The Links Within The Arab World

The Article: ON THE CONCATENATION IN THE ARAB WORLD by Perry Anderson in The New Left Review.

The Text: The Arab revolt of 2011 belongs to a rare class of historical events: a concatenation of political upheavals, one detonating the other, across an entire region of the world. There have been only three prior instances—the Hispanic American Wars of Liberation that began in 1810 and ended in 1825; the European revolutions of 1848–49; and the fall of the regimes in the Soviet bloc, 1989–91. Each of these was historically specific to its time and place, as the chain of explosions in the Arab world will be. None lasted less than two years. Since the match was first lit in Tunisia this December, with the flames spreading to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Oman, Jordan, Syria, no more than three months have passed; any prediction of its outcomes would be premature. The most radical of the trio of earlier upheavals ended in complete defeat by 1852. The other two triumphed, though the fruits of victory were often bitter: certainly, far from the hopes of a Bolívar or a Bohley. The ultimate fate of the Arab revolt could resemble either pattern. But it is just as likely to be sui generis.

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Decriminalize Marijuana, See A Drop In Juvenile Delinquency

The Article: Marijuana Decriminalization Drops Youth Crime Rates by Stunning 20% in One Year by Susan Ferriss in AlterNet.

The Text: Marijuana — it’s one of the primary reasons why California experienced a stunning 20 percent drop in juvenile arrests in just one year, between 2010 and 2011, according to provocative new research.

The San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice (CJCJ) recently released a policy briefing with an analysis of arrest data collected by the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center. The briefing, “ California Youth Crime Plunges to All-Time Low ,” identifies a new state marijuana decriminalization law that applies to juveniles, not just adults, as the driving force behind the plummeting arrest totals.

After the new pot law went into effect in January 2011, simple marijuana possession arrests of California juveniles fell from 14,991 in 2010 to 5,831 in 2011, a 61 percent difference, the report by CJCJ senior research fellow Mike Males found.

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Why Prison Price Gouging Hurts Us All

The Article: by Mary Sanchez in The National Memo.

The Text: For two decades now, politicians and public scolds have sold America on the idea of a sterner penal system. Zero tolerance, three strikes and you’re out, supermax prisons and legions of young men who have done time — these are the hallmarks of our age.

What’s hidden from view is that incarcerating people is big business in America. The corrections industry is powerful, and it often exemplifies the worst aspects of monopoly capitalism.

Just ask Ulandis Forte. He is a construction worker in the Washington, D.C. area, and he is in the forefront of a fight to right an injustice few of us are aware of: the exorbitant rates charged to families who accept phone calls from incarcerated loved ones. A 15-minute call from an inmate can cost nearly $20. That has nothing to do with any special technical or logistical difficulties of providing the service. It’s purely a matter of what prison operators can get away with charging. Families either pay the high fees, which can total hundreds of dollars a month, or forego the chance to stay in touch.

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A Failed Experiment

The Article: A Failed Experiment by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times.

The Text: In upper-middle-class suburbs on the East Coast, the newest must-have isn’t a $7,500 Sub-Zero refrigerator. It’s a standby generator that automatically flips on backup power to an entire house when the electrical grid goes out.

(A month ago, I would have written more snarkily about residential generators. But then we lost power for 12 days after Sandy — and that was our third extended power outage in four years. Now I’m feeling less snarky than jealous!)

More broadly, the lust for generators is a reflection of our antiquated electrical grid and failure to address climate change. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave our grid, prone to bottlenecks and blackouts, a grade of D+ in 2009.

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As Sea Levels Rise, Coastal Cities Beware

The Article: Coastal cities in danger as sea levels rise faster than expected in The Raw Story.

The Text: Sea-level rise is occurring much faster than scientists expected – exposing millions more Americans to the destructive floods produced by future Sandy-like storms, new research suggests.

Satellite measurements over the last two decades found global sea levels rising 60% faster than the computer projections issued only a few years ago by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The faster sea-level rise means the authorities will have to take even more ambitious measures to protect low-lying population centres – such as New York City, Los Angeles or Jacksonville, Florida – or risk exposing millions more people to a destructive combination of storm surges on top of sea-level rise, scientists said.

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