco manages to keep prices low (and profits high) without screwing over its employees. Or picking the pocket of the taxpayers.
Washington, D.C. should take a leaf from my mother’s book. When I was a little girl and threatened to run away from home, she’d offer to make me sandwiches for the trip.
There are so many real problems in today’s world that it seems extremely petty to complain about this, but I see that The Indianapolis Star is negotiating with the Simon Company to move into the space previously occupied by Nordstrom.
The City has worked long and hard to get a critical mass of retailing in the downtown core. An adequate retail presence is necessary if we are to continue the residential rebirth downtown: these uses are co-dependent. We need enough people who live downtown to support retail uses, and we need retail uses that are convenient in order to attract downtown residents.
We’ve already lost the site of the former Borders to a bank. Now we are losing the Nordstrom site– a prime retail location that many hoped would be filled by a Macy’s or similar shopping destination.
When I first worked downtown, I was a lawyer at what was then considered a large firm (52). There were perhaps two places to have lunch; there was nowhere to shop. When I first moved downtown, there was no grocery. (What is now Marsh and was O’Malia’s was then an old and decrepit Sears Roebuck, with blue metal siding.) City officials and not-for-profit organizations have worked hard over the ensuing years to revive the core of our city, to attract a broad mix of uses, and to make it a place people want to live in and visit.
It’s worrisome enough that the soaring crime rate is once again making people hesitant to attend downtown events. If we lose the things that attract people downtown, that’s a double whammy.
This is just one location–albeit an important one–and obviously, Simon can do what it wants with its own property. But it’s disappointing–another lost opportunity at a time when Indianapolis lacks the political and civic leadership that over the years turned “Naptown” into a great place to live.
When I was a young girl growing up in Anderson, Indiana (circa Ice Age), Ball State University, located in nearby Muncie, was sort of a joke. It was a “Teachers’ College,” attended by kids who didn’t have the grades to get into more rigorous or respectable schools.
Over the years, Ball State’s reputation has improved tremendously. It is no longer just a teachers’ college enrolling substandard students. It has become a respectable and respected University.
Or so I thought.
Suddenly, Ball State’s motto–“Education Redefined”–has taken on a whole new meaning. A recent news item was nothing short of appalling.
Ball State University has hired a controversial astronomer who is a national leader in the intelligent design movement (Slabaugh, Muncie Star Press). President Jo Ann Gora approved the hiring of Guillermo Gonzalez as an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy on June 12 at a salary of $57,000. He will start teaching at BSU in August. The hiring occurred after Ball State had launched an investigation into a complaint that another assistant professor in the same department, Eric Hedin, was promoting intelligent design in a science class…
Every court that has considered the propriety of teaching “creationism” or “intelligent design” (interchangable terms, no matter how desperately their proponents claim otherwise) in public school science classes has concluded that intelligent design is religion, not science. That includes Republican judges appointed by conservative Republican Presidents. Among scientists, intelligent design is a joke–not because it postulates the existence of God (many scientists believe in God), but because it is not science. Intelligent design or creationism can be taught in a class on comparative religion, but it simply cannot be taught as science.
Let’s talk about what science is.
Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence. It requires the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena. Science is characterized by empirical inquiry.
The scientific method begins with the identification of a question or problem, after which relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated based upon that data, and the hypothesis is then subject to additional empirical testing.
Development of a scientific theory is a part of the scientific method. It involves summarizing a group of hypotheses that have been successfully and repeatedly tested. Once enough empirical evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, a theory is developed, and that theory becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a particular phenomenon.
In the scientific method, a clear distinction is drawn between facts, which can be observed and/or measured, and theories, which are scientists’ explanations and interpretations of those facts. Scientists can draw various interpretations from their observations, or from the results of their experiments, but the facts, which have been called the cornerstone of the scientific method, do not change. A scientific theory is not the end result of the scientific method; theories are constantly supported or rejected, improved or modified as more information is gathered so that the accuracy of the prediction becomes greater over time.
Nonscientists use the word theory to mean speculation, or guess—“I have a theory about that.” When we fail to distinguish between our casual use of the term and its very different scientific meaning, we confuse discussions of science education. This has been particularly true of arguments surrounding Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Some religious people (certainly not all) believe that the theory of evolution is inconsistent with a belief in God, and they challenge the teaching of evolution in biology classes because they believe that it is “just a theory.”
In order to be scientific, hypotheses and theories must be subject to falsification.
A falsifiable assertion is one that can be empirically refuted or disproved.
Observing that a woman or a sunset is beautiful, asserting that you feel sad, declaring that you are in love and similar statements may be very true, but they aren’t science, because they can be neither empirically proved nor disproved. Similarly, God may exist, but that existence is not falsifiable—God cannot be dragged into a laboratory and tested. One either believes in His existence or not. (That’s why religious belief is called faith.)
It’s unfortunate that so many people don’t understand the difference between science and religion, but it is inconceivable that an institution of higher education would confuse the two, or allow religious doctrine to be taught as science.
I don’t know what’s going on at Ball State, but apparently that institution is “redefining education” in ways that will return it to its previous status as a third-rate institution.
Jo Ann Gora should be embarrassed, and Ball State alumni–who are seeing their credentials devalued–should be furious.
Anyone who lives in Indianapolis and reads or listens to the news knows that Mayor Ballard recently vetoed a bipartisan measure passed by the City-County Council that would have increased the size of the police recruit class. He says we can’t afford it.
The news also confirms that Ballard is hell-bent on spending $6 million dollars to build a Cricket field.
A friend recently sent me the following clip from a news story, in which Ballard defended his priorities.
During an interview last week, Ballard grew impassioned when asked about the decision-making behind the nearly 50-acre sports complex and the shaky history of the United States of America Cricket Association. (It has new leadership after struggling to put on cricket tournaments in recent years.) He called local reaction to the plans “very upsetting.” “We have basketball courts, swimming pools, tennis courts, baseball fields — we have all these other sports — and these guys have nowhere to play rugby, hurling, lacrosse, Australian-rules football, cricket,” Ballard said. “Why are they not allowed to have their fields, too? … I think, as a mayor, that’s a good thing to be doing.”
Let’s deconstruct this. (I will try to do so without hurling.)
Because our parks have swimming pools and basketball courts, we have an obligation to offer cricket and lacrosse fields? Why not dodgeball (which actually has more fans than cricket, at least judging from Facebook likes)? How about people who compete in hammer-throw tournaments? Curling? Surely Ballard is not suggesting that this is some sort of equal protection issue–that taxpayers have an obligation to meet the sports needs of aficionados of even the least popular sports?
And I’m still debating the propriety of government providing golf courses…
If there is one thing on which virtually all Americans agree, it is that providing public safety is a government obligation. (That may be the only thing Americans all agree on.) Police may not be as exciting as cricket (actually, they are; I’ve seen cricket), but providing adequate police protection is–along with ensuring that we can flush–an absolutely basic government function.
So, as Ed Koch might have asked, how are we doing?
According to the Mayor’s own task force, the Indianapolis police force is short 685 uniformed officers. The national average is 2.5 officers per 1000 residents; the current IMPD ratio is 1.7 officers per 1000.
The murder rate in New York City is 3.4 per 100,000. The murder rate in Indianapolis is 17.5 per 100,000.
The City is shifting IMPD assignments in a desperate effort to put more cops on the street without actually adding personnel, but given our current staffing levels, that’s equivalent to rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. The Mayor’s own task force reported that there is no alternative to hiring more officers–redeploying may help at the margins, but there is no alternative to hiring more police.
Now, I’m not unsympathetic to the fiscal problems created by Mitch Daniels’ tax caps. (Caps that Ballard supported, unbelievable as that is.) Constitutionalizing those caps was brilliant politics, and terrible government. The caps starve units of local government of badly needed resources, requiring not only creative fiscal management (we are running out of public assets to sell off), but also those “hard decisions” that politicians talk about endlessly but rarely if ever actually make.
The Council’s proposal would have paid for the recruiting class only for the first year; the City would have to come up with the money to pay for the additional officers going forward. That would require hard trade-offs–at a minimum, fewer subsidies to local sports franchises, fewer cushy deals for developer friends of the Mayor. It might also require the Mayor to actually appear at the legislature–something he’s been loathe to do, especially if such appearances would interfere with one of his frequent “economic development” junkets–and petition our state-level rulers to get rid of the 40 plus “funds” that currently prevent Indianapolis from setting its own priorities.
The problem is, unless the citizens of Indianapolis feel safe, we can’t accomplish any of our other goals. We can’t revitalize neighborhoods. Economic development efforts will go nowhere. The bike lanes, the Monon Trail and the justifiably lauded Cultural Trail will empty. Downtown businesses will suffer. There will be a downward spiral that will make all other efforts immeasurably more difficult.
We have a real public safety crisis in Indianapolis right now–a public safety crisis that could undo the years of progress we have enjoyed.
And instead of focusing on that crisis and working with the legislature to address it, we have an utterly clueless Mayor who is spending what little political capital he has on a cricket field.
Indiana’s very “Christian” Governor has come out (no pun intended) in favor of letting Hoosiers vote on whether the state should recognize same-sex marriages. He has also disclaimed any intent to discriminate–why bless my grits, honey, he’s all in favor of people choosing their own lifestyles! Surely it can’t be discriminatory to deny civil recognition to non-biblical unions, even if that recognition does carry with it 1030+ rights and privileges.
After all, what’s a little tax inequity among friends?
As a member of Indiana’s legislature assured me the last time I testified against HJR 6 or whatever the number was–there is absolutely no discrimination involved here. The same marriage laws apply to straight and gay people–they can all marry people of the opposite sex.
And rich and poor people alike are prohibited from sleeping under bridges.
The problem with voting on a constitutional amendment that would deny certain people rights that our laws deem to be fundamental is that–in our system, under our Constitution–rights are not subject to the whims of the majority. That’s why they are rights, rather than privileges. No one said it better than Justice Jackson, in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. In my all-time favorite Supreme Court quote, Jackson wrote
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein..The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
Presumably, Governor Pence and Brian Bosma both slept through Constitutional Law. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that they might suddenly remember this principle if they faced mean-spirited, politically-motivated efforts to vote on their fundamental rights.
