A recent email to the NPR show "Market Place"

Re: your new, year long series on charity giving. What does a lowly social service worker have to do to get business-oriented shows like yours to talk about something other than the giving end of my business? Why is it that we aren't considered when "business trends" are discussed, except to mention how much people give (or how little!) or horror stories about (so-called) "entitlements"? Why don't you focus on how our business process has changed during this depression?-How staff morale is at an all time low because now we aren't serving more with less but we are stuck not serving people at all. Why not some stories about how we have to shift from government-based grant writing toward foundation grant support and what that means? Wanna know how this depression is hurting people? Try talking to a proud,newly laid-off autoworker who now has to walk through the morass of State bureaucracy and answer highly personal questions on some 15 page form to get $112/month in food stamps for his family of 4. Then talk to the social worker who has to help him through the process, all the while trying to convince him that the information he puts on the form won't be used against him by the government or lost threw identity theft! Why don't you talk more extensively about the policy issues regarding mental health and substance abuse treatment as it relates to this healthcare reform mess? Are your listeners aware that 10% cut in Michigan's Medicaid budget means fewer doctors can afford to accept the poor and that prior to that, anyone wasn't seriously and persistently mentally ill could get no help whatsoever? Are your staff writers aware that all the workers at the community mental health agencies can do for client's they serve is to stuff them with globs of pills and cross their fingers? Nonprofit work is more than about the folks who do the giving but about the persons who administer the money after it is given. It seems the only time you pay attention to us and our business practices is when the Acorn's (the bad guys for this year) or the United Ways (they were the bad guys back in the 80s during a misappropriation scandal) do something stupid. And when you broadcast that, all of us nonprofits suffer because then everyone lumps us all together and then stop giving. And when we do get positive press, it is always around the holidays. Excuse me but people have been starving, loosing their homes/jobs, having mental health/substance abuse problems, loosing custody of their children, escaping domestic violence, and returning home from prison all year long. Where were you folks in June? Frankly, I wish you all would forget about us for it seems that when you do pay attention, it does us less good than it does harm.

I love Michigan

Michigan Public Radio and Detroit Public Radio are doing a fabulous job of honestly pointing to the challenges and problems of Southeastern Michigan but also spotlighting the things and people who are making efforts to move the area well as the State through this crisis. I am glad SOMEONE is answering my question, "How can a city on a river and across the street from another country be this fucked up?" and doing so by demanding pro-active steps forward. My only problem is that they aren't demanding anything substantial considering that we are so far beyond pleasantries.

This traditional liberal approach is outdated. We need to be a loud, obnixious, and as crazed as the right-wing. We need to demand that IF abortion is to be banned then all unmarried women and men must submit to monitorable, mandatory birth control Parents who fail to properly register their teen children with the local community health center services would face jail time). IF war is the way to get the Taliban in place, the draft is to be reinstituted with no exceptions and the children of privalege must serve in QA evaluated, combat command. And IF we are going to allow public education to die, then law enforcement is enhanced while informal ghetts are created to protect those of us , no matter their race, who did get out(close the gates of London!).

Lately, I have been enlightened about two ways about how to make things better. One was a speech by Jack Lessenbery (Metro Times/Michigan Public Radio) at my synogogue, Temple Emanu-EL and my reading of Michigan Radio's Generation Y web series. I will complain about the latter first. IF your goal is to influence young people to stay, grow, and belong here, you're talking to the wrong age group. You need to talk to the 14 to 17year olds as they form their needs, fears, and baseless claims about their future. Maybe if we give them a genuine education about what is here and what needs to change to make it sustainable as well as full their heads with a sense of dedication toward, to accompany their connection to this State (*sounds of dying, breathless words to a large, broad inhale lastly startled loud, pressed declaritive noises) , then MAYBE they would not only stay, but invest in making a future for this State and remind it of its rightful place on American if not on the World Map.

As to Mr. Lessenbury-thank you for reminding me of my angish and fitting a painful glove around my cold, arthretic hands. I agree, we need a crew of states(wo)men, a gangle of "Wise Men" to pull us out of this rut. However, we really need a herd of sheep willing to accept that this is what they need to follow.

Does Condensed Matter Physics Really Matter?

I am watching this show, "Dark Secret of Hendrick Schon", on the Science Channel. Although it is quite interesting to hear how nanotechnology is and will make even bigger changes to our world and ultimately save our economy, this scientific circle jerk fails to recognize that our current education system doesn't support future citizens being able to power on let alone understand the very machines created to serve them. I long gave up on the theme of "science saving us all"-we have the best equipped military in the world and yet thousands of our soilders have been killed or maimed by roadside bombs created by folks who oftimes are illiterate. And those very soilders who make it home cannot take advantage of the medical technology available because they cannot afford it or the Congress has failed to properly fund the hospital or its staff so that the innovation can be administered. All I'm saying is that these lovely break throughs mean nothing if we aren't going to invest in the people who are going to use them or make use of them. You really want to support the growth of science in America? Vote for a tax increase to cover public schools and college funds. Otherwise, the only people taking advantage of nanotechnology will be 1.6 million Chinese.