Sen. John McCain has been on the Republican equivalent of a Bed-Stuy tour. Bedford-Stuyvesant was once a frequent campaign stop for Democratic candidates who stood in front of destroyed or rundown buildings amid some of the worst poverty in New York City, promising to fix the place with more government spending.
McCain has been touring poor neighborhoods, where the likelihood of his winning votes is nil. In New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, he stood with the new Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, and pledged to the residents of the 9th Ward, "the people of New Orleans, and the people of this country that never again, never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way it was handled."
All of this is fine, and it might even help diminish the usual slurs Democrats use against Republicans about how they care nothing for the poor. The answer to this is that if Democrats care about the poor, why haven't they solved the problem of poverty?
And the answer to that is that Democrats need people to remain poor and, thus, dependent on them so they can get their votes. McCain has repeatedly said he wants a "civil" campaign so don't look for him to offer such a response.
Here is some advice for McCain: Stop identifying with failure and begin identifying with success. Before the era of entitlement and low expectations, there were Horatio Alger stories about people who overcame difficult circumstances and prospered. McCain should begin identifying people who have overcome poverty and let them tell their stories of how they did it.
Those stories are better than the stories of people mired in poverty, largely because of wrong decisions, who are doomed to remain there because they've been told the best they can hope for is a government check. Success becomes an example for others to follow. Stories about poverty inspire no one.
Victory not defeat, achievement not failure, ought to be McCain's strategy. These American stories are really the story of America.
One doesn't "tackle poverty," like a football player. One shows the way of escape and provides sufficient role models along with capital and moral and educational structures that serve as ladders so people who want to climb out of the hole can do so.
Here's one way it might work, based on strategies developed for the Third World by the humanitarian organization World Vision and the micro-loan vision of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.
McCain could announce the formation of H.O.P.E.F.U.L., which would stand for Helping Other People Enjoy Full and Useful Lives. Churches (the moral structure), businesses (some capital and training) and individuals (more capital and encouragement) would be involved in H.O.P.E.F.U.L.
Every American participating would "adopt" a poor person who would be screened for drug and alcohol addiction, criminal backgrounds and interviewed to determine whether, if given a chance, they were – or might be – motivated to escape poverty.
Individuals would contribute, say, $20 per month to a privately managed account in the recipient's name. The money would be managed by H.O.P.E.F.U.L. to help the poor person with a private school education, job training, capital for starting a small business, and whatever else it takes to help.
The sponsor would be urged to meet and serve as a mentor to the poor person, or at least correspond with encouraging words. Regular progress reports would be sent to the sponsor(s) and when the person is declared a success, all would rejoice and the nation would be better off. This would not be a government program, improving its chance of success.
If you're reading this newspaper, chances are you are not poor. Do you know any poor people? If your life has been built around pursuing happiness by the accumulation of material goods and wealth, investing yourself in another human being and seeing him triumph might be the greatest gift you could give yourself and your nation. I know this from personal experience.
If John McCain rallied the good nature of Americans behind such a vision, it could be his top achievement should he become president. And it's a good idea, no matter who wins
jueves, 1 de mayo de 2008
McCain should adopt more 'hopeful' approach
Election latest: voters out in force in battle to be London mayor
Londoners were today thought to be turning out in their biggest numbers ever for a mayoral election, as the battle between Ken Livingstone and his maverick rival Boris Johnson went right to the wire.
Early projections put voter turnout as touching the 50 per cent mark - far higher than the 37 per cent and 35 per cent turnouts in 2004 and 2000 - amid indications that the closeness of the conflict between two of British politics' most colourful characters has caught the public's imagination.
A key indication of the high turnout came at a polling station in Streatham, south London, where 85 people were reported to have voted by 9.15am, out of 1,970 in total. If traditional voting patterns were repeated during the day this would give a final poll of just under 50 per cent.
The turnout was projected to be high in advance because opinion polls have put the mayoral conflict as too close to call, while the campaign between Mr Johnson and Mr Livingstone has also been one of the most personalised and most colourful ever.
Mr Livingstone upped the rhetoric yesterday when he described Mr Johnson, the former Spectator editor and newspaper journalist, as a "joke" and "celebrity" unable to take major political decisions.
The stakes in London could not be higher, with the winner being placed in charge of an £11.3billion budget to run public transport - much of which requires modernisation - police and fire services and promote the capital's economy. The elected mayor will also act as London's figurehead in the build-up to the Olympic Games in 2012.
Voting got off to a rocky start in the London borough of Barnet, however, when about 10 polling stations did not receive ballot papers until just after the election officially began, at 7am. Barnet Council said it "sincerely apologised" to voters for the slip-up.
As the London electorate cast their ballots, Labour councillors all over the country were holding their breath for a huge national backlash against the Prime Minister in local elections, in which some 4,000 seats on 160 councils were at stake.
Labour strategists fear that the party could record its lowest share of the vote since the 1970s, falling as low as 25 per cent and finishing third behind the Tories and Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives expect to secure more than 40 per cent with strong gains in northern England.
Results are expected overnight for more than 100 councils, but voters elsewhere - including London - will only have the results on Friday night.
Faced with the possibility of a heavy defeat, the Prime Minister is already planning an aggressive "relaunch" campaign, with new policies, a contrite and listening tone and a fresh attempt to expose divisions with the Conservatives, party sources said. His closest advisers have been drawing up plans to limit the damage.
In particular, Mr Brown is planning to unveil a draft Queen’s Speech at the end of this month to show that he is not running out of steam. It is expected to include measures on welfare, education reforms and involving the community in tackling crime.
Full list of candidates to be London Mayor:
Ken Livingstone (Labour Party)
Boris Johnson (Conservative Party)
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats)
Sian Berry (Green Party)
Gerard Batten (UK Independence Party)
Richard Barnbrook (British National Party)
Alan Craig (Christian Peoples Alliance and Christian Party)
Lindsey German (Left List)
Winston McKenzie (Independent)
Matt O'Connor (English Democrats)
Judges back Alzheimer's drug review
Plans to restrict certain Alzheimer's drugs on the NHS are to be reviewed after a landmark ruling by the Court of Appeal.
Three judges found that the process by which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) decided to restrict the anti-dementia medicines for newly diagnosed patients with mild Alzheimer's was procedurally unfair.
Eisai, licence holder of Aricept, and Pfizer, which challenged the Nice decision, said the ruling brought renewed hope for Alzheimer's patients.
The judges said procedural fairness demanded that Nice should release a full version of the cost-effectiveness model it used to produce guidance for the form of treatment.
They invited Nice to make a new determination after the drugs companies make representations when they have studied the guidance model.
Nick Burgin, managing director of Eisai, commenting on the judgment, said: "We believe that this decision represents a victory for common sense. As soon as we have reviewed their cost-effectiveness calculations we will submit any new findings to Nice.
"We hope that this action will ultimately restore access to anti-dementia medicines for those patients at the mild stages of Alzheimer's disease."
David Pannick QC, representing Eisai, told the Court of Appeal at a hearing last month that the guidance ruling by Nice would have "a very substantial effect upon the availability and the potential duration of treatment" with the drugs.
Nice had ruled that the drugs are not cost-effective for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's - a decision upheld by the High Court last year.
Nice had decided in 2004 that the drugs, which cost about £2.50 a day, did not make enough of a difference to recommend them for all patients.
Is Mariah Carey wearing engagement ring of fiancé’s ex?
Mariah Carey has been wearing a ring on her engagement finger - identical to the one her boyfriend Nick Cannon gave his last fiancée.
Rumours the Butterfly singer was planning to marry her actor/rapper lover began when she was spotted at the premiere for her latest film, Tennessee, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, sporting a whopping great rock on her left hand.
According to witnesses at the afterparty Mariah, 38, and Nick, 27, couldn’t take their hands off each other. And Access Hollywood claim a source has confirmed the couple are getting hitched, although neither of their representatives have confirmed that.
However, it seems Nick, who until last October was engaged to Victoria’s Secrets model Selita Banks, may be recycling his bling.
'Pixie dust' makes man's severed finger regrow
A man who lost the tip of his finger in an accident claims that it has regrown after he sprinkled it with a powder created from a pig’s bladder.
Lee Spievak, from Ohio, lost part of his middle finger three years ago after it was hit by the propeller of a model airplane at the toy shop where he worked.
He said that doctors told him that it would never grow back. Yet Mr Spievak, 69, once again has all of his finger thanks, he claims, to a magic “pixie dust”.
The powder was produced by the company owned by Mr Spievak’s brother, Alan. It is technically known as extra cellular matrix and was pioneered by Dr Stephen Badylak at the University of Pittsburgh.
For ten days, Mr Spievak applied the powder to the gaping hole on his finger. “The second time I put it on I already could see growth,” he said. “Each day it was up further. Finally it closed up and was a finger.
It took about four weeks before it was sealed.”
His finger now has “complete feeling, complete movement” as well as a fingernail and fingerprint.
“Except for a tiny scar, it’s just like the finger I always had,” he said.
While even Dr Badylak is not entirely sure how the powder works, it is believed that it kick-starts the body’s healing process.
Made from dried pig’s bladder, it is packed with collagen, the protein that gives skin its strength and elasticity, and was originally developed to heal damaged ligaments in horses.
Dr Badylak believes that the extra cellular matrix stimulates cells in a wound to grow rather than scar.
“There are all sorts of signals in the body,” Dr Badylak said. “We have got signals that are good for forming scar, and others that are good for regenerating tissues. One way to think about these matrices is that we have taken out many of the stimuli for scar tissue formation and left those signals that were always there anyway for constructive remodelling.”
Dr Badylak said that he hoped that within ten years the powder, which also comes in sheet form, would be able to “regrow the bones, and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones”.
He said that eventually it might help to regrow an entire limb.
Dr Badylak is now preparing to continue testing the powder on a woman in Buenos Aires who has cancer of the oesophagus. The US military is due to start trials of the powder to regrow parts of the fingers of injured soldiers.
However, Dr Badylak said that the powder “isn’t ready for prime time” yet. “This is a real shot in the dark,” he said. “But there’s literally nothing else these individuals have to try. They have nothing to lose.”
In a bid to more fully understand the powers of the powder, Dr Badylak is also researching animals such as the salamander, whose limbs can grow back unaided within a matter of weeks.
Dr Badylak does not know when scientists will be able to apply this research to people and it seems that Mr Spievak is unwilling to be a human guinea-pig for much longer.
“I don't plan on cutting anything more off to find out if I can grow that back,” Mr Spievak insisted.