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Diana Ravitch: The Bizarre Editorial in "The New Republic" against Teacher Tenure
82 Washington Square East
E-mail: gardendr@gmail.com
Now that I have a blog where I can write what I want, when I want, I have the luxury of revisiting some good and bad ideas. In this post, I will revisit a really pernicious idea that appeared about a month ago in The New Republic. You see, the odd thing about our culture is that it is so attached to the present moment that anything that happened or was written about a month ago tends to disappear in the ether. But this editorial was so outrageous that it still annoys me, and I want to explain why.
In an editorial called "Making the Grade: The Case Against Tenure in Public Schools," the editors argued that it was a fine idea to remove any job protections from public school teachers because they don't need them. In making this assertion, the editors of this once-liberal magazine were giving support to the far-right Virginia legislature, which was at that moment not only trying to strip teachers of tenure but to require women to have "a trans-vaginal ultrasound before having an abortion." The editorial of course condemned the latter as harsh, but thought that the far-right effort to remove job protection from public school teachers as a "halfway decent idea." Indeed, the editorial went on to decry teacher tenure as "the least sane element" in our country's education system.
The editorial claimed that after a few years, teachers get job protection that "makes it extremely difficult to fire them for the rest of their careers." The source of this claim is the conservative National Council on Teacher Quality. TNR goes on to say that university professors deserve tenure because they are "our country's idea factories," so they must be free to explore unpopular ideas and to be protected from "ideological or intellectual retribution."
By contrast, the editorial maintains, K-12 teachers need no such protection. They don't create ideas, they don't delve into controversial subjects. Their job is so important that they should be fired if they aren't doing it right (let us assume for the moment that "doing their best work at all times" in Virginia means teaching what the Virginia legislature wants to hear and not teaching what it finds abominable).
The Virginia bill was not perfect, sniffed the editors, because "it allowed teachers to be fired for any reason," and predictably those darn Democrats, so "beholden to teachers' union," were able to block the measure. So, for the moment, until Virginia elects a few more conservative Republicans, Virginia teachers still have tenure. The editorial, sorry to see their position embraced mostly by far-right Republicans like Rick Santorum and Chris Christie, called on President Obama to join them in calling for an end to tenure for public school teachers.
What's wrong with this argument? First of all, tenure for teachers is not lifetime tenure. It is not analogous to the job protection enjoyed by lifetime professors, which is almost beyond challenge. Teacher tenure means the right to due process, nothing more, nothing less. After a teacher has served satisfactorily for a period of years, depending on state law, an administrator decides whether the teacher should receive the right to due process. If administrators are awarding due process to incompetent teachers, then we have an administrator problem.
Once a teacher has the right to due process, she cannot be fired capriciously. She is entitled to a hearing before an impartial administrator, where facts are presented about her performance. If the arbitrator agrees that she should be fired, she is fired. There is nothing comparable in higher education, where tenure means lifetime job protection.
Is there too little turnover of teachers? Not at all. Some 40% or more of those who enter the teaching profession are gone within the first five years. No other profession has the same degree of turnover. Some were fired; some left. That suggests to me that we don't do nearly enough to support teachers and help them get better at their job.
But why do teachers need due process rights? Are they merely transmitters of information or do they too deal in ideas? I would argue that teachers must be free to teach and students must be free to learn. In the states trying so hard to eliminate teacher tenure–and in those that long ago succeeded–teachers put their jobs in peril if they teach about evolution, abortion, global warming, or many of the other hot-button issues of the day. If they teach a book that offends community values (and the American Library Association has a list of the 100 most-challenged books of the year, which includes Harry Potter books), they can be fired.
The New Republic should be pleased with the law pleased by the law passed recently in Louisiana. Bobby Jindal's Legislature stripped tenure from the state's teachers. It is odd to see a once-liberal magazine echoing the principles of the far right. And disheartening to hear the claim that public school teachers need no academic freedom.
An editorial like this one is symbolic of the collapse of the liberal center.
The Assailed Teacher: Corporate College
The Assailed Teacher Blog
I grew up in a poor, single mother household. My mother stressed to me from a very early age the fact that I would be going to college. It was more than an expectation. It was a fait accompli. The prophecy ending up fulfilling itself and I am grateful to my mother until this day.
Now that I am a teacher, I find myself doing the same thing with my students. I speak to them as if college is a fait accompli. There is no talk about if they go to college, onlywhen they go to college. The high school in which I work has a good track record of getting the vast majority of its graduates into pretty decent universities.
By exhorting my students to go to college, I felt as if I was acting as society's balance wheel, as Horace Mann might say. It is understood that the children of the wealthy will go to very good universities no matter their intellectual capacity. Why should my students not be held to the same, or even better, expectations?
Many years ago, I had a student that entered my class hating history. By the end of the year, she had told me that I had made her love the subject. She was not lying, since she ended up declaring it as her college major. I used to be heartened when I discovered former students decided to major in the humanities whether it be history, English or philosophy. My goal as a history teacher has always been to cultivate engaged and thoughtful citizens. No area of study does better at accomplishing this than the humanities.
But my feelings about college have undergone a change in recent years. At the start of the Occupy Wall Street protests, its critics sneered that the protestors were just a bunch of lazy do-nothings who majored in Liberal Arts only to find that they could not make a living with their degrees. Indeed, one of the first thoughts that ran through my head when I heard about my former student majoring in history was "what is she going to do with that degree?"
Reading David Brooks' piece in yesterday's New York Times only reinforced my pessimism about college. Without intending to, Brooks put his finger on everything that is wrong with college today.
Colleges are supposed to produce learning. But, in their landmark study, "Academically Adrift," Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found that, on average, students experienced a pathetic seven percentile point gain in skills during their first two years in college and a marginal gain in the two years after that. The exact numbers are disputed, but the study suggests that nearly half the students showed no significant gain in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills during their first two years in college.
And then he goes on to say
This is an unstable situation. At some point, parents are going to decide that $160,000 is too high a price if all you get is an empty credential and a fancy car-window sticker.
Brooks is a Neocon who speaks in the cold language of economics. To him, colleges "produce" knowledge and critical thinking skills are something that can be quantified in percentiles. Parents and students are consumers entitled to get the most in return for the big bucks they shell out for higher learning.
Unfortunately, Brooks reflects the way we have come to view college and, indeed, all types of schooling in the United States.
There was a time when America's institutions of higher learning were the envy of the world. People were able to major in the liberal arts and have assurance that there would be some sort of livelihood to be made from it: teaching, writing, museum work, public leadership, etc.
But one of the impacts of the Neocon coup of the past 35 years is a massive disinvestment of government and private funding for the arts. Fewer opportunities exist to make a living with one's mind. This has been coupled with massive cutbacks in government support for universities. There was a time when university presidents were eminent scholars with a solid intellectual track record. Now, they are more likely to be business people who can balance the books. One of the ways they do this is through raising tuition rates which, by 2012, have become astronomical.
This also has led university presidents to trim the fat, so to speak. Undergraduate professors are more likely to be underpaid adjuncts. Most importantly, universities market their vocational programs and networking opportunities over of their intellectual rigor. The most popular majors are the ones that guarantee some sort of pipeline to a future career: business, education, public policy, non-profit management, etc. History, English and philosophy are withering on the vine in favor programs that promise credentials and contacts. Indeed, it is considered irresponsible, lazy and unambitious to major in a purely intellectual subject.
How can it be otherwise? If you are going to force incoming freshmen to go into six-figured debt upon enrollment, then it is only fair to try to guarantee them some sort of livelihood that would enable them to repay those debts after graduation.
This is what education reformers talk about when they say they want education to prepare students for the 21st century. We are living in a knowledge economy, an information age, where students need a college education to make them into the types of workers the economy demands.
And David Brooks the Neocon has a perfect way to get the colleges to do the bidding of this brave new economy.
One part of the solution is found in three little words: value-added assessments. Colleges have to test more to find out how they're doing.
It's not enough to just measure inputs, the way the U.S. News-style rankings mostly do. Colleges and universities have to be able to provide prospective parents with data that will give them some sense of how much their students learn.
There has to be some way to reward schools that actually do provide learning and punish schools that don't. There has to be a better way to get data so schools themselves can figure out how they're doing in comparison with their peers.
That is correct, Brooks wants the type of education reform that has destroyed the K-12 system to metastasize to the college level.
In this proposal is the assumption that learning is the responsibility of the teacher. No learning means bad teachers. Value-added data will weed out the bad professors and, hopefully, "punish" them.
Even when students reach the ages of 18-22, reformers do not expect them to take any initiative at all for their learning. It is all on the teachers. Students are just passive vessels. The professors must open up their students' brains and pour knowledge in.
This is exactly the type of view Brooks has because this is the type of worker of tomorrow corporations want. They do not want workers who are curious enough to seek knowledge or wise enough to know what they do not know. Instead, Brooks wants a college system where students sit there and receive. He wants a system where the professors have to dumb down the curriculum because their students have been trained to tune out anything that is boring or not immediately relevant to them.
David Brooks wants a college system where students are vegetables. These vegetables will go on to be the non-questioning, uncurious workers and consumers of tomorrow.
This is why I used to be encouraged when former students decided to major in the liberal arts. We live in a nation of Fox News, MSNBC and Jersey Shore veg-heads. To speak economically, there is a demand for critical thinkers and engaged citizens. Liberal arts degrees go a long way towards providing our country with the types of citizens we need. As a history teacher, I used to think I had done my duty if I could help inspire even one student to pursue a life of the mind.
Now I am not so sure. Some of my former students might become active citizens who care about the direction of the country and the world. At the same time, they have dug themselves into horrific debt in order to get there. Our society does not value people who live by their minds enough to reward them with high-paying jobs. In short, I fear that I may have been encouraging my students to make themselves into debt slaves.
Our universities are quickly being sacrificed to a regime that seeks to organize every aspect of our lives for us. It is a regime that tells us what to value, who to vote for, what to buy and where to work. The only hope we ever had to fight against this are the millions of people capable of independent thought and action. These are the people who seek knowledge on their own, are able to read books from cover to cover, are able to express themselves clearly and are able to question the assumptions of the age. I had always seen a college education as a big step towards developing the skills to be an independent thinker.
Yet, our universities are becoming little more than vocational training centers whose value is measured in the jobs for which they can credential their students and the networking opportunities they provide. They still cultivate the life of the mind, but it is the closed and passive mind. It is the mind that blames teachers for its own stupidity. It is the mind trained on little more than a steady diet of overly specific, overly technical jargon that has no relevance outside of the vocation one chooses. It is a mind so compartmentalized and boxed in that it is incapable of critical thinking or questioning.
Sure, there will still be liberal arts programs, but these are becoming luxuries that only the very wealthy can afford. Everyone else is forced into a college major that promises to help them repay the obscene debt that must be incurred upon entering.
David Brooks seeks to complete this ominous trend. Through value-added testing, he hopes to compartmentalize knowledge into factoids like in public schools. Its aim is not to measure learning. Its aim is to make college students see themselves as passive vessels. Its aim is to give college students all the excuse they need to stay vegged out. "Oh well, if I don't do well on this test, the teacher gets blamed. It must be their fault."
This is because they are not students at all, but consumers. And what are consumers? They are people presented with a choice. They have no right to question those choices or come up with choices of their own. Instead, they must choose from what the corporate masters decide to present to them. Do you want a business, education or public policy degree? Do you want to work with computers or numbers?
And what if someone wants to be a thoughtful and engaged citizen?
Sorry, that is not a choice.
Welcome to corporate college, where you pay through the nose for the privilege of ignorance.
Arthur Goldstein: TEACHER'S DIARY No Way Out of the Evaluation Trap
Believe it or not, I wake up every morning eager to go to work. I never know what's going to happen in my classes, but I invariably look forward to them. My students never fail to surprise me. I feel privileged to introduce newcomers to my language. But now, if they don't pass tests likely designed for English speakers, I face losing my job.
This is particularly disturbing because I see patterns, especially among kids who did not actually want to be uprooted, torn away from their friends, family and quite often even their parents. I had several students last year who spoke almost no English, and learned next to nothing the entire year. When I checked their records, I learned that two of them had not only passed junior high English classes (not E.S.L., but regular English), but had also passed Spanish.
Without my crystal ball I can only speculate on how they managed this. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that their value-added scores would not have put me in a favorable light. Under New York State's new paradigm, two years of kids like that would leave me selling pencils on the corner.
Yet stats will not show two kids I have this year who have turned around. One young man sits in front of my class (full disclosure — I forced him to) and now participates every day. He's not my best student. He's always joking. On the brighter side, he's not only pretty funny sometimes, but he's also learning rapidly. He now has every chance of graduating high school, and his life prospects are much improved over those of someone who doesn't know any English.
Another student who failed my class last year faced the unhappy prospect of moving back into my class again. "I don't want to go there," she told the counselor, "He always makes you talk." But she's now grasping everything that eluded her last year. Also, she's happy. I see her smile every day, from wherever in the classroom I happen to be.
Did I fail these kids last year? Maybe I did. But I spoke to them, cajoled them, threatened them, contacted their counselors and called their homes repeatedly. I try everything I can think of, and sometimes I fail. Does this mean my name ought to be on page 3 of The New York Post as a poster boy for everything wrong with education?
These days, that's something every New York teacher needs to worry about. You've probably heard that New York State is on the verge of a brand new teacher evaluation system. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo calls it a balanced system, one that relies on multiple measures, including observation and student test scores.
That's because student test scores are used to determine 40 percent of the rating. However, anyone who doesn't succeed in this area is rated ineffective. Many are now pointing out that 40 percent of "objective measures" can magically equal 100 percent.
Resultant feedback after two ineffective ratings may include things like, "Get lost," "You're toast," or "Take a long walk off a short pier."
Perhaps as this happens Mr. Cuomo will take solace in knowing New York state will be paying considerably less in pensions.
The "reformers" who shout the virtues of this new plan from the rooftops ought not to be so comfortable. As far as I can tell, since bad test scores can afflict even excellent teachers, teacher dismissals can occur utterly at random. So while the district might be able to pick off big mouth pain in the neck unionists (like me), they could just as easily end up firing members of Educators for Excellence, which happily backs every darn "reform" that comes down the pike.
There are, in fact, multiple issues with value-added measures that tie teacher ratings to student performance. They have wild margins of error, and many things kids do are well out of the control of teachers who see them 40 minutes a day.
In fact, the New York Post education reporter Yoav Gonen tweeted that margins of error on recently released teacher data reports ran as high as 87 percent. Diane Ravitch pointed out that odds were worse than a coin toss. Nonetheless, my union has agreed to make them part of the evaluation system.
Maybe I should stop volunteering to teach beginners and dump them on rookie teachers. Rookies often get the toughest classes. The thinking behind this is rookies can't teach, and these classes can't learn, so they're perfect together. So what if we ruin a few teaching careers before they even start?
Beyond value-added, administrators, even principals, are human, subject to all the frailties and weaknesses that afflict all of us. Believe it or not, some take a personal dislike to certain teachers, for reasons in no way related to their teaching abilities. And some take things so far as to give these teachers poor ratings. As I am a public and vocal critic of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's administration, this concerns me in no small way.
If I'm a terrible teacher, fine. Give me a bad rating. But when I advocate for kids, smaller class sizes, reasonable standards for high-needs students, classrooms instead of trailers, or kids eating lunch at noon rather than 9 a.m., that's no reason to question my teaching. Nor is the fact that, as U.F.T. chapter leader, I represent each and every working teacher in my school. My colleague received a poor rating for doing his job as chapter leader, and had to go to court at his own expense to have that rating reversed.
This ought to be enough to prove that principals are not infallible. Yet in New York City, only 13 percent of poorly rated teachers will have the opportunity to go to a mutually agreed-upon independent arbitrator.
Considering this, teachers may be reluctant to speak up for themselves, let alone kids. They'll be subject to arbitrary dismissal from not only junk science like value-added, but from small-minded vindictive administrators as well.
I want strong, smart role models for my kid and yours. Mr. Bloomberg, it appears, does not.
Arthur Goldstein is an E.S.L. teacher and United Federation of Teachers chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School in Queens.
Betsy Combier: Bloomberg's Mistake: Get Rid Of Just Cause At Section 3020-a Arbitration
The Infamous 16 Teachers Bloomberg Wants To Fire: Sir, You Are Wrong
I dont know all 16 teachers that the New York Times says should have been fired but were not after being brought up on 3020-a charges, but I know two of the teachers named, Eric Chasanoff and Stanley Feldman, and both men never deserved to be brought to 3020-a.Eric is in the NY Daily News today, April 8, 2012, after the reporter went to his house yesterday, and sat with a photographer outside waiting to catch him:
Queens high school teacher Eric Chasanoff bashes Ed Dept. for trying to fire him over 'innocent remark'
Chasanoff fined for $2,000 for telling student he 'could kiss her' for passing test
Monahan and Durkin are just trying to fill space in the newspapers with this article.
The issue is touching and "verbal abuse". At 3020-a, depending upon who the arbitrator is and what he or she has been "told" about the Respondent employee brought up on charges (there is communication outside of the hearing room with some arbitrators), the record may or may not include a motive as to why the alleged "crime" occurred, and whether or not the "crime" needs a severe penalty.
Dennis Walcott hugs a student
If an arbitrator hears about a situation involving touching or verbal abuse, he or she must make a decision to find credible either the charged teacher or the child or other "witness(es). Often, as in Eric's case - I attended his 3020-a hearing, heard all the testimony, and watched the witnesses - the touch on the girl's shoulder for the purpose of catching her attention to tell her she passed the test and he was very proud of her is not, in anyone's book except the current Department of Education, punishable by termination and the girl was not "credible" in her re-telling of what happened. Eric is a very good teacher and the students like him alot. The girl who charged him had to be subpoenaed twice to come in to the hearing, and when she finally testified she seemed to be scared of the NYC DOE Attorney. She did not want to be in the room. My question was this: was she threatened with some harm if she did not testify? I have seen this happen at many hearings.
As we can see from the pictures above and to the right, Dennis Walcott is a huggy guy. The first picture shows him obviously touching the girl beside him. Was he reprimanded for this? How did the girl in the pink sweater feel? what about the little boy in the second picture? Was he scared? Did Mr. Walcott hold him there longer than he wanted? Did anyone ask? What about the picture at right, did the 18-yr-old want Walcott to put his arm around his waist? For how long? What happened when people saw the picture - was the boy punished? Is this extreme zero tolerance appropriate, or are we creating volcanoes out of sand dunes?
These are the questions that are asked at 3020-a, and it is up to the arbitrator to decide what happened. It doesnt really matter what Walcott does, he will get off, because he is not a tenured teacher over the age of 50 and making a teacher salary of more than $80,000. He is also the CEO of the New York public school system and has immunity from prosecution.
Below are pictures which Eric brought to his 3020-a of Joel Klein hugging children. What's fair, Eric asked, when he tapped a student briefly on the shoulder to praise her for doing well on a test, yet Mr. Klein touches children in many ways. And Eric spent more than 4 years in the Queens rubber room to pay him back for his alleged 'crime'.
I would like to know why the Daily News and the New York Times picked the teachers that they did. Why not choose the teacher who "lost" a child at dismissal, supposedly, but no one asked the child what happened, the child was never without an adult nearby, and the child never attended the 3020-a to testify about what happened. Yet the teacher spent more than 2 years in the rubber room, and ended up with a decision to give a $1000 fine. I attended all the hearing dates. Whereas the teacher should have been completely exonerated, the arbitrator told all of us that she simply could not exonerate, because she had to give the DOE something. She had to "split the baby", but did not hand in her decision until more than 9 months after the closing arguments by both sides.
Josh Javits, an arbitrator who was hired to fire - in my opinion - did not fire a teacher who was accused of pinching a student's ear, after the investigator substantiated the charge because he looked at the ear a week later and it was "pink". Javits ignored a statement of the student saying that he was dragged on the floor the day of the incident by another student, (he possibly cut his face or ear, went home, and did not want to implicate his friend, so his parent accused the teacher). Javits fined the teacher $10,000. The DOE was furious that Javits did not terminate in this case. When the teacher appealed to the Supreme Court, Corporate Counsel Gail Mulligan told me that she took the file and had it in her office after I went to the records room at 60 Centre Street and found the file missing. Suddenly Judge Doris Ling-Cohen issued a judgment that "termination" was the appropriate penalty in this case, but termination was rejected by Javits. The teacher wrote the judge saying that termination was never considered, and then Ling-Cohen wrote Mulligan and said, "What happened?" meaning, why did you write a judgment that was not correct? Mulligan wrote the judge and told her that indeed, the mention of termination in this case was never requested, and the judge changed her ruling to upholding the fine. The missing file in this case appeared in the records room in a month later with a new jacket, which I made copies of for my records. However, the Corporation Counsel continues to send out the incorrect judgment, with the termination ruling in it, to teachers appealing their arbitration decisions pursuant to Article 7511.
What about another teacher whose hearings I attended,who was brought to 3020-a but effectively exonerated, yet the articles do not write anything about his arbitrator, Randi Lowitt. Is she, and other arbitrators not mentioned, "protected" for some reason? Randi Lowitt terminated Christine Rubino for a one-time Facebook comment, therefore does that give Randi a "protected" spot in the media? Paul Zonderman is a terrific arbitrator who never drank the NYC DOE mind-altering punch, and often told me he would not bow to them. He did not deserve to be singled out for ridicule and abuse, most certainly.
The newspapers clearly have an agenda, and as a reporter/advocate, I am not in favor of using a newspaper to push policy, or using so-called "reporters" to validate policy decisions.
Anyway, Eric wrote his story, and I have the link, below, and his story is very similar to the story told by Michael Dalton, as you can see below. All of the newspaper articles currently out in the public realm beg the reader to suspend rational judgment and look at everything happening in the teacher trials as arbitrary and capricious. Ask yourself "how do they know?" Did the reporter read the transcripts of all the 16 cases, and look at all of Paul Zonderman's decisions? I dont think so.
My Story On What Really Happened And Why The Independent Arbitrator Gave Me Only A $2,000 Fine In The 3020-a Hearing.
I woke up and went out to get the paper and found to my dismay that I was one of only sixteen teachers that SCI recommended for termination due to alleged "sexual misconduct" but were not terminated. The reason why we were not terminated by the"Independent Arbitrators" was real simple, that "we were not guilty of any sexual misconduct" that is why! While I do not know the full story of the other fifteen teachers I do know my own and here is my story.
And go to Eric's June 13, 2009 post, where we can see clearly that former DOE Chief Joal Klein was out of control as far as touching children:
Go To Eric's blog http://chaz11.blogspot.com/ and his posting of his story:
And go to Eric's June 13, 2009 post, re-posted here in its entirety, where we can see clearly that former DOE Chief Joel Klein was out of control as far as touching children:
Where Is The SCI Investigation Of Chancellor Klein?
In the bizarro world of the DOE any physical contact between students and teachers is presumed to be corporal and/or sexual in nature. In fact the Principals tell the teachers "do not touch the students" because of the fear schools have of the DOE's perverted obsession with sexual misconduct and the biased & flawed SCI investigation that willsubstantiate it. However, there appears to be one person exempt from this presumption. Its our wonderful Chancellor, Joel Klein. Time and again he puts his hands on students and never is SCI called to investigate his actions. Whether it is a full frontal hug with reluctant female students at PS 123 in Harlem or the DOE defined inappropriate touching that teachers are subject to. He is of course the Chancellor and the rules apparently do not apply to him.
In Chancellor Joel Klein's witch hunt to go after teachers, many teachers (especially males) have been removed from the classroom for alleged inappropriate touching of a student's clothed shoulder, an elbow, and a lower arm above the wrist. In fact, Joel Klein's obsession with sexual issues is summarized in his famous statement about reassigned teachers found in Betsy Combier's blog was as follows:
"We did not vote to terminate you. We did vote to terminate a teacher in executive Session...in fact, we voted to terminate two teachers. It's perfectly consistent with the law.Many teachers have been charged with sexual activities and some are charged with corporal punishment..
It seems, as the three pictures obviously show, that our Chancellor is exempt from his own DOE regulations. In the first picture, the Chancellor's face is pressed into the girl's head as he hugs her. In the second picture Joel Klein is uncomfortably close to the girl and is shown starring at the girl (what is he starring at, the face?, chest?, or breast?) and ignoring the boy. In the third picture the Chancellor has his arm around the girl and his hand appears to be touching the girl's bear skin on the back and certainly the upper arm near the shoulder. Further, his body is pressed into the girl's body. While normal society may not see the Chancellor's actions as being sexual. I must point out it is under the Chancellor's own rules that when a teacher is accused of doing the very things the Chancellor is pictured doing, or even less, a SCI investigation is conducted of the alleged"sexual activities" and the teacher finds himself removed to the"rubber room".
Under the despotic regime of Chancellor Joel Klein (known as the kissing Chancellor by me) not only is the teacher presumed to be"guilty unless proven innocent" but everyday ordinary physical contact between the student and teacher can land the teacher in the "rubber room" and face a termination hearing for sexual misconduct. However, as I said previously, for Chancellor Joel Klein these rules do not apply. Its good to be the king!
Back to the current onslaught by the media: on April 6, 2012, David Chen at the NY TIMES published an article on Michael Dalton, a teacher accused of sexual abuse, but he paid a $2000 fine just like Eric Chasinoff did after he, too, presented Arbitrator Bonnie Weinstock pictures of Joel Klein too near to children. Wienstock wrote, says Chen, "that Mr. klein's arm is either wrapped around the child or resting in front of the child." Weinstock did not find Dalton's actions to be sexual in nature and was convinced he was sorry for inadvertently crossing the invisible line that is drawn for teachers.As I read it, Chen seems to say that Weinstock should never have gone along with Dalton's comparison of his case with what Klein did, or still does (we dont know, do we?). Why wasnt Klein ever charged, so we could hear his apology?
In Successful Fight to Keep Job, Music Teacher Cited Double Standard by City
By DAVID W. CHEN, NYTIMES
The New York City Education Department wanted to fire Michael Dalton, a music teacher in Washington Heights, after its investigators said that he had placed three third-grade boys on his lap in what they considered an inappropriate manner.
He had tickled them in their midsection, the city's investigative report said. He even cradled one boy, and cooed a lullaby, before kissing him on the forehead, the report said.
But wait, said Mr. Dalton, when he finally had a chance to defend himself.
He presented a photo of Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor at the time, surrounded by three beaming students. It was hard to tell whether one of those students is in Mr. Klein's lap, or just standing in front of him, but it is clear, an arbitrator concluded, that Mr. Klein's "arm is either wrapped around the child or resting in front of the child."
"The facts regarding Mr. Dalton demonstrate a clear case of disparate treatment," the arbitrator, Bonnie Siber Weinstock, wrote in July 2010. She ruled that the tickling and kissing were inappropriate, but not sexual. Ruing the lack of clear standards on what school employees could and could not do, she rejected the city's attempt to fire Mr. Dalton and instead fined him $2,000.
Mr. Dalton, who is 48, was one of 16 teachers the city sought to fire in recent years, saying they had behaved inappropriately with children, but who were allowed to return to the classroom after an arbitrator chose to give them a lesser penalty like a fine, a suspension or a reprimand. Two of those 16, one of them Mr. Dalton, have been removed from the classroom again because of new accusations against them.
The handling of teachers accused of behaving improperly with students has become an uncomfortable issue for City Hall in the past few months. At least seven school employees have been arrested this year, accused of sexual offenses involving pupils. Two of them had been found to have acted inappropriately around students, but were allowed to keep working.
Asked about the 16 cases on his radio show on Friday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that some of the rulings "don't make any sense," perhaps because arbitrators, who must be approved by both the Education Department and the teachers' union, were loath to impose the stiffest penalties.
"Maybe if you were a serial ax murderer you might get a slap on the wrist," he said.
But Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, scoffed at criticism of the 3020-a hearings, named after the section of the state law that guarantees tenured teachers a chance to defend themselves before an arbitrator before they can be fired.
"If their position now is that the 3020-a process didn't work, they haven't even used their tools," he said. "If they felt something went wrong, they should've appealed it."
Mr. Dalton said that the new complaint against him was neither sexual nor criminal, and that it was being looked at by the department's Office of Special Investigation, not the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation, which handles more serious cases. Neither Mr. Dalton nor the department would elaborate.
But his previous case provides a window into the complicated, sometimes uncomfortable world of teacher discipline. "The notion of inappropriate physical contact can be the type of charge that ends a pedagogue's career," Ms. Weinstock wrote. "However, before termination is the penalty selected, the record evidence must be quite clear."
The case involved a class Mr. Dalton was teaching in the 2007-8 school year at Washington Heights Academy. He "scooped" up one student, for instance, and rocked him as if he were a baby, sang a lullaby, then kissed him on the forehead, according to the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation report.
One student, when asked by city investigators whether the tickling was fun, said, "Kind of in the middle."
During his arbitration hearing, Mr. Dalton, sounding contrite, said, "I confused my role as an uncle and a neighbor with my role as teacher, and that in those cases, tickling is not a big deal." But tickling in the classroom, he agreed, "leaves lots of questions open as to what's going on."
But Mr. Dalton also challenged the effort to fire him. In addition to the photo of Mr. Klein, he provided a photo of a female colleague on a trip with kindergarten students. She was seated on the floor, legs crossed, with a female student's "buttocks touching the inner portion of the teacher's thighs," according to the arbitrator's ruling.
The arbitrator, Ms. Weinstock, concluded that Mr. Dalton's contact was not sexual, and found his "remorse to be sincere."
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Dalton, who most recently taught at Intermediate School 143 in Washington Heights, defended the arbitration process as fair. He suggested that his difficulties in 2008 were rooted in his poor relationship with his principal at the time.
"The reason this is important is because principals are not necessarily principled, and they can use the system to remove teachers they're at odds with," he said.
Daniel Krieger and Patrick McGeehan contributed reporting.
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text:
«Ічнянський молочно-консервний комбінат» — велике підприємство харчової промсиловості України з потужним виробничим комплексом, розташованим у місті Ічні (районний центр Чернігівської області); науково-технічною базою, власною сировинною базою, власною системою національної дистрибуції продукції на території країни, об'єднаною у Торговий Дім «Наталка» (м. Київ), експортною командою, що забезпечує оптові поставки згущеного молока у близько 30 країн світу.

Підприємство (головні виробничі потужності) розташоване за адресою:
 вул. Вишнева, буд. 4, м. Ічня—16703 (Чернігівська область, Україна).
Директор компанії — Валентин Анатолійович Запорощук.

З історії підприємства
У березні 2007 року на базі недіючого Ічнянського заводу продтоварів свою діяльність — випуск згущеного молока, вершків, какао, кави розпочав ВАТ «Ічнянський молочно-консервний комбінат».

Найновіша технологія дозволяє Ічнянському молочно-консервному комбінату обходитися меншою чисельністю персоналу, економити витрати на енергоносії, що здешевлює продукцію та сприяє її конкурентоспроможності.

Незважаючи на фінансово-економічну кризу в країні, у 2008—09 роках компанія успішно розвивалась, реалізувала продукцію, розробляла та впроваджувала нові види продукції. Підприємство було одним з небагатьох українських виробників, які не скорочували обсяги виробництва, чиї виробничі потужності були завантажені повністю.

З 2007 по 2009 рік експорт ВАТ «Ічнянський молочно-консервний комбінат» зріс понад у 5 разів, і станом на 2009 рік експортний департамент ВАТ «Ічнянський молочно-консервний комбінат» здійснював оптову продаж згущеного молока в 28 держав світу з найширшою географією: СНД і колишні країни СРСР — Казахстан, Молдова, Вірменія, Грузія, Азербайджан, Киргизстан, Узбекистан, Таджикистан, Туркменістан, інші країни світу — США, ОАЕ, ПАР, Ізраїль, Непал, Афганістан, Монголія тощо.

Ічнянський молочно-консервний комбінат співробітничає з провідними українськими виробниками кондитерської продукції, постачає свою продукцію у найвідоміші торговельні мережі країни, періодичне організує великі PR-кампанії (в тому числі із залученням ТБ-реклами на провідних телеканалах), тому для рядових українців і продукція підприємства, і бренд «Ічня» на сьогодні є достатньо відомими.

Якість продукції
Незалежний Центр Експертиз «ТЕСТ» неодноразово перевіряв якість товарів «Ічнянського молочно-консервного комбінату», та виявляв невідповідність фізико-хімічних показників:
 Тест за травень 2010 року: ідентифікація жиру показала 93 % немолочних жирів;
 Тест за серпень 2011 року: ідентифікація жиру показала 85,5 % немолочних жирів;
 Тест за листопад 2011 року: ідентифікація жиру показала 95 % немолочних жирів;
 Тест за листопад 2012 року: наявність білого барвника діоксид титану E171, та синтетичного консерванту сорбінова кислота E200.

Примітки

Джерела та посилання
 Сайт підприємства
 ВАТ «Ічнянський молочно-консервний комбінат» // Ічнянщина — край слави, праці, хліба і краси. Презентаційний збірник., К.: Український видавничий консорціум, 2009. — с. 14
 Про нас на Сайт підприємства

Підприємства Ічні
Підприємства харчової промисловості Чернігівської області
Виробники молочних продуктів України
Засновані в Україні 2007

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Diabetics have many concerns when it comes to the dietary balance they must strictly follow to maintain healthy lifestyles. This is because of both sugar intake and the absorption of sugar into their bodies. Different foods have different absorption rates, and fruit is no different. There are fruits which are both beneficial and detrimental to the diabetic. Under the guidance of a dietitian and a physician, a diabetic can safely plan diets around this problem.
While there are fruits which a diabetic can eat, there are also fruits which a diabetic can't eat. Fruits such as oranges, grapefruit, papaya, plums, nectarines and peaches are among those which diabetics should avoid. Other fruits high in sugar are bananas, grapes and strawberries, which diabetics should also avoid.
The fruits listed above are high in pulp, which contains sugar. When this sugar metabolises into the system it prompts a sudden increase in insulin. The spike in insulin creates a sudden rise in blood glucose in the system. When blood glucose is too high it causes a reaction by the body that triggers defence mechanisms and causes the body to begin shutting down. This is what is called a "sugar attack" when a diabetic becomes dizzy or unconscious.
Portion control is essential in controlling diabetes, even with fruits that are acceptable. Larger amounts of acceptable fruits, such as apples, can still cause a spike in insulin. This is because a larger portion of fruit has a larger portion of carbohydrates. Also, some fruits, such as watermelon and pears, can break down faster than others, whereas cherries and apples are slower to break down sugar. Because of this you should watch the size of the fruit and the amount you eat each day. A good rule to follow is to limit the portion to what can easily fit into the palm of your hand.
Fresh fruit is always preferable over canned or dried fruit. This is because most canned and dried fruits are higher in sugar levels. Unsweetened fruit juice can be drunk, but portion control becomes an issue because the carbohydrate content is not far behind what is found in soda. Fruit concentrates also contain more sugar than fresh fruits and do not contain fibre, which diabetics need.
There has been a long misunderstood theory regarding fruit in the diet of a diabetic. For many years, health care professionals recommended avoiding all fruit, but this advice proved to be detrimental to the overall health of their patients. Current medical research shows that there are still fruits which cannot be eaten, but there are others which can safely be consumed in moderation; it has also been shown that some fruits, when combined with other healthy choices, can be beneficial to overall diet plans.


I have the nagging sensation that it's time to write another blog post even though I have no idea if anyone (other than my daughter and husband) has read the first. No matter; I will persevere!
It's been a little over three weeks and so far, the public response has exceeded ALL expectations. Not in traffic flow…it's actually crazy quiet in the store for long, lonely stretches (allowing me to write rambling blogs and ample social media posts). But, in sales which, after all, is what matters. We are, in fact, heading out on a buying trip this weekend to boost our depleted stock.
People ask every day where we get our vintage inventory. Everywhere, is the answer. Locally, as much as possible but we also like to introduce current looks from other areas. Example: Santa Fe is RICH with Mexican imports! It's actually, a bit excessive at times.. So, we avoid such things on our journeys. Instead, we look for mid-century modern (which is currently H-O-T), farmhouse-style and timeless, classic designs.
But, make no mistake. We LOVE and LIVE FOR the HUNT! If you've ever gotten addicted to something: shopping, coffee, vanilla bean frozen yogurt, that nightly glass of Cabernet…you know what I mean. Robin and I both consistently crave the hunt for treasures to sell. Some of the most fun times of my life, which were coincidentally the physically-hardest times due to the nature of what we sell (furniture) have been found at estate sales and flea markets and everywhere in-between. We simply, love it.
So much so that a few years ago, we moved to L.A. to be closer to the motherland, the Rose Bowl Flea Market. Okay, I'll admit…our daughter had left home, and our pug of 14 years had passed so that had a lot to do with the necessary change of scenery but also, I just really wanted to go to the source. You know how Muhammad went to the mountain? That was me. I'd been shopping at the Rose Bowl (and yes, many people prefer Roundtop, TX but I don't enjoy sweating in inappropriate places) several times and it had awed and amazed me to the point that I just couldn't get it out of my soul. So, we sold most everything we owned, hit the road with a U-Haul and found a place in Altadena, just a few miles UPHILL from Pasadena where the Rose Bowl Flea Market is held on the first Sunday of every month.
During the rest of the month, I would walk 3.4 miles around the Rose Bowl and attached golf course, both to keep my girlish figure AND to plot my course. I felt like I really needed to know the lay of the land, if you know what I mean. This is a MASSIVE flea market. Eight hundred vendors on the average that have shopped and hoarded all month to bring their very best wares to the Rose Bowl. While at least 1/3 of it is unordinary: Levi's jeans, shoes of all varieties, yard sale junk…MOST of it is jaw-droppingly amazing vintage wares at pretty darn good prices. Like I said – the MOTHERLAND.
Long story short: it turned out I didn't need to "know the land like the back of my hand" because I didn't have a shop. I had nowhere other than our tiny 1-bedroom (plus a BIG closet) to hoard the treasures I found. And after a year in the rat race and smog that is Southern California, we longed to come home to Santa Fe where we could walk most everywhere we go and maybe, someday, afford to open a store. Thankfully, that someday is here. And, next time we travel to the Rose Bowl, they better LOOK OUT because I'll be prepared!


text:
Groups look to APD contract negotiations for improved police accountability
Community groups gathered in front of a city of Austin building Tuesday to send a message to the Austin Police Association and to the Austin City Council: they want more transparency and accountability from Austin police.
The groups, which include the ACLU-Texas, Austin Justice Coalition Grassroots Leadership and others, met Tuesday because they've been following APA negotiations with the city over their public safety contract. They want significant modifications to the police contract to ensure "transparency, accountability, and oversight."
"We try to come to the negotiating table and say let's get some citizen oversight and insight that's coming from the people you engage with," said Lewis Conway, criminal justice organizer for Grassroots Leadership.
The family of Lawrence Parrish, the man shot by Austin police in April, has also been following these negotiations, hoping they could bring about some of the changes he is looking for. At first Austin police said their four officers fired at Parrish because he had fired at them. Then they revised their statement to say Parrish pointed a rifle at the officers but never fired. APD said Tuesday that while investigations into this case are ongoing, the four officers are now back on full duty.
Williams believes the contract can help promote a culture of accountability for APD.
"If they can't do that or at least apologize or be transparent or accountable enough, then we need to come up with another solution," he said.
That's why these groups are calling on city council members not to approve the contract agreement if it doesn't adequately address accountability issues.
#decarcerateatx
We believe that people who have been directly affected by incarceration, together with their families, should lead the movement for change in Texas. That's why we offer intensive community organizing trainings, designed to build on the expertise, experience, and powerful commitment of our members. Graduates of our training become members of our action network where we put our training into practice and advance our mission to end the criminalization of our communities.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
PETER WALKER COWARD
Memorial Servcie
Cropo Funeral Chapel
Obituary of PETER WALKER COWARD
PETER WALKER COWARD August 19, 1936- August 31, 2014 Dad passed peacefully after a battle with cancer. He was pre deceased by his parents Alice and Arthur, brother John, wife Jackie and son Loran (Northcott). He is survived by daughters Dawn (John Bronk), Lorna Jones, Wendy Kirwin , Kim(Bob Parker) and son Steve (Rita), 9 grandchildren , 9 great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Dad spent most of his life on the water. He was a Chief Petty Officer 1st Class in the Naval Reserves, worked for the BC Coast Guard and retired from CFB Esquimalt. He was also a member of the White Ensign Naval Club. The greatest love of his life was Jackie and they enjoyed the lives they shared with their family. The family would like to thank the staff at St. Boniface Hospital and to the staff at Riverview for making his last week's comfortable. Service will be held on Saturday, September 6 at 11:00 am.at Cropo Funeral Chapel, 1442 Main Street. His cremains will be scattered at sea on the West Coast.


In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The underside line is, that particular education personnel are liable for giving your baby a free acceptable public education (FAPE). Trainer candidates will determine cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional patterns of learning and development for college students with mild to moderate disabilities.
Since I educate particular education courses, I added words or title/theme to help the students get started. So if you wish to be successful and efficient Special Education Instructor, think about above particulars as the muse of your journey in the direction of achieving your objective!
First, there are a lot more employees with jobs than there are kids eligible for special ed. All workers have a race and a gender and a national origin. We also work with the Department of Elementary Education on a twin main for those who wish to blend elementary education with special education.
The SESS, which is hosted in Cork Education Centre, gives a nationwide service to teachers and particular wants assistants. As a pupil in High College and having read this, this helped open my eyes a bit on what the lecturers (particularly the general public education ones) have to undergo and it seems no picnic.
Contemplating that about 6.6 million kids with disabilities obtain special education nationwide. Typically the modifications and techniques which are really useful present your youngster with enough help that academic performance is improved and particular education services will not be required.


text:
Q: Printing a URL if it has a certain keyword I have function which extracts the urls from espn. the urls looks like this http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13224/scorecard/426406/scotland-vs-england-only-odi-england-in-scotland-odi-match-2010, http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13240/scorecard/426384/ireland-vs-australia-only-odi-australia-tour-of-england-and-ireland-2010
I have created a list of countries and I wanted to print a message if the url contains country from the list else pass to extracting next url
all_countries=['England','India','West Indies']

#one_day will have all the links
for day in one_day:
        d=day.split('-')
        if d in all_countries:
            print(day)
        else:
            next

It doesnt work. Any help is appreciated

A: It's because .split() returns a list. You would have to iterate the items of your list. Essentially what you are asking the computer is if
["http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13224/scorecard/426406/scotland", "vs", "england", "only", "odi", "england", "in", "scotland", "odi", "match", "2010"]

Is in some list that looks like this (I assume):
["england", "scotland", "ireland", ...]

I suggest you use a few print statements. A simple print(d) would show this behaviour. You would have to iterate over d:
for word in d:
    if word in all_countries:
        print(word)
        break # otherwise multiple words will trigger your logic multiple times

A: Here's a straightforward way to do it (assuming one_day is a list of urls, and all_countries is a list of country names):
# (some example values for urls and country names)
one_day = ['http://www.espncricinfo.com/...-vs-australia-only-odi-au...',
           'http://www.espncricinfo.com/...scotland-vs-england-only-...']
all_countries = ['India', 'Ireland', 'Australia']

for day in one_day:
  for country in all_countries:
    if country.lower() in day:
      print(f'found a match for {country}: `{day}`')
      # or just: print(day)

This works because in checks for substring, e.g.:
'Australia'.lower() in '...-vs-australia-only-odi-au...'
## True

That's what you're checking at each iteration of the inner loop in the condition country.lower() in day.
p.s. you could also split on '-' as in the original post, in case you are worried about cases like e.g. 'USA' matching a url containing '-musac...' or something like that. To do that, you could say something like this:
for day in one_day:
  day_split = day.split('-')
  for elem in day_split:
    if elem in [c.lower() for c in all_countries]:
      print(f'found a match: `{day}`')

A: or with regex is more flex ;):
import re

urls = ["http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13224/scorecard/426406/scotland-vs-england-only-odi-england-in-scotland-odi-match-2010",
        "http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13240/scorecard/426384/ireland-vs-australia-only-odi-australia-tour-of-england-and-ireland-2010",
        "http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13240/scorecard/426384/titi-2010"
       ]

countries = ['England',
             'India',
             'West Indies']

for url in urls:
    if bool(re.match('(?i).*?(' + '|'.join(countries).replace(' ', '\W') + ').*?', url)):
        print(url)

results:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13224/scorecard/426406/scotland-vs-england-only-odi-england-in-scotland-odi-match-2010
http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/13240/scorecard/426384/ireland-vs-australia-only-odi-australia-tour-of-england-and-ireland-2010

A: In your case
all_countries=['England','India','West Indies']
    for day in one_day:
            d=day.split('-')
            if d in all_countries:
                print(day)
            else:
                next

you are doing d = day.split('-')
d is also a list so you need to iterate the d and then check value in country
one more point is that you all_countries caontain Captlize country name so you need to convert them to lower case before checking if condition
here is code snippet that might help
all_countries=['England','India','West Indies']

for day in one_day:
    d=day.split('-')
    for val in d:
        if val.lower() in [x.lower() for x in all_countries ]:
            print(day)
        else:
            next

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
https://profreg.medscape.com/px/getpracticeprofile.do?method=getProfessionalProfile&urlCache=aHR0cHM6Ly9lbWVkaWNpbmUubWVkc2NhcGUuY29tL2FydGljbGUvMTQ4NTEyLW92ZXJ2aWV3
Drugs & Diseases > Clinical Procedures
No Scalpel Vasectomy
Author: M David Stockton, MD, MPH; Chief Editor: Edward David Kim, MD, FACS more...
Sections No Scalpel Vasectomy
Postvasectomy Semen Analysis and Success Rates
Vasectomy is the most popular form of permanent surgical birth control for men. In 2002, an estimated 526,501 vasectomies were performed in the United States, which is a rate of 10.2/1,000 in men aged 25-49 years. American Urologic Association (AUA) guidelines concluded that vasectomy as a permanent contraceptive procedure should be considered more frequently than is current practice. [1]
The no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV), originally developed in China in 1974 and first introduced in the United States in 1984, is an innovative approach to exposing the vas deferens using 2 specialized surgical instruments. [2] (See the image below.) A Cochrane Review concluded that the NSV, as compared to traditional incisional technique, resulted in less bleeding, hematoma, infection, and pain, and a shorter operative time. [3, 4] According to one study, 37.8% of physicians, including urologists, family practitioners, and general surgeons, were using the NSV technique by 2002. [5]
Rotation and extrication of vas.
Vasectomy is indicated for any fully informed man who does not want to father any children (or any additional children) and who desires an inexpensive outpatient method of voluntary permanent surgical sterilization. Although less popular than other forms of sterilization, such as tubal ligation for the man's sexual partner, the procedure offers the advantages of lower expense, lower level of invasiveness (ie, does not require general anesthesia or hospitalization), and quicker recovery time. Also, future checks of fertility are possible at any time with semen analysis, unlike with women who have undergone tubal ligation.
Contraindications to no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) include the following:
Anatomic abnormalities, such as the inability to palpate and mobilize both vas deferens or large hydroceles or varicoceles
Past trauma and scarring of the scrotum
Acute local scrotal skin infections
Extreme care and consideration must be taken with patients who are taking anticoagulants or antiplatelet medications.
Provision and review of both written and verbal informed consent is paramount. Men and their spouses must understand that vasectomy should be considered a permanent sterilization procedure. Belief that reanastomosis microsurgery provides a good backup plan for fathering future children should be strongly discouraged.
Surgical complications, failure rates, alternative methods of birth control, and possible chronic postoperative pain should also be discussed, and all questions should be answered. Emotional instability or equivocal feelings about permanent sterilization are contraindications to vasectomy.
Compliance with postoperative follow-up and postprocedure semen analysis is of utmost importance.
Lidocaine 1% with or without epinephrine can be used to anesthetize the scrotal skin puncture site.
Use a tuberculin syringe with a 0.375-inch fine point needle to raise a blanched skin wheal. For more information, see Local Anesthetic Agents, Infiltrative Administration.
Raising the skin wheal.
Side view of the skin wheal.
A bilateral perivasal block is accomplished by injecting lidocaine 1% or bupivacaine 0.25% or 0.5% by tracking a 27-gauge 1.5-inch needle along the path of the vas toward the inguinal ring as shown.
Advancing the needle parallel to the vas within the external spermatic fascial sheath toward the inguinal ring.
Optionally, many practitioners have the patient take an oral sedative, such as 1-2 mg lorazepam, 30 minutes prior to the procedure. In this case, the practitioner must be assured the patient has arranged for someone to drive him home after the procedure. If the oral sedative is to be administered before the patient comes to the office, someone must drive him to the office, as well.
Alternatively, a no-needle anesthetic technique is increasing in popularity compared with the standard needle infiltrative technique and uses a jet-injector device to deliver a high-pressure anesthetic spray of 0.3 mL lidocaine 2% through the intact skin and into the vas and surrounding vas tissues (Medajet Medical Injector; MADA Medical Products; Carlstadt, NJ). [6]
Attempts to use a topical skin anesthetic agent (ie, EMLA) prior to local injection of lidocaine failed to offer any benefit in perceived pain as shown by a visual analog scale. [7]
The equipment used to perform a no-scalpel vasectomy is listed below:
Vasectomy tray
Needle, 1.5 inch, 27 gauge, attached to syringe, 10 mL
MadajetXL modified jet no-needle device (optional)
Plain lidocaine, 2%, total of 10 mL
Large rubber band to retract penis
Towel clips, 2
Gauze pack, 4 x 4
Straight hemostat
Fine point Iris scissors
Allison forceps with teeth, 2
Hemoclip applicator and medium clips
Suture, 4-0 (eg, chromic or polyglycolic acid [Dexon]; optional; for fascial interposition)
Needle driver (optional; for fascial interposition)
Specialized NSV instruments
Vas fixation ring forceps
Vas fixation forceps.
Sharp dissecting forceps
Sharp dissecting forceps.
Instruments to occlude the vas
Handheld cautery with disposable tip and sterile holding sheath
Bovie cautery unit with disposable needle point
Athletic supporter
The patient is positioned on an examination table in a position comfortable enough that he can tolerate a procedure that lasts approximately 30 minutes.
An overhead surgical light is helpful, though some surgeons prefer to use a smaller portable headlight.
Loop the large rubber band over the glans of the penis and retract the penis upward, away from the operative field.
Secure the rubber band with a towel clip to the patient's shirt or gown.
Rubber band technique.
After positioning, the skin is prepared with any number of bacterial surgical scrubs; the preferable choice is chlorhexidine. Povidine-iodine solutions tend to become sticky when dry and make mobilization of the vas difficult, whereas chlorhexidine remains slippery. Gently warming the preparatory solution in a microwave for approximately 10 seconds before application helps to prevent cremasteric muscle contractions and scrotal shortening.
Drape the operative site with sterile surgical towels, leaving only the scrotum exposed. Palpation should then be performed to confirm the presence and mobility of both the right and left vas within the scrotum.
The 3-finger vas fixation technique of the NSV method is critical to proper application of the surgical instruments. The practitioner's nondominant hand is first used to manipulate the first vas to an area below the median raphe of the scrotum. This area is located at the juncture of the superior and medial third of the scrotum, along the darkened strip of the median raphe.
In this area, a small wheal of 1% lidocaine with epinephrine should be raised to anesthetize the site of instrument application. The subsequent skin blanching from the epinephrine allows for easy identification of the anesthetized area. For more details, see Anesthesia.
After the wheal is raised, gauze should be used to gently pinch and massage out the excess lidocaine to assist in applying the ring forceps. Lidocaine with epinephrine should not be used for the deeper vas block technique, so as not to mask any later uncontrolled bleeding of constricted small vessels.
The vas is then tensed over the middle finger, using the 3-finger technique, and the vas block is accomplished by advancing a 1.5-inch, 27-gauge needle through the anesthetized skin wheal along the course of the vas and toward the inguinal ring while fixated with the 3 fingers. At the approximate depth of 1-2 inches, administer 2-3 mL of lidocaine 1-2% without epinephrine in the perivasal sheath.
The 3-finger technique and perivasal block.
Before the solution is injected, careful aspiration is important to prevent intravenous injection. After withdrawing the needle, reach across the table with the nondominant hand and bring the second vas underneath the anesthetized skin wheal in a similar fashion. Repeat the same vas block on the opposite vas.
After the anesthetic technique is accomplished, bring the first vas underneath the skin wheal using the 3-finger technique.
The open ring clamp is then pushed down at a 90° angle over the skin to trap the width of the vas between the ring forceps and the underlying surgeon's finger. The ring clamp is then closed and locked in place.
If excess scrotal skin is palpated around the vas, it can gently be "milked" out by releasing the lock on the ring forceps 1-2 mm at a time without dropping the vas. Care should be taken to assure that the ring forceps are applied at a direct perpendicular angle and that an equal amount of vas can be palpated exiting both sides of the ring.
Perpendicular application of the ring forceps.
Following confirmation of securing the vas, the handles are then lowered and the fingers of the nondominant hand reapplied, using the index finger to stretch the scrotal skin over the arch of the entrapped vas.
The dissecting forceps are then opened with the surgeon's dominant hand; the innermost blade should be used to pierce the scrotal skin directly over the vas.
The tine is then directed to a 45° angle to a depth of approximately 3-4 mm, preferably into the center of the vas lumen.
The single tine is then withdrawn and the dissecting tines are closed and placed back in the original puncture hole. Then the dissecting tines are forcibly opened to spread the outer scrotal skin and fascial layers down to and exposing the bare vas. Several openings and closings of the dissecting forceps are helpful to ensure all covering layers are stretched, free, and penetrated. Frequently, optimal exposure can be confirmed by a light grayish discoloration of the vas (compared to the surrounding fascial tissue). The stretching should also be approximately twice the width of the vas to allow for extricating of the vas once the ring forceps are released.
Insertion of sharp dissecting forceps.
After outward exposure of the vas, the outermost tine of the dissecting forceps is used to spear or secure the vas. The handles are then rotated 180°. As the rotation occurs, the ring clamp is gently released by the opposite hand, and the dissecting forceps are raised vertically to pull the vas free of the surrounding fascia and out of the scrotum.
The ring clamp can then be used to secure the exposed vas outside the scrotum.
While holding the ring clamp in the vertical position, a blunt cotton-tipped applicator can be used to separate out and push down surrounding fascia from the loop of exposed vas.
The sharp forceps can then be used to penetrate the tissue between the loop of vas and spread it downward to reveal a clean loop. Care must be taken not to stretch or rupture the very small but powerful blood vessels that surround the body of the vas. Light electric cautery can be used to seal any ruptured vessels at this time.
Stripping of fascia to expose loop of vas.
Numerous methods of occlusion of the vas can be instituted at this point in the procedure.
This author's technique involves hemi-transecting the vas, threading an electric cautery needle 1 cm into the loop on the prostatic end of the vas, and slowly withdrawing it while applying current. A full-thickness burn injury is not optimal, as this can cause future necrosis and subsequent sloughing of the tip of the cut vas, which can result once again in a patent vas lumen. A progressive burn of the inner lumen of the vas is preferred, leaving the outer vas layer intact.
Intraluminal cautery.
Multiple studies have shown cautery to be a superior method of vas occlusion that results in a lower failure rate compared to simple suture or clip ligation [8] ; however, medical consultations for hematoma or infection were more frequent in the cautery group. The clinical significance of this finding should be balanced against the much higher effectiveness. [9]
After cautery, the prostatic vas is then completely transected and allowed to retract.
The Allison forceps are then used to pull the fascia over the end of the prostatic vas. The fascia is then secured with a single medium steel handle clip. Fascial interpositioning between the cut vas ends further reduces recannulization rates and sterilization failures. [10]
Fascial interpositioning with hemoclip.
This author prefers the open end vasectomy, in which the testicular end is not cauterized but is simply allowed to retract into the scrotum once bleeding is controlled. The theoretic benefit in this technique is that the open end method has fewer symptoms of epididymal congestion and low instance of sperm granuloma. The sterilization efficacy rate has proven to be very similar to that of vasectomy techniques in which both ends of the vas are occluded. [11]
Following confirmation of which testicle is attached, the vas ends are both released back into the scrotum. The second vas is then brought into position under the original puncture hole, again using the 3-finger technique. In the author's experience, only a single puncture hole has been required well over 99% of the time, as the vasa are very freely moveable within the scrotum. The single puncture hole cuts down on the trauma to the scrotum considerably by stretching rather than cutting the skin, obviating the need for closing sutures.
After the second vas is positioned and secured with the ring forceps under the puncture hole, the procedure described above is carried out on the second vas.
After the second vas is released back into the scrotum, the small puncture hole usually contracts to only several millimeters and does not require suturing, stapling, or other closure. Antibiotic ointment is typically applied, as well as fluffed gauze for padding under an athletic supporter.
The patient should lie supine as much as possible during the first 24-48 hours after the procedure and apply ice to the underwear or athletic supporter covering the scrotum intermittently for the first 24 hours. The patient or his partner should call the doctor if excessive bleeding, swelling, pain, or discharge from the puncture site occurs. A prescription for a nonaspirin analgesic with or without a narcotic is provided. Follow-up instructions include emphasis of the necessity for adequate contraceptive use until a negative semen analysis is obtained, plus instructions for proper collection of the postprocedure sample.
Informed consent is critical. Include the patient's partner in preoperative and postoperative instructions. The procedure must be seen as an attempt at permanent sterilization.
A calm and quiet surgical environment is helpful for patient relaxation. Consider recommending that patients bring a music player and headphones to wear during the procedure.
The 3-finger technique of securing the vas is essential to the correct application of the specialized instruments of NSV.
Be sure to take meticulous care to attain hemostasis, sealing even the smallest perivasal blood vessel to avoid hematomas.
Postoperative instructions include that the patient should go home, lie down, stay quiet for the remainder of the day, and avoid any strenuous lifting or exercise for the next few days.
Insist that couples remember to use adequate birth control until a negative semen analysis is obtained. Approximately 50-60% of patients don't return for the postprocedure semen sample. Enlist the partner in reminding the patient to return for the sample.
Complications of NSV can be divided into the 3 major categories of intraoperative, early postoperative, and late postoperative.
Intraoperative complications
Extraneous injection of the perivasal block results in damage to small vessels and hematoma formation. Usually, these hematomas are very small and can be managed without surgery by using rest, ice, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
Major surgical damage to spermatic vessels can result in testicular compromise and atrophy; this complication is often not realized until late in the postoperative course. This rare and unfortunate complication requires urologic consultation and may, ultimately, result in orchiectomy.
As with any surgical procedure, unrealized minor damage to the nerves can result in immediate postoperative pain or persistent chronic pain.
Early postoperative complications (during the first postprocedure week)
Small (1-2 cm) hematomas or wound infections can develop. Large hematomas are possible from severed perivasal vessels leaking into the easily expandability scrotal tissue. These hematomas are diagnosed by physical examination and, unless they are extremely large, can often be treated with ice, rest, and expectant management.
Because the NSV technique involves pushing vessels around the puncture site and perivasal fascia rather than cutting them, the incidence of hematomas has been reduced. In China, where the NSV technique originated, the literature on NSV indicates a hematoma rate of 0.09%. A randomized controlled trial by Sokal et al found a hematoma rate of 0.3% in the NSV group compared to 12.2% in the traditional incisional group. [12] A Chinese series of over 150,000 operations revealed an infection rate of only 0.91%. [13] Most recently, a Cochrane review concluded that NSV resulted in less bleeding, hematoma, infection, and pain, as well as shorter operation times, than the incisional method. [14]
Late postoperative complications
Epididymal congestion is noted by patients as swelling and tenderness surrounding the epididymis or testicle that is accentuated by movement or strenuous activities. On examination, the testicle is usually enlarged, tender, and with a slightly indurated epididymis; however, fever is not usually present. This condition is thought to be noninfectious and related to vascular and lymphatic congestion. The application of heat and use of NSAIDs usually resolves symptoms within a week. If fever, elevated white blood cell count, or accentuated redness or tenderness is found, local infection should be considered.
A sperm granuloma may develop. This typically occurs during the second or third postoperative week and involves up to 25% of patients. This complication should be considered if, on examination of the patient, a small, palpable, pea-sized nodule is found at the testicular end of the transected vas. Once again, NSAIDs are used to resolve this problem, though persistent pain sometimes requires surgical removal of the nodule.
Development of a persistent pain syndrome affects a very small number of postvasectomy patients (approximately 1 per 1000 patients, according to McConaghy [15] ). Even so, most of these patients state they do not regret having had the procedure. Patients often question whether undergoing a vasectomy will change their sexual potency or performance. In outside studies and in this author's experience, the reduced fear of pregnancy and increased ease of spontaneous intercourse usually results in improved, rather than diminished, sexual function.
While conservative therapies are often effective for treating post-vasectomy pain syndrome, refractory cases may be treated with vasectomy reversal. In a series from Canada, 13 of 14 men who underwent vasovasostomies experienced an improvement in pain and quality of life. Half of the patients were rendered pain-free, signifying vasectomy reversal as an effective treatment for the post-vasectomy pain syndrome. [16]
At one time, increased instances of heart disease or prostatic cancer in patients who underwent vasectomy had been considered. According to long-term follow-up studies of patients who have undergone vasectomy, such increased instances are not evident. [17] A 2002 study by Cox et al found no increased risk of prostate cancer in these patients even 25 years after the procedure. [18] A more recent systematic review and meta-analysis that included 53 studies found no association between vasectomy and high-grade, advanced-stage, or fatal prostate cancer. [19] Another meta-analysis found no link between vasectomy and the development of testicular cancer. [20]
Failure rates with vasectomy using intraluminal cauterization and fascial interpositioning as described are approximately 1%.
Sterility is not instantaneous. Postvasectomy semen analysis to assure azoospermia is critical before releasing patients to stop using other forms of birth control.
Unfortunately, studies show that less than half (42%) of men return with a sample. [17]
The median time to loss of sperm motility is 3 weeks postprocedure; the time to azoospermia is 10 weeks. The absence of any sperm after 12 weeks is thought to reliably predict long-term sterility.
Many surgeons require that 2 negative semen samples 4-6 weeks apart be obtained to determine sterility. A paper from the Cleveland Clinic suggested considering a single azoospermic sample at 3 months postprocedure to be an adequate determination of sterility. [21]
Although infrequently utilized, distal vasal flushing with 30 mL of sterile water may shorten the time to azoospermia for between 20% and 30% of vasectomy patients. This modification may be an option for those who would like to shorten the time to azoospermia. [22]
What is a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
When is a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) indicated?
What are the contraindications for no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What types of anesthesia are used to perform a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What equipment is required to perform a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
How is the patient positioned for a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What is included in post-operative care following a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
How is a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) performed?
What steps can be taken to ensure the no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV) is successful?
What is included in post-operative patient education about no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What are the elements of informed consent for a no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What are the possible intraoperative complications of no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What are the possible early post-operative complications of no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What are the possible late post-operative complications of no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What types of complication are possible following no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
How quickly is sterility (azoospermia) achieved following no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
What is the failure rate for no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV)?
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Cook LA, Pun A, van Vliet H, Gallo MF, Lopez LM. Scalpel versus no-scalpel incision for vasectomy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Apr 18. CD004112. [Medline].
Cook LA, Pun A, Gallo MF, Lopez LM, Van Vliet HA. Scalpel versus no-scalpel incision for vasectomy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014 Mar 30. 3:CD004112. [Medline].
Davis LE, Stockton MD. Office procedures. No-scalpel vasectomy. Prim Care. 1997 Jun. 24(2):433-61. [Medline].
Rayala BZ, Viera AJ. Common Questions About Vasectomy. Am Fam Physician. 2013. 88(11):757-61.
Thomas AA, Nguyen CT, Dhar NB, Sabanegh ES, Jones JS. Topical anesthesia with EMLA does not decrease pain during vasectomy. J Urol. 2008 Jul. 180(1):271-3. [Medline].
Barone MA, Hutchinson PL, Johnson CH, Hsia J, Wheeler J. Vasectomy in the United States, 2002. J Urol. 2006 Jul. 176(1):232-6; discussion 236.
Labrecque M, Nazerali H, Mondor M, Fortin V, Nasution M. Effectiveness and complications associated with 2 vasectomy occlusion techniques. J Urol. 2002 Dec. 168(6):2495-8; discussion 2498. [Medline].
Barone MA, Irsula B, Chen-Mok M, Sokal DC,. Effectiveness of vasectomy using cautery. BMC Urol. 2004 Jul 19. 4:10. [Medline].
Sokal D, Irsula B, Chen-Mok M, Labrecque M, Barone MA. A comparison of vas occlusion techniques: cautery more effective than ligation and excision with fascial interposition. BMC Urol. 2004 Oct 27. 4(1):12. [Medline].
Sokal D, McMullen S, Gates D, Dominik R. A comparative study of the no scalpel and standard incision approaches to vasectomy in 5 countries. The Male Sterilization Investigator Team. J Urol. 1999 Nov. 162(5):1621-5. [Medline].
Li SQ, Goldstein M, Zhu J, Huber D. The no-scalpel vasectomy. J Urol. 1991 Feb. 145(2):341-4. [Medline].
Cook LA, Pun A, van Vliet H, Gallo MF, Lopez LM. Scalpel versus no-scalpel incision for vasectomy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006. (4):CD004112. [Medline].
McConaghy P, Paxton LD, Loughlin V. Chronic testicular pain following vasectomy. Br J Urol. 1996 Feb. 77(2):328. [Medline].
Horovitz D, Tjong V, Domes T, Lo K, Grober ED, Jarvi K. Vasectomy Reversal Provides Long-Term Pain Relief for Men With the Post-Vasectomy Pain Syndrome. J Urol. 2011 Dec 14. [Medline].
Peterson HB. Sterilization. Obstet Gynecol. 2008 Jan. 111(1):189-203. [Medline].
Cox B, Sneyd MJ, Paul C, Delahunt B, Skegg DC. Vasectomy and risk of prostate cancer. JAMA. 2002 Jun 19. 287(23):3110-5. [Medline].
Bhindi B, Wallis CJD, Nayan M, et al. The association between vasectomy and prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Intern Med. 2017 Sep 1. 177 (9):1273-86. [Medline].
Duan H, Deng T, Chen Y, et al. Association between vasectomy and risk of testicular cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2018. 13 (3):e0194606. [Medline].
Dassow P, Bennett JM. Vasectomy: an update. Am Fam Physician. 2006 Dec 15. 74(12):2069-74. [Medline].
Singh D, Dasila NS, Vasudeva P, Dalela D, Sankhwar S, Goel A. Intraoperative distal vasal flushing--does it improve the rate of early azoospermia following no-scalpel vasectomy? A prospective, randomized, controlled study. Urology. 2010 Aug. 76(2):341-4. [Medline].
Denniston GC, Kuehl L. Open-ended vasectomy: approaching the ideal technique. J Am Board Fam Pract. 1994 Jul-Aug. 7(4):285-7. [Medline].
Weiss RS. Re: White M, Maatman T. Comparative analysis of effectiveness of two local anesthetic techniques in men undergoing no-scalpel vasectomy. (Urology 2007;70:1187-1189). Urology. 2008 Aug. 72(2):462. [Medline].
Li L, Shao J, Wang X. Percutaneous no-scalpel vasectomy via one puncture in China. Urol J. 2014 May 6. 11 (2):1452-6. [Medline].
M David Stockton, MD, MPH Professor, Department of Family Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine
Mary L Windle, PharmD Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy; Editor-in-Chief, Medscape Drug Reference
Edward David Kim, MD, FACS Professor of Urology, Department of Urology, University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine; Consulting Staff, University of Tennessee Medical Center
Edward David Kim, MD, FACS is a member of the following medical societies: American Society for Reproductive Medicine, American Urological Association, Sexual Medicine Society of North America, Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, Society for the Study of Male Reproduction, Tennessee Medical Association
Disclosure: Serve(d) as a speaker or a member of a speakers bureau for: Endo, Antares.
Luis M Lovato, MD Associate Clinical Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine; Director of Critical Care, Department of Emergency Medicine, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center
Luis M Lovato, MD is a member of the following medical societies: Alpha Omega Alpha, American College of Emergency Physicians, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
The authors and editors of Medscape Reference gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Lars Grimm with the literature review and referencing for this article.
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Our Young Working class, and Mass Unemployment: A Radical View of the Question.
By Guest Digger,
Youths at the Freedom Statue during the National Youth Day commemoration on March 12, 2021 – Picture by Tenson Mkhala
For more than 100 years now, International Labour Day has been celebrated on the 1st of May for the majority of the countries of the world, Zambia included. For many decades now, millions of unemployed young Zambians have watched, on the side-lines, the Labour Day celebrations.
A horrible statistic which best captures the unemployment crisis in Zambia is reflected in the fact that for the advertised 11, 276 health workers posts, almost 140,000 applications have been received by government. This is shockingly 12 times more than the available posts.
Hakainde Hichilema has urged the private sector to do more to create employment in the country. It is this illusion that Zambia has a private sector capable of rising to the challenge of employing the millions of Zambians who need jobs, especially young Zambians, that we all need to pay attention to. In our circumstances, I want to argue, only the government has the capacity and ability to act as employer of the last resort precisely because our economy will never have a private sector capable of addressing the disastrous crisis levels of unemployment.
Zambia has a collapsed economic system in which to find work, someone with the use of your capacity to work must be willing to employ you. They are willing to employ you because at the end of the day they will make money from your labour, while paying you a small fraction of what you have worked for. Unless money can be made from your labour, you will be unemployed, for ever. A possible escape route from this trap is to try work for yourself.
It is extremely important to understand the mechanism by which "work" is created if we want to understand why millions of Zambians cannot find work. Without this knowledge, it is in fact impossible to solve the problem of mass unemployment such as we suffer from in Zambia. Let us try to think through the processes by which work is created.
When Hakainde says the private sector must solve the problem of unemployment in Zambia, he means that individuals who are in business to make money (capitalists) must create work. How do these people create work? A business person (a capitalist) starts and stays in business to make money, they aim to become rich. Businesses exist to make money first and foremost, not to create employment for the unemployed. A key consideration of every business person is to reduce the cost of doing business and maximise profits, by all means available, unfortunately, often including illegal ones.
Let us examine a business that makes things for sale. Such a business makes things called "commodities" which are both useful and can be exchanged for money, can be sold. "Commodities" are things made in a business by workers. These things are called "commodities" because they have two important qualities: they are useful and therefore they have a "use value" and they can be exchanged for money and therefore they have an "exchange value".
Our economic system is based on "commodities" – making, importing, exporting, distributing, buying and selling "commodities" in order to become rich. No business can survive if it does not trade in use and exchange values, even if these are not physical commodities such as services. The reason is very simple, it is in the buying and selling – trading – in these "commodities" that business people recover the money they have spent buying inputs including human labour and make profits when they sell these commodities always at a price higher than the cost of producing these commodities.
In such a commodity system such as ours, "money" becomes the most important "commodity"! Making things in order to make money, so that a business can continue to make more money endlessly becomes the race every business is involved in. When a commodity is made, it must be sold if the business must continue to exist, and even grow.
When a business discovers or invents a way to create a commodity that sells, many individuals and other businesses quickly grab the idea and try to also make money by making the commodity. To continue to beat competition, a business must for ever be reducing costs, inventing new and cheaper ways of producing the commodity, and must always be trying to improve the quality and attractiveness of the commodity. Failure to do this quickly sees the business collapse, and disappear!
The frenzy to cut costs, make more and better products faster, sell them faster, find new markets, and continue in business has played a most powerful role in human civilisation, science and general advancement. All the things made by human beings which surround us are made in this frenzy to cut out competition and make more money – it is true that "capitalism" the system of chasing private profits by making commodities – has given us the car, the modern ship, railroads, modern trains, planes and massive airports, computers, the internet, massively huge farms producing food for millions of human beings at once, vast food processing and manufacturing factories that produce foods consumed all over the world and so on.
Science – all its branches – are tied to the frenzy for profits. Social science too – all its branches lubricate and build consensus to this insane frenzy for profits.
Sadly, there is a dark, ugly, sinister and extremely violent side to this system. Its origins lie in capturing other human beings, and making them properties of other human beings in order to produce commodities cheaply. Slavery was a system in which the labourer was wholly and completely owned by an owner, in the same way that one today may own a tractor on a farm. The division of the world today still reflects the history of slavery – with Africa at the bottom because millions of its people were slaughtered and others captured and traded as slaves to the US, Europe and Latin America. It is in fact the commodities made by slaves that laid the foundations of today's world capitalist system.
A feature of slavery which survives in the system today is the turning of human beings into commodities. The slave was a commodity because it had both a use and exchange value. The person who can only survive by finding a capitalist willing to use their labour today is also a commodity – they have a use value, their labour, and an exchange value – the extra labour they give the capitalist in the process of producing non-human commodities.
When Hakainde calls upon the "private sector" – the collection of business people in Zambia (capitalists) – to create work he is actually asking these people and businesses to buy the labour of millions of unemployed Zambians and use it to make commodities for sell, to make profits. Our "private sector" however have many problems including lack of access to large sums of money needed to produce many things in large numbers, unemployment in Zambia drastically reduces demand in Zambia for many things made in Zambia, they cannot easily compete say with US, European, Japanese and Chinese businesses who have the services of advanced technologies and better access to money for business and have global networks which facilitate production, distribution and trading in what they produce.
Further, what today we call countries and their armies are a creation of the vicious competition to divide the world among the big capitalists of the world. Zambia, for example, like all so called African countries is a product of the ruthless and deadly competition among the rich European capitalists and countries who decided to share the entire continent among themselves.
Today we are living through a war in Europe between the US and its European allies and Russia. This war is part of the ongoing competition between the rich capitalists of the US, Western Europe and Russia, a war which will end with the war of all wars pitting the US and its global allies against China and its allies too! We are just a finger away from the Third World War, a nuclear war.
The competition among the business people in the world today has led to overheating the Earth leading to climate change, pollution of rivers, lakes and oceans and the destruction of the Earth's vegetation and animals.
There are many other interesting things about the history of businesses, commodities, slavery, nations, armies, money, banks, climate change, and wars and the potential for the eventual destruction of the Earth, because of this competition to make commodities for private profits.
Zambia cannot grow a private sector capable of competing at the world stage without also simultaneously becoming a world military power and defeating, by violent means, other countries and other people. This is the dark side of capitalism – at its heart is the enslavement of other human beings, turning them into things for buying and selling for money!
The God of capitalism is money, not human employment. Zambia's youth unemployment cannot be solved by capitalism which has created it. We must reject and fight capitalism. In such a fight, we are joined by all other human beings globally, who are reduced to commodities. Funny, isn't it, the solution to our problems is staring us in the face: abolish commodifying things and commodifying human beings!
(Comments to: kalindawalo2010@gmail.com)
Guest Digger
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text:
Telangana records 997 COVID positive cases
HYDERABAD, November 14, 2020 00:58 IST
Updated: November 14, 2020 00:59 IST
Four persons succumb
With limited trains operated even on Deepavali due to COVID, passenger footfall was also less at Secunderabad Railway Station on Friday.
The State on Thursday reported 997 COVID positive cases, bringing the total number of cases to over 2.55 lakh.
Four persons succumbed on Thursday, thus increasing the total number of fatalities to 1,397. The total number of active cases now stands at 17,094.
According to the media bulletin issued on Friday, as many as 1,222 patients recovered on November 12, which spiked the total number of recoveries to over 2.37 lakh.
The State tested as many as 42,163 samples, and out of this, 18,551 were primary contacts and another 5,059 were secondary contacts. While the number of samples tested at government facilities was recorded as 39,354, those done at private facilities was 2,809. The cumulative number of tests now stands at over 48.12 lakh. There were 391 samples which were awaiting results.
The district-wise break-up of positive cases showed that the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits recorded 169 cases, followed by Medchal Malkajgiri district with 85 cases. Rangareddy district recorded 66 cases and Bhadradri Kothagudem district recorded 65 cases.
Printable version | Jan 22, 2021 5:28:59 AM | https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/telangana-records-997-covid-positive-cases/article33098000.ece
Hyderabad New road laid during lockdown erases Hyderabad's historic link


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