My mom called a few moments ago to let me know that a bomb went off last night a block from where my brother and his family live in Oaxaca. They are unharmed, but the resurgence of violence does not bode well for the city.
Link: WaPo article
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My mom called a few moments ago to let me know that a bomb went off last night a block from where my brother and his family live in Oaxaca. They are unharmed, but the resurgence of violence does not bode well for the city. Link: WaPo article I just received an email update from OCPP regarding the Farm Bill and food stamps and post it below in its entirety; please visit their website links below for more information. Punishing Food Stamp Success: The Bush Administration’s Farm Bill would reverse Oregon’s progress against hunger
The Agriculture Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote by Friday on the 2007 Farm Bill.
OCPP’s latest issue brief, Punishing Success: The Bush Administration Cuts Would Reverse Oregon’s Progress Against Hunger, will expand on these facts and answer questions such as:
Read the issue brief, in an HTML version (no charts), or a PDF version (with charts). I’m currently in eastern Oregon, facilitating a community meeting with farm workers and monitoring the programs I manage. My options for food have been suddenly limited in these past few days, and identifying a place to eat in a small town that could accommodate the restrictions was a challenge; nevertheless, last night, I found a place to where I could have bland food. While eating my salad and fruit at Sizzler, I heard strains of patriotic songs from a meeting room in the restaurant, and then, suddenly, the voices of the diners around me as well, joining in and singing “God bless America.” When the soprano hit the last note of the song, the group in the meeting room moved on to some other similar piece, and the diners in my section went back to eating and talking about their days. A recent spate of surveys indicate that the national electorate has undergone a huge shift to the left on a number of key progressive issues (see my favorite summary here). Carla at Loaded Orygun summarizes political trends among Oregonians in her post here. In the July 9 issue of The Nation, Mae Ngai notes that recent immigration reform policies have done nothing to address the inequitable distribution of green cards: current rules give 25,620 across the board to every country, with population and immigration trends ignored. [A New Green Card Deal, article by subscription]. One of the most striking points she makes, at least from my born-in-1978 viewpoint, is the following:
I agree with her point that the quotas are in need of review. However, on the issue of supply and demand, I don’t think that the US market’s insatiable appetite for cheap labor needs to be encouraged. NAFTA and globalization have only increased the flood of undocumented workers into the US, and the trends don’t seem to be improving. Meanwhile, families are separated, villages are dying out, and cultures are undergoing violent and rapid change–for what? To meet the “needs of the United States.” The following email was circulated this morning by Farmworker Justice and is reposted by permission. AgJOBS is the Agricultural Jobs, Benefits, and Security Act; it addresses immigration issues specific to agricultural workers and includes measures for earned legalization and for reform of the current H-2A guest worker program. See here for more information.
Today, 53 US Senators voted against bringing the immigration reform bill forward, effectively killing the bill and, for the time being, the hopes of 12 million undocumented workers in the US who have been waiting for a solution to the immigration question. Oregon’s senators were split, with Ron Wyden voting in favor of cloture, or ending the debate, and Gordon Smith voting against. In one of the groups of which I’m a member, I’ve heard a number of people jokingly equate organizational success with there being money in the bank and no one in jail. It’s a noble goal–although I’ve got to say I have somewhat higher expectations for my work. One way that I’ve used ROMA tools to improve my program management that has nothing to do with submitting loads of data to the government involves outcome reports for case managers. It seemed pretty obvious to me, but when I shared it at the ROMA training yesterday, a number of people seemed to think it was an example of best practices. In case it might be helpful to anyone else in my position out there, I wanted to discuss it a bit. Continue reading Best-practice sharing: outcome reports I’ve been up in Washington today with counterparts from WA nonprofits, learning more about Results-Oriented Management and Accountability. It’s a topic that I started working on absorbing shortly after starting my job, since it influences program design and definitely impacts reporting requirements, which even more definitely impacts me. For a bit of context, I work at a community action agency (CAA). CAAs carry on President Johnson’s war on poverty by offering a wide range of programs to reduce and eliminate that poverty. We get money. We produce outcomes. We report those outcomes using guidelines spelled out in ROMA literature. Over a thousand other organizations use ROMA tools to help develop and report outcomes as well. Together, these outcomes should reduce poverty across the country. All of the outcomes fit neatly into one (or more) ROMA goals:
In the last days of their current session, the Oregon Legislature is likely to approve a 23% increase in the Department of Human Services budget, says a story in the Oregonian this morning. [link] Around 27% of the final budget comes from state tax dollars, and the remainder comes from other sources–which might be news to some of the people for whom any increase in human services dollars is an Armageddon paid for out of their very own wallet. The increase falls short of levels requested by some advocates, but nevertheless is a step in the right direction after years of inadequate funding. |