Category: Daniel Levy
Sex Education Key to Solving New London’s Teen Pregnancy Problem, Experts Say
SEX-ED
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
December 10 2008
WASHINGTON—In his sweeping speech at the Democratic National Convention last summer, President-elect Barack Obama may have touched upon the key to one of New London’s most vexing and heartbreaking problems.
“We may not agree on abortion,” then-Senator Obama said, “but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”
As the national teen pregnancy rate rises for the first time in 15 years, health experts, community workers and legislators from New London to Washington hope the “common ground” solution on which people on both sides of the abortion debate can agree is comprehensive sex education.
Advocates of comprehensive sex education—which covers contraception as well as abstinence—have gained ground in the last year. A long-awaited Congress-backed study found abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which the Bush administration supports, to be inadequate and ineffective. As a result, 17 states including Connecticut have refused money for the programs; now comprehensive sex education advocates are hoping the federal and state governments will show them the money.
In New London, the time couldn’t be more ripe. Teen pregnancy rates in the city are soaring, even as they’re declining across Connecticut. In 2004 births to teens accounted for roughly 14 percent of births in New London, more than double the statewide rate. In Groton, by contrast, births to teens accounted for only 7 percent. And those figures do not account for teen pregnancies that ended in abortions.
Perhaps the most disheartening fact: no one’s sure what the reason is.
“We’re still continuing to think about and wrestle with the why,” Laurel Holmes, who heads Lawrence and Memorial Hospital’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Task Force, said. “We’ve been focusing on how we can reverse this.”
Formed 10 years ago, the task force includes almost 60 members who range from health professionals and civil servants, to educators and religious leaders, Holmes said. In 2005 the group commissioned a study by sociologist Susan Philliber, whose findings were illuminating, if not entirely surprising.
Philliber discovered that most teen mothers in New London lived in “stressed neighborhoods” plagued by poverty, poorly performing schools and dysfunctional family situations. More than half were black or Hispanic, and most had not finished high school.
New London’s teen pregnancy plague is in part a demographic issue. Roughly 16 percent of the city’s residents live below the poverty line, compared with 9 percent in Groton and 8 percent statewide, according to the report.
The problem is also circular. Between 1991 and 2004, teen births in Connecticut cost taxpayers almost $2 billion, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. Most of these costs arose from the needs of children born to teen mothers, such as public health care, welfare, and incarceration, the group found.
But Philliber’s report identified another problem, one which the city could more easily fix. Teen pregnancies in New London were not driven only by poverty, the researcher found, but a lack of scientifically-accurate sex education in schools.
“Teachers in New London schools have not have been trained to offer sexuality education, have no standard curriculum in place, and there is confusion about policies related to such education,” Philliber wrote in the report.
So for the first time this fall New London High School introduced a comprehensive sex education curriculum in tenth grade health classes. The curriculum, called “Making Proud Choices!” covers decision-making skills and contraception techniques, including condom use and abstinence, according to Alison Ryan, supervisor of curriculum for New London Public Schools.
The teen pregnancy task force also spearheaded a variety of programs for teenagers offered outside the classroom. Many are funded by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut, which devoted nearly $50,000 of its $40 million endowment this year to combating teen pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections, according to program director Jennifer O’Brien.
For instance, the foundation’s grants fund “Teen Talk,” a series of sexual health discussions at New London’s Planned Parenthood center and “Real Life, Real Talk,” a program designed to teach parents and church leaders how to talk to youth about sex.
“We sort of have this modern myth that if we tell kids about sex they’ll go and do it,” said Kate Ott, associate director of the Westport-based Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing, who facilitated workshops for clergy members in New London last month. “That’s actually wrong.”
Other programs the foundation funds emphasize the opportunities teens would lose out on as a parent. The task force’s own youth group, “B Tru 2 U,” rarely talks about sex, according to organizer Rita Whitehead.
Whitehead’s “core group” consists of five boys who squeeze into her van and attend events across the community. They’ve marched in the Hope Week parade, attended a board of education meeting at City Hall and even toured a police station.
“The more involved in the community they are,” Whitehead explained, “the less likely they’ll do anything to harm the community.”
These projects are encouraging, but they reach a relatively small number of kids—many of whom are self-selected and not necessarily at risk of mothering or fathering a baby. That’s why many New London health experts are eager for comprehensive sex education to become a state and federal priority.
Here’s where Barack Obama and the abortion debate comes in.
It’s clear that unplanned pregnancies drive abortion rates. Roughly half of all pregnancies aren’t planned, and 40 to 50 percent of those result in an abortion, according to the National Campaign. But it’s less obvious that the hot-button abortion issue should influence efforts to reduce births to teens—after all, teenage mothers didn’t have abortions.
Yet, thanks to the ongoing political struggle between religious conservatives and secular progressives— the so-called culture wars— the two issues have become entangled.
In Connecticut a bill to fund “comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education to teenagers, teachers, or parent/guardian training programs” died in the education committee earlier this year. Among those who spoke at a press conference heralding the Healthy Teens Act were New London Mayor Kevin Cavanagh, school superintendent Chris Clouet and Rita Whitehead, the B Tru 2 U organizer.
The bill’s main opponent was the Family Institute of Connecticut, a group that favors abstinence-only until marriage programs, which was leery of a bill that had Planned Parenthood’s blessing.
“The first rule of thumb,” said Peter Wolfgang, the Family Institute’s executive director, “is that you don’t lower the pregnancy rate by working with the folks who profit through abortion and birth control.”
Proponents of the Healthy Teens Act point to a recent survey by National Public Radio, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care non-profit, which found overwhelming parental support for comprehensive sex education. The poll found that 88 percent of parents of junior high school students believe their kids should be taught how to use contraceptives.
“Most people understand this to be an absolutely middle-of-the-road common sense issue,” said Susan Yolen, vice-president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Connecticut. “If people don’t agree with abortion, this is what they’ve been advocating for.”
On a national level legislators who support sex education are making a point of bringing abortion rights opponents into their fold. The Prevention First Act, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the first day of the current Congress, would have funded school programs that teach contraception as well as abstinence. The bill, which stalled in committee, identified abortion reduction as one of its main goals.
In the House of Representatives, a similar bill was sponsored by Rep. Timothy Ryan, D-Ohio, an abortion rights opponent, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who supports abortion rights. Its name: The Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act. The bill will be re-introduced in the next session, a DeLauro aide said.
“Of all the important goals this initiative can help us reach,” said DeLauro, who represents Connecticut’s 3rd District, “perhaps the most important is that it helps move us all forward on this issue, beyond the question over the legality of abortion and toward actually reducing the need.”
Andrea Kane, the National Campaign’s policy director, said her organization is making a point these days of embracing abortion reduction in its platform.
“It wasn’t our primary driver, but it’s certainly one of the very compelling reasons to get more attention,” Kane said.
The national reproductive health community has asked the incoming Obama administration to spend at least $50 million per year on comprehensive sex education, according to William Smith, vice president for public policy for the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States, a research and lobbying group.
Smith said he knows where Congress can find the money—the Bush administration has spent nearly $180 million a year on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs which he expects the new government to abandon.
“This is a common ground issue,” Smith said. “We’ve overwhelmingly elected a president who wants to end the culture wars and I think comprehensive sex education can be a part of that.”
####
East Lyme Soldier Shot in Iraq Hopes to Be Home by Christmas
LOZANO
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
Dec. 5, 2008
WASHINGTON— Army Spec. Alex Lozano was on a routine security detail in Baghdad three weeks ago when he suddenly felt as though he was hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.
Turns out it wasn’t a bat but a bullet, which pierced the torso of the 21-year old East Lyme High School graduate, causing him to lose a kidney. He is now recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
“I heard the crack of the shot and I ran back to my truck and collapsed down to try and let others know that something happened because I couldn’t really talk,” Lozano said from his hospital room. “At first I knew I got hit but I didn’t know I got shot. I started to undo my vest until I saw part of my stomach and the blood on my hands.”
Lozano was shot on Nov. 13. He was flown to a military hospital in Iraq, where surgeons removed his kidney and repaired his intestines. After a few days he was flown to a military hospital in Germany, where his mother, Maria Lozana, soon met him. Two weeks ago they flew to Washington.
“I remember being put on a helicopter or something and then I don’t remember too much after that,” Lozano said. “I remember getting rolled into a surgical ward, and the next thing I know I’m in Germany.”
Lozano said he is “doing a lot better” but still has pain in his stomach, back and throat. The bullet struck him in the right side of his back and exited his front left, leaving a “half-dollar sized wound.”
He began occupational therapy at the beginning of the month—with the aid of a walker and other supports—and said he hopes to be home by Christmas, depending on his progress.
“The first time he got to the door and had to come back; now he walks a couple halls [in the ward],” said his mother, a teacher in Niantic. “It’s going slowly, but it’s going.”
Lozano’s throat is sore from the feeding tube removed a few days ago. So far he’s gotten by on Jello and pudding, but he was looking forward to a vanilla milkshake and fries from the Burger King in the hospital food court.
His mother said she hopes he’ll be well enough next weekend to take a bus tour of Washington organized by the hospital and tailored for convalescing soldiers.
In the meantime, Lozano has kept busy with leather work, a skill he picked up from his father, Phillip Lozano. As of Friday morning he had already completed half of a pair of moccasins.
Lozano also has had a slew of hometown visitors, including his girlfriend of two years, Melissa Hemler, 20, who paid him a surprise visit Thursday night.
“I was scared and worried, but he’s amazing,” Hemler said of Lozano’s deployment to Iraq. “I knew he was going to be OK.”
Another visitor on Friday was Jim Barnes, the East Lyme school system’s security director, who brought with him roughly 500 get-well cards for Lozano and other wounded soldiers. Barnes knew Lozano when he was a member of the high school’s public safety club, which Barnes advises.
He joked that Lozano’s weakened voice wasn’t too much of a hurdle for the former student.
“Alex has always been soft-spoken,”' he said. “He’s a ‘walk softly but carry a big stick’ person—a man of few words, but good words.”
Maria Lozano said her son, who majored in criminal justice at the University of New Haven, has always been interested in law enforcement. He was a member of the East Lyme Police Explorers in high school and his father is a former Texas state trooper.
“He was making guns with little Legos in day care,” she said.
Lozano is a member of the 344th Military Police Company, which conducts joint patrols with Iraqi police and trains them. The unit includes more than 90 Army Reserve soldiers from Connecticut and Massachusetts.
They were in an area of Baghdad known for covert bombings of military vehicles; Lozano said he was at the front of a convoy when he was shot. He had been in Iraq since July, and had expected to return home in April.
As for what he’ll do back in Connecticut, Lozano, who was deployed during his sophomore year in college, said he’s not ready to look that far ahead.
“I just want to heal right now,” he said. “I’m really not thinking of anything else.”
###
Connecticut Delegation Welcomes New Member Into Fold; Welcomes Back Lieberman
WELCOME
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 19 2008
WASHINGTON—Connecticut’s congressional delegation is officially blue. The state’s senators and House members warmly welcomed Rep.-elect Jim Himes of the 4th District to Capitol Hill Wednesday. His election victory two weeks ago rendered them a Democrats-only club.
In a press conference colored by hugs and handshakes, schmoozing and self-deprecating quips, the lawmakers presented themselves as a “united team” ready to tackle the state’s economic challenges.
“With a united Democratic congressional delegation,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said, “we now have the ability to help deliver the change American people deserve and need.”
The conference was also a “welcome back” of sorts for Sen. Joe Lieberman, as his colleague Sen. Chris Dodd put it. Lieberman was reelected in 2006 as an independent after losing in the Democratic primary and now identifies himself as an independent Democrat. But he angered Democrats by aggressively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
Lieberman thanked Dodd for helping dissuade Senate Democrats from stripping him of his prestigious Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairmanship.
“Look, this last couple of weeks, and the whole post-election period, hasn’t been an easy one,” Lieberman said,. “It meant everything to me to have [Dodd] not just standing by my side but advocating on my behalf.”
Lieberman noted that Himes is joining an exceptionally powerful Connecticut team. Dodd chairs the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and Reps. John Larson, 1st District, and Rose DeLauro, 3rd District, have leadership positions in the House.
Still, there was a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor all around. Lieberman referred to himself as a “lowly junior senator,” and DeLauro, the dean of the Connecticut House delegation as its longest-serving member, deferred to Dodd, saying, “I know where I stand.”
When Larson, mentioned that Dodd and Lieberman were former presidential candidates, Dodd quipped, “Not very successful ones— though combined we may have made it.”
Courtney, who won a second term earlier this month, said after the event that he had some personal advice for the incoming freshman. He urged Himes, a father of two young children, not to forsake his family when he’s in the district.
“Your staff would like to have you going full blast every minute when you’re home,” Courtney said. “But you just want to make sure you got somebody to go home to.”
Himes, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who defeated 11-term representative Chris Shays to capture the state’s 4th district earlier this month, will take office in January.
###
Washington Capitals’ ‘Family Man’ Captain Seeks Return to Form
CLARK
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 18, 2008
WASHINGTON—Chris Clark was taking his time. The 32-year-old captain of the Washington Capitals hockey team, a South Windsor native and lifelong Hartford Whalers fan, was flanked by reporters as he loosened his skates after practice one morning. Twice, a Capitals staffer tried to pry him from the scrum for a meeting with the team’s general manager, George McPhee.
“How long are you going to be?”
“Another minute,” Clark replied, and then, assessing the queue of quote-hungry reporters, added, “Oh, probably another couple of minutes.”
Clark has been called a calming presence in the locker room. But lately, his patience has been put to the test. After enjoying two career seasons in Washington, playing with National Hockey League superstar Alexander Ovechkin on the scoring line, the affable, blue-eyed father of three spent most of last season sidelined with an exasperatingly persistent groin injury.
Clark watched from home as his teammates won 11 of their final 12 regular season games to scrape into the playoffs, and then lost in the first round.
“This is just awful,” he told The Washington Times last spring. “It is the most frustrating thing—not just not playing but not being able to help the team in some way, any way.”
Clark is back in the lineup this season, but his frustration persists. Although the team is off to a flying start, Clark has only two assists in his first 17 games. And his defensive record, normally his calling card, is just as spotty.
Clark traveled from his summer home in upstate New York to Vancouver seven times last summer to see a groin specialist. He insists that “everything feels great” as long as he adheres to an intensive rehab regimen.
But the plucky right-winger, whom McPhee once described as quiet off the ice and cantankerous on it, has grown tentative. His mighty stride has slowed, and he no longer dominates the corners and crease as he used to.
“He’s still in his training camp,” Capitals’ coach Bruce Boudreau said more than a month into the season. “He’s better than he was a month ago; he’s going to be a lot better in a month than he is now. He’s getting there; he will get there.”
Chris Clark is, first and foremost, a family man. The local hockey writers tease him for wearing “bad Macy’s suits” and for having driven a pick-up truck when he arrived in Washington three years ago.
Clark’s married to his college sweetheart, Kim, whom he met 12 years ago while studying business—and playing hockey—at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. The couple lives near the Pentagon with their three young kids—two boys and a girl, all under 6. His parents still live in his childhood home in South Windsor, and he tries to visit at least once a year, though “with three kids it’s getting pretty tough.”
He still keeps in touch with his buddies from South Windsor High School, one of whom recently e-mailed him the old Hartford Whalers anthem, the “Brass Bonanza,” to use as his cell phone ringtone.
Family stability was one of the reasons Clark signed a three-year, $7.9 million deal last year that will keep him in Washington through the 2010-2011 season—as long as he avoids another trade or injury. Clark doesn’t know what he’ll do when his career is over, but hopes that day’s a long way off.
“It’s great now that my kids are old enough to recognize what I do for a living,” he said. “I’d like to play as long as I can so they could enjoy being in this life as well.”
Clark has never taken his NHL career for granted. The Calgary Flames’ third-round choice in the 1994 entry draft, he played four years at Clarkson and a full year for Calgary’s farm team in Saint John, New Brunswick, before seeing his first NHL start. He then spent another two seasons shuttling across Canada, finally securing a spot in Calgary at the hockey-ripe age of 25.
In Calgary Clark was a reliable third-liner, scoring 10 goals in each of his three full seasons there. He scored three goals in his first playoffs in 2004, the year the Flames lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final. During the lock-out season that followed, Clark played in fledgling leagues in Switzerland and Norway to keep up his game.
Then, after 10 years in the Flames system, Clark was traded to Washington—for a sixth-round conditional draft pick.
“I think he was surprised,” Darryl Sutter, Clark’s coach in Calgary, said. “Chris was getting to the point where he was probably going to double his salary and we weren’t able to keep him.”
Within a day, Clark dropped from the top of the Western conference to the bottom of the East.
“It was tough in the beginning,” Clark said. “Going from the Cup finals, seventh game, and then coming here, reading the papers and seeing, ‘It’s going to be a tough couple years, it’s a rebuilding year.’”
But there was an upside. The career third-liner was put on the first line with rookie phenomenon Ovechkin, and suddenly the 10-goal man became a 20 and 30-goal scorer in successive seasons. Even Clark seemed mystified by the experience.
“It’s unbelievable playing with him,” Clark told The Washington Post, referring to Alexander the Great. The Post called it a “once-in-a-lifetime break” for Clark and Ovechkin was quoted saying, “I’m very happy for him.” Here was a seven-year veteran playing with a 20-year-old kid, and everyone was acting as if Clark were the Cinderella man.
When Clark returned to the third line last year—before his groin injury cut his season short—he reacted with typical deference, saying, “I think it’s great because it means our team is going in the right direction.”
At times, Clark seems equally incredulous about his captaincy—even though he wore the “C” during his senior year at Clarkson and for Team USA at the 2007 World Championship. When the Capitals named him captain, at the beginning of the 2006 season, Clark told the Calgary Herald that being an NHL captain “was never one of my goals because I never thought it was attainable.”
When an XM radio host asked Clark if people assumed he was warming the captain’s seat until Ovechkin matured, Clark responded, “It’s definitely going to be his eventually.”
Still, Clark takes his role to heart. He puts pressure on himself to lead by example on the ice and to maintain team spirit behind the scenes. When a junior is called up, or a European player joins the team, Clark makes a point of reaching out to them, making sure “they’re comfortable, they’re settled, so they can do the best they can,” as he put it.
“If we have any questions, that’s the first guy we go and ask,” said Milan Jurcina, the Capitals’ 25-year-old Slovakian defenseman. “He welcomed us [European players] pretty good…making us a little more comfortable.”
Goalie José Theodore, a Quebec native, said that when he joined the team, Clark assured him that “if I needed anything, he was there for me.”
In other words, Clark brings his family values to the team. Just ask Brooks Laich, the Capitals’ 25-year-old, Saskatchewan-born center who by his looks could be Clark’s younger brother.
“Being a single guy, not having a wife down here,” Laich said, “the last three Christmases I’ve been at Chris Clark’s house. He invites me over for Christmas Eve…. He has Christmas morning with his family and he invites me back over…. And in the last couple years there’s been a couple guys who’ve gone over there…. So he’s always looking out for guys and making them feel at home.”
Whether Clark can return to rugged form remains to be seen. What’s clear is that he has a locker room full of fans rooting for him.
###
Korean War Medal of Honor Winner Finally Buried in Arlington
BURIAL
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 12 2008
WASHINGTON—This time it was a happy occasion. Fairy Mae Papadopoulos sat calmly in her wheelchair, swinging her legs as the buglers played a now-familiar call, and the chaplain recited the 23rd Psalm.
The uniformed men were honoring her brother, Sgt. Cornelius H. Charlton, a Korean War hero who died in battle more than 57 years ago. Charlton was finally in his rightful resting place in Arlington National Cemetery—and Papadopoulos finally found closure.
“It’s all settled now,” the 81-year-old Pawcatuck resident said after Wednesday’s ceremony, surrounded by a few of her 11 children and countless grandchildren. “I don’t have to worry about him too much anymore.”
This was Charlton’s third funeral. He was killed on June 2, 1951, at the age of 21 while serving with the Army’s all-black 24th Infantry, the legendary Buffalo Soldiers. After his commander was killed, Charlton rallied his fellow soldiers and spearheaded three successful assaults before suffering a mortal grenade wound. For his bravery he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Charlton was interred in his family’s burial place in West Virginia. In 1990, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society had Charlton’s remains exhumed and reburied in the American Legion Cemetery in Beckley, W. Va.
But Charlton’s relatives always knew that “Uncle Connie” belonged in Arlington.
“He finally got put to rest,” Thomas Fisher, Charlton’s grand-nephew, said after the ceremony. “He’s where he belongs now.”
The event was as much family reunion as funeral. Fisher came down from the Bronx—which is where Charlton and his siblings grew up—along with two busloads of relatives. Some Connecticut and New York cousins were meeting for the first time, exchanging hugs and posing together for photos.
During the ceremony, the youngest family members sat on their fathers’ shoulders, flanked by veterans proudly wearing their “Buffalo Soldiers” jackets. Relatives held up digital camcorders and media were invited graveside, a rare event at an Arlington funeral.
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, called Charlton a “superhero for our country” and thanked Charlton’s niece, Zenobia Penn of New London, for leading the reburial effort.
It’s not clear why Charlton wasn’t buried in Arlington in the first place. The military says it was an administrative oversight, but some members of the family have always believed it was because Charlton was black.
Sgt. Turhan Papadopoulos, Fairy Mae’s son, strongly disputed this notion.
“It was not a racism issue,” he said after the ceremony. “Millions of people have been in the military and some are going to fall through the cracks. One happened to be my uncle.”
Still, the issue of race hung over the ceremony—which took place a week after the country for the first time elected an African-American as president—though any residual anger seemed to be overpowered by a sense of pride and vindication.
“Last Tuesday, this country took a historic step forward,” said Rep. Jose E. Serrano, D-N.Y., whose office chartered the buses for the Bronx delegation. “Many would say that step was part of the reconciliation with our past as a nation. Today continues that reconciliation.”
The celebratory mourners responded with a resounding chorus of Amens.
###
Dodd to Remain Banking Committee Chairman; Lieberman ‘Considering Options’
DODD
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
November 6, 2008
WASHINGTON – Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said Thursday he will stay at the helm of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in order to serve his constituents and tackle “the defining issue of our day”—the economy.
“Our economy is the center of gravity to which all our problems are being pulled,” Dodd said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “As the United States senator from Connecticut, there is no more important way right now that I can serve the people of Connecticut and our country than as Banking Committee chairman.”
Dodd said Connecticut’s role as the “home of the insurance industry” and its proximity to Wall Street make it particularly vulnerable to financial turmoil. He also cited Connecticut’s soaring unemployment and foreclosure rates.
With Vice President-elect Joseph Biden leaving the Senate, Dodd could have replaced Biden as chairman of the prestigious Foreign Relations Committee. Dodd said he will continue to sit on that committee, but not as chairman.
Meanwhile, the future role of Connecticut’s other senator, Joseph Lieberman, remains in limbo. Lieberman, who was reelected in the 2006 general election as an independent after losing in the Democratic primary, caucuses with the Democrats. But he angered Democrats by aggressively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Many expect the Democratic leadership to strip Lieberman of his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairmanship, which could drive him over to the Republican Party.
But after meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday morning, Lieberman said he is still “considering the options I have before me.”
Dodd said he would work closely with President-elect Barack Obama in putting together his economic team. He said he believed President Bush should consider nominating Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary before the end of Bush’s term on Jan. 20.
“Given the magnitude of these problems, we cannot wait until inauguration day in my view,” he said.
Dodd also was cautious in celebrating the gains made by Senate Democrats in Tuesday’s election. He said both parties need to work together to fix what he called “a terrible mess.”
“If you neglect to deal with the other party,” he said, “you will not achieve much.”
###
Catholic Voters See Economy As Their Top Concern
Catholic
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
Oct. 23
WASHINGTON—There’s been a lot of talk about the women’s vote, the youth vote and the working-class vote in this election cycle.
But there’s also a Catholic vote, and it’s driven more by economic concerns than social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, according to a panel of experts assembled Wednesday evening at the Catholic University of America.
“Tell me who wins the Catholic vote and I will tell you who will be the next president,” said panelist John White, a politics professor at the Washington-based institution.
In six of the last seven presidential elections, White said, Catholics have voted for the winner. Four years ago, 52 percent of Catholic voters supported Republican President George W. Bush.
Now, most are leaning toward Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama, according to surveys conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a non-partisan research group.
Pew researcher Gregory Smith, who sat on the panel, said Catholics this year are most concerned about the same issues as the overall electorate: the economy, energy, education, the environment, health care and terrorism.
Each of these areas is more important to Catholic voters than so-called “moral values” issues such as abortion, according to the Pew findings.
“It looks as if abortion will be a relatively unimportant issue this election,” Smith said.
Less than a quarter of Catholic registered voters surveyed by Pew both oppose abortion and see it as a top political concern.
While church-going Catholics were twice as likely as non-church-going Catholics to say that abortion is important to them, even they ranked the issue as a low political priority.
In addition, fewer than one in five Catholic registered voters identified same-sex marriage as a key issue in the forthcoming election.
The survey dealt only with non-Hispanic white Catholic registered voters. Smith said Hispanic and non-white Catholics form an influential and growing voter bloc, but that focusing on non-Hispanic white Catholics allowed Pew researchers to “disentangle” religion from other factors such as race and ethnicity.
Smith said he found the survey’s results “striking given the great deal of media attention” to abortion as a mobilizing issue for Christian voters.
But William D’Antonio, a University of Connecticut emeritus professor who participated in the event, said support or opposition to abortion rights is more of a political issue than a religious one.
D’Antonio said Catholic members of Congress have voted along party lines on abortion rights since the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan made opposition to abortion a cornerstone of the Republican Party.
In 1979, Catholic Republican senators voted in favor of abortion rights 20 per cent of the time, while Catholic Democratic senators did so 45 per cent of the time, according to D’Antonio’s research.
By 2005, he said, Democratic Catholics in the Senate were voting “pro-choice” almost 90 percent of the time; their Republican counterparts were almost never doing so.
“There is a Catholic vote,” D’Antonio said, “but it’s trumped by party ideology.”
In Connecticut, political allegiances have long outstripped religious beliefs, D’Antonio said after the university event. Although roughly 32 percent of Connecticut residents self-identify as Catholic, according to a 2001 City University of New York study, the state has a long history of voting for pro-abortion-rights Democrats for Congress and the White House.
An influential Connecticut Catholic, the late Democratic Party chairman John Bailey, was a key supporter of John F. Kennedy, the country’s first Catholic president.
During his election campaign, Kennedy famously promised voters that, as president, he wouldn’t take his marching orders from Rome.
In politics, at least, D’Antonio said Connecticut Catholics largely agree with Kennedy.
“They haven’t been listening to their bishops for years,” D’Antonio said.
###
Top Clinton, Romney Donors Switch Parties for Presidential Election
DONORS
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
October 16, 2008
WASHINGTON – He was the region’s most prodigal Mitt Romney supporter. During the presidential primaries, Augustus Kinsolving poured $2,300 – the maximum legal donation – into the former Republican candidate’s then-flourishing campaign.
Now, the Fishers Island, N.Y., lawyer is pledging his money and vote to another presidential hopeful: Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama.
“I have a very distinct opinion that Barack Obama is needed by this country right now,” said Kinsolving, a registered independent who considered himself a Republican “as a young man” – but who admired Democratic President John F. Kennedy as a college student in the early 1960s.
“Barack Obama reminds me of Jack Kennedy,” he said.
Kinsolving is not the only benefactor of a doomed campaign who has turned away from his preferred candidate’s party. In Southern Connecticut, only a few of the most generous supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton – whom Obama defeated in a long, bitter contest for the Democratic nomination – have opened their wallets for Obama, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Some of Clinton’s top donors say they don’t think the notoriously deep-pocketed Obama campaign needs their money; indeed, Obama’s fundraising prowess played a key role in Clinton’s defeat. But others still refuse to support the Illinois senator’s bid for the presidency.
“Basically I’m on the McCain side now,” said Donna Carroll, a registered Democrat, environmentalist and abortion-rights advocate who donated $500 to Clinton’s campaign.
Carroll praised Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, for his “experience,” and compared Obama to an idealistic college graduate who is not “ready to go to work.”
“You think you’re going to be able to step into the workplace and make all sorts of contributions right away,” Carroll said, explaining the comparison, “when in reality, there’s a learning curve.”
While Kinsolving and Carroll have jumped decisively to the other side, many disappointed Clinton donors remain on the fence.
Thomas Haggerty and Gail Shea, a retired married couple from Pawcatuck, were enthusiastic Clinton supporters; he contributed $1,250 to the New York senator’s campaign, according to reports filed with the election commission.
Although Haggerty remains “very disappointed [Clinton] didn’t get the nomination,” he said he looked forward to voting for Obama.
Shea, however, said she would only do so reluctantly.
“I can’t vote for McCain, so I guess I have to,” she said. “What do I do, not vote?”
Neither has sent money to Obama’s campaign so far, though Haggerty said he would “if I thought for a moment he really needed my money.”
Several of Clinton’s top local donors, including Deborah Moshier-Dunn of Waterford, said this was their first time donating to a presidential campaign.
Moshier-Dunn, who gave Clinton $500, said she has come around to voting for Obama, but continued to donate to Clinton after the primaries to help pay off the former First Lady’s campaign debt.
“I’m not worried about Obama,” she said, referring to his fundraising abilities.
Kathleen Naparty of Ledyard donated $1,450 to Clinton’s campaign— her first political donation. But she’s not ready to vote for Obama, much less add to his campaign’s coffers.
In fact, Naparty blames Obama’s fundraising success for Clinton’s defeat.
“He comes out of nowhere, gets all this funding, and she goes broke?” she said. “I’m really disappointed.”
For the first time in her adult life, Naparty said she plans to boycott the polls this November. And she doesn’t see herself spending money on a presidential candidate any time soon.
“I’m kind of sick of the whole electoral process,” she said.
###
Household Education a Factor in Children’s Health
HEALTH
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
October 8 2008
WASHINGTON – Connecticut children aren’t as healthy as they should be, according to a national report that shows how family background has an impact on kids’ health.
White, wealthy and educated parents have the healthiest children in Connecticut, but even these kids are ailing more than their counterparts in other states, the report, published Wednesday, finds.
The report was commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health and health care philanthropy that in 2007 awarded $480 million in grants, and authored by two researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. Their aim was to “look beyond the medical care system,” according to the report, and explore how social factors affect the health of children.
“Why people stay healthy or get sick in the first place often has little to do with [access to medical care],” Sue Egerter, co-author of the report, said in a conference call Tuesday. “We need to recognize that there is more to health than health care.”
In Connecticut, the report shows that children in poor families are roughly 4.5 times as likely to be unhealthy – as reported by their parents – than children from wealthier families. Similarly, kids in households without a high school graduate are 4.5 times as likely to be unhealthy than those living with someone who went to college.
Education and income are related but separate factors, according to the report. While educated parents can secure better jobs with higher income, they also make better role models for children, lowering their exposure to unhealthy conditions such as secondhand smoke.
“[Education and wealth] are hard to disentangle, but we see independent health effects of both factors,” said Dr. Paula Braveman, who directed the study and co-authored the report.
The researchers rank Connecticut 18th among states based on the gap between the overall rate of unhealthy children – 12.7 percent – and the rate among higher-income families – 6.9 percent. California has the widest gap, while New Hampshire has the narrowest.
The study defines higher-income households as those with incomes four times the federal poverty line. For a family of four, that means families earning roughly $82,500 or more.
But even Connecticut’s higher-income families reported a higher rate of sick children than the “national benchmark” of 3.5 percent. This benchmark refers to the lowest rate of unhealthy kids from high-income families in any state – in this case, Colorado.
The failure of other states to match this benchmark shows that all families need to live healthier, more productive lifestyles, said Dr. David Williams, staff director of the foundation project.
“This is not just a problem for the poor or minorities,” Williams said. “As a society, we are not doing as well on health as we could.”
Obesity and asthma are two prevalent – and often preventable – problems that affect privileged and poor children alike, according to Elizabeth Brown, legislative director for the Connecticut Commission on Children, which helps guide children’s programs in the state.
Brown said the state needs to work with schools and families to develop a more preventive approach to health, citing the nutrition movement in public schools as an example.
“We have a crisis type of health system,” Brown said. “There’s no money in preventative health right now…. We really need to work with parents to inform them how they can help their children grow to their fullest potential in a more holistic manner.”
This spring the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will recommend strategies to improve the health of Americans based on its children’s health report and other research.
###
Lieberman Takes on Terrorism Videos on YouTube
YOUTUBE
New London Day
Dan Levy
Boston University Washington News Service
September 25, 2008
WASHINGTON – In a partial victory this month, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., persuaded video-streaming Web site YouTube to crack down on content that promotes terrorism, but failed to secure more sweeping changes that critics say would amount to an assault on free speech.
Lieberman issued a press release on Sept. 11 commending the Google-owned site’s new uploading policy, which outlaws videos “inciting others to commit violent acts.” He also hailed Google’s efforts to remove videos depicting attacks on U.S. soldiers, which enforces the site’s existing ban on graphically violent content.
But in a letter sent in May to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lieberman also had asked YouTube to remove any content branded with logos associated with foreign terrorist organizations, a step Google was unwilling to take.
“While we respect and understand his views,” the company wrote on its policy blog in response to Lieberman’s letter, “YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view.”
The right to incite violence is not protected by the First Amendment, Sam Bayard , assistant director of Harvard University’s Citizen Media Law Project, notes on the project’s blog. Yet, since Google is a private company, its member guidelines do not necessarily have to conform to free-speech laws.
Lieberman has the right to ask Google to enforce its own rule barring violent material on YouTube, according to Bayard, but he suggested that the senator’s request that the company pull content based solely on its source amounts to hypocrisy.
“Doesn’t our current government routinely accuse radical Islamists of being intolerant of opposing viewpoints and disrespectful to human rights?” Bayard wrote. “It undercuts our country’s position in the world when we turn around and exhibit a lack of tolerance and a willingness to curtail free expression.”
Bayard acknowledged that “this isn’t necessarily a legal issue” since Lieberman only requested that Google take action.
Similarly, a bill introduced in the House of Representatives last year merely recommended that sites such as YouTube take action to remove terrorist propaganda.
Lieberman has no plans to introduce legislation that would require video-streaming sites to remove terrorism-related content, according to Leslie Phillips, communications director for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Lieberman chairs.
But Phillips did not rule out that the senator would consider asking sites to divulge to the federal government personal information on users who post videos branded with logos associated with Islamic terrorism.
“The senator expects YouTube to work with law enforcement when the site is being used to break the law,” Phillips said.
###
