Last night, Justin Timberlake joined the ranks of repeat offenders Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, John Goodman, Drew Barrymore, and Candice Bergen, not necessarily entering the pantheon as a comedy genius per se — though he is a terrific sketch comic. (The guy can’t play banjo, notes Steve Martin, working his underminer persona in a dreadful, “SNL”-vet-laden opening monologue that indoctrinates JT into the inner circle, and includes appearances by all “Three Amigos,” plus Chevy Chase, Paul Simon, Tom Hanks, Baldwin, Bergen, and “SNL” writer and “Seven Minutes in Heaven’s” Mike O’Brien.)So what is it about Timberlake that makes us want him to come back to the Studio 8H every chance he gets? Andy Samberg helped him tap into it, for sure, creating sketches for him as his wingman, allowing him to showcase a charming, suave, cool, self-mocking douche — which he does exceedingly well. Samberg turns up here for two sketches — but, missed opportunity alert: There is no new digital short. (Don’t tell me Patricia Clarkson and Susan Sarandon weren’t around!)Continue Reading… … Read More
American inequality: Worse than Europe
President Obama still fervently believes in the ideal of equality of opportunity, as his State of the Union speech showed. But the nation he’s leading has left that ideal far behind.
Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz laid out why that ideal has been left behind and what the U.S. can do about it in an opinion piece for the New York Times that ran over the weekend. Stiglitz writes that today, the U.S. has less “equality of opportunity” than other advanced industrial nations. This means that poor children have less of an opportunity to be successful than middle and upper-class children. “The life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in almost any other advanced country for which there is data,” says Stiglitz.
Social mobility is limited in the U.S. 58 percent of Americans born into the bottom fifth of income earners in the country move out of that economic strata–a rate lower than most of Europe.
The right’s war on renewable energy could doom red states
This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.
Despite impressive green economic growth during this country’s job-challenged recovery, particularly in the wind energy sector, the conservative right is systematically seeking to reverse this trend by repealing state-mandated renewable energy targets, even if many of the states that stand to lose jobs and economic opportunity lean red.
Right-wing groups funded by the fossil-fuel industry and the billionaire Koch brothers are rolling out a nationwide assault to repeal state Renewable Electricity Standards (RES), a key component, along with such federal tax incentives as the wind production tax credit (PTC), in driving renewable energy growth in the United States.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have a state-mandated RES (also known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard). Traditionally, the renewable electricity standard has received bipartisan support. Efforts in recent years to repeal or weaken state renewable standards have largely failed.
Failing Project Head Start Needs No More Funding
Credit: Pete SouzaOn Wednesday, The Center for American
Progress released
their proposal to increase funding for the already
failing Head Start Project. The progessive thinktank is
lobbying to increase funding from 7,200 dollars per student to
10,000 dollars per student. That’s nearly 40
percent more than what we’re spending now.As a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” the
Office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start, which
aimed to “boost school readiness” for 3 and
4-year-old children from low-income families.In 2010 The Department of Health and Human Services
found that for students going from kindergarten to 1st
grade:
With only a few exceptions, teacher and classroom
characteristics did not differ significantly between children in
the Head Start group and those in the control group.
Impacts at the end of kindergarten and 1st grade:
This pattern of limited cognitive impacts in the school years
may suggest that the magnitude of the initial cognitive impacts may
not have been sufficiently potent for the early gains Head Start
children made to be sustained as they developed and moved into the
elementary school years.
The Department
followed up with the study observing Head Start participants
and their control group counter parts through the end of the 3rd
grade and found:Key findings:
In summary, there were initial positive impacts from having
access to Head Start, but by the end of 3rd grade there were very
few impacts found for either cohort in any of the four domains of
cognitive, social-emotional, health and parenting practices.
Impact on Children’s Cognitive Development:
There is clear evidence that Head Start had a statistically
significant impact on children’s language and literacy development
while children were in Head Start… However, these early effects
dissipated in elementary school, with only a single impact
remaining at the end of 3rd grade for children in each age cohort:
a favorable impact for the 4-year-old cohort (ECLS-K Reading) and
an unfavorable impact for the 3-yearold cohort (grade
promotion).
3-year-old Cohort:
At the end of 3rd grade, there was suggestive evidence of an
unfavorable impact—the parents of the Head Start group children
reported a significantly lower child grade promotion rate than the
parents of the non-Head Start group children.
That means spending almost 40 percent more per participant
to leave our children’s circumstances unchanged or even worse than
when they when they first entered school. … Read More
Spain evictions & homeless crisis
http://www.youtube.com/v/btudCDJf9GU?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata See original - Spain evictions & homeless crisis
Must-see morning clip: Director Behn Zeitlin on “The Colbert Report”
26 year-old Benh Zeitlin’s first feature film “The Beasts of the Southern Wild,” about one family’s resilience in a Louisiana bayou, is up for four Oscar nominations. Last night he told Stephen Colbert about how the movie came to be and how the BP oil spill turned into an unexpected opportunity when filming: “We were literally negotiating with BP executives to get our cameras rolling in some of these locations.” He added,”They [BP executives] were looking so bad that I think they actually thought ‘Oh, we’ll seem nice if we help these struggling filmmakers to get out there.’ “
He also added that if the film wins an Oscar, he wants it to go to its 8 year-old star, Quvenzhané Wallis.
Dems target Cantor on Violence Against Women Act
As the Senate fast tracks the Violence Against Women Act, Democrats are targeting House Majority Leader Eric Cantor over his reported efforts to block the bill in the House.
In an new video, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asks: “But what will Eric Cantor and Tea Party House Republicans do?”, highlighting reports that Cantor, R-Va., was the one holding up reauthorization in the House.
Watch:
On Monday, the Senate voted 85 to 8 to take up VAWA, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has said that the bill has the votes to pass out of the Senate. It’s expected to pass by the end of the week with bipartisan support.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, even referenced House Republicans who have blocked it. “This is not and never should be a partisan political issue,” she said in a speech on the Senate floor. “This is an equal-opportunity crime that harms people regardless of their political affiliation, their profession or their status in life. It’s an issue that deserves bipartisan support.”
