The Guaranteed Minimum Income plan, or Universal Basic Income, is not new. It was researched by a Princeton company, Mathematica Policy Research (MPR), back in 1969. It’s the subject of Diccon Hyatt’s excellent cover story “Driven by Data” in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper.
Led by Paul Decker, MPR is a company I’m proud to have in Princeton.
Today’s healthcare news:
I’ll start with Juliet Eilperin’s coverage of the healthcare bill in the Washington Post, “From hospitals, doctors, and patients, a last gasp of opposition to the Senate health-care bill,” A Daily Princetonian alumna, the Post’s senior national affairs correspondent, she tells of how hospitals have mounted unusual lobbying efforts. ‘While McConnell had been pressing for a vote on the measure before the end of June, the delay gave opponents more time to marshal their arguments and make their case to lawmakers. This final lobbying push represents opponents’ best chance of derailing McConnell’s final drive to passage, which continues to look uncertain.’
Today the CEO of Incyte, Herve Hoppenot, speaks at the Princeton Regional chamber lunch. Look for me in a striped jacket. At age six I ‘worked’ in my parents’ cancer research lab and 70 years later I have a vested interest in new cancer cures.
Subtle sexism is so precarious because it is thought-provoking — for the targets. Management and psychology researchers Dr. Eden King and Dr. Kristen Jones have found that implicit biases can actually be more harmful than outright discrimination for several reasons, including: the higher frequency with which they occur, the lack of clear legal recourse, and the amount of time women spend analyzing these perceived slights.
A former Congressional staffer writes about sexism in the Athena Talks blog on Medium.
This quote has interesting parallels to racism.
To be clear, this concern over sexism in the workplace was not part of my experience.
A Canadian mission team, ages 15 to 60, aiming to help rebuild homes from Superstorm Sandy was turned away at the border, according to this report.
They were to be hosted by a church whose minister, Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale of the Reformed Church of Highland Park, has been labeled “a vocal critic of Trump’s immigration orders.” (He is also the Green Party candidate for governor.)
According to the Customs and Border Patrol, they lacked the government letter needed to prove the project is needed. But mission teams have, for years, entered the United States from Canada without such documentation.
This group of teenagers and parents was told, by the immigration officials, that there was a danger that they might take away American jobs — and that there was no more need for home rebuilding resulting from Superstorm Sandy. No more need? Four years after the storm, more than 4,000 people have not recovered. Churches in New Jersey — including my own, the United Methodist Church of Greater New Jersey — are still working and collecting donations to get people back in their homes.
Does this seem like payback to you?
At the minimum, the United States loses tourist dollars. And trust. According to this report in The Guardian the Girl Guides of Canada have canceled all trips to the United States.
“Let’s hear it for ‘unruly’ Andrea Mitchell.” Bold face mine.
Sam Wang speaks to the Princeton Regional Chamber TOMORROW (if you get this on Tuesday), i.e. Wednesday, February 15.
Thanks to Planet Princeton’s Princeton Wire newsletter for the news roundup that alerted me to an article on housing discrimination research at Princeton University by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African American studies and author of From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation. She has a fascinating biography.
“Putting the blame on the individual suggests that racism can be overcome by education alone,” said Taylor. She is quoted in the article as reminding us that throughout history racism has been used as a way for the powerful to control others for material gain — and it is still used that way.
Another amazing but grim story from the Planet Princeton lineup is about the wrongfully imprisoned Princeton alumnus from Iran.
If first aired on the Moth Radio Hour, which if you didn’t know about, you want to.
Less grim but still unsettling is the Daily Princeton article on research showing that, at the tender age of six, kids think boys are smarter than girls.
Race discrimination, nationality discrimination, gender discrimination — does this go on forever? Parents, start with your two year olds, they have to be carefully taught.
The Garden Theatre notes that major cities get it first, but that it will come here “by the end of the month.” What a great resource!
A close vote nixed plans to turn a 300 year old house into a bed and breakfast. The owners are paying nearly $25k a year in property tax. Neighbors objected. Yet AirBNB operates with impunity. These zoning board members voted no: Steven Cohen, Harlan Tenenbaum, and Jonathan Kaledin. Read about it in the February Echo.
Princeton Comment 