Taking Note

Closing the Cyber-Gap

Despite the economic downturn, there has been a 15 percent increase this past year in the number of Americans who subscribe to broadband.  Nonetheless, while 63 percent of Americans now have broadband Internet connections in their homes, according to a TCF report by John Windhausen Jr., the gap is widening between the rich who have access to broadband and the poor who do not.

What’s more, the United States is lagging behind other developed nations when it comes to broadband quality and availability. The United States’ international ranking in terms of broadband subscribers per 100 people has dropped steadily each year since 1999, when the country ranked 3rd – in 2007, the U.S. came in 22nd place, trailing behind countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

A First Step on the Way Out of Iraq

The United States took an important step this week toward leaving Iraq by moving combat troops out of Iraqi population centers in accordance with the deadline set in the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

This redeployment has focused attention on Iraq's current security situation and triggered stepped-up efforts by insurgents to undermine the symbolic importance of the transition, by launching attacks generally aimed at Shiite civilians. It has also provided fodder for those in the United States who wish to delay withdrawal.

However, looking at Iraq solely through the prism of short-term security trends clouds thinking about how the United States can best prepare for its exit from the country. It also obscures the enduring and fundamental disputes that undermine long-term prospects for stability. The United States should instead continue the transition toward diplomacy with modest goals and a focus on facilitating dialogue and negotiations on the most intractable issues facing Iraqis: governance, territory, and resources.

Why the Public Supports a Public Plan

Debate is really heating up on health care reform and at the center of that debate is Obama’s proposal to create a public plan option to compete with private insurance companies.

Right now support is running high for the public option. A recent CBS/New York Times poll showed 72 percent favoring “the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan—something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get—that would compete with private health insurance plans,” compared to just 20 percent who were opposed.

Why is support for a public plan running so high? The chief reason is the public’s overriding concern with health care costs. Polls consistently show that people are most dissatisfied about health care costs, both for themselves and for the country as a whole.

This pattern is nicely illustrated by data from a March CNN poll showing 17 percent dissatisfied with the quality of the health care they receive, 26 percent dissatisfied with their health care coverage, 48 percent dissatisfied with their total health care costs, and 77 percent dissatisfied with the country’s total health care costs.

Happy I.O.U. Day

Add a new date to your national calendar, between Tax Day and Independence Day: July 1 is I.O.U. Day for states that consistently don’t pass their budgets on time.

This year is worse than usual: eight states, most with budget gaps in the billions, have yet to pass a budget as a new fiscal year begins today. State governments in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are in various states of budgetary disarray. But most of these states don’t have to cut services yet – being perpetually late has taught them all about stop-gap measures.

Half-way through, Ban Ki-moon in the shadows

Poor Ban Ki-moon.  He began his term as United Nations secretary-general under the shadow of Kofi Annan, a charismatic personality who successfully used the bully pulpit of his relatively powerless post to inspire world publics to a global vision over the heads of squabbling national leaders.

Now, half-way through his five-year term, Ban is under the shadow of Barack Obama, who is successfully using his position of considerable power to articulate a global vision that is persuasive to publics worldwide.  Like Mercury at sunrise, the secretary-general has become virtually invisible in the brilliant light of Obama's ascent to the global stage.

The Beginning of the End of Racial Affirmative Action?

What is the larger meaning of yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down New Haven’s denial of promotions to white firefighters because few minority applicants performed well on a qualifying exam?  In the short run, the ruling is likely to intensify scrutiny of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, whose Second Circuit court decision in the case supporting the city was overturned.  But in the long run, the Supreme Court’s ruling has important implications that go beyond Sotomayor’s nomination – and even beyond employment discrimination law.  Strictly speaking, Ricci v. DeStafano involved Title VII of the Civil Rights Act – which governs job discrimination – but the Court’s ruling adds to the clouds looming over the larger enterprise of affirmative action in higher education and elsewhere.

The Ricci case was a difficult one.  On the one hand, it seems unfair that the white fire fighters who studied hard for the exam and did well saw the rules changed – and their hard work dismissed – because not enough minority firefighters did well.  On the other hand, no one should want the top ranks of New Haven’s firefighters to be almost exclusively white; and the pencil and paper tests largely used to determine promotions didn’t seem like the best way to recognize leaders.  (According to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent, almost two-thirds of municipalities now use “assessment centers,” institutions that simulate real-world situations, in deciding on promotions.)

A Serious Business

The thrilling escape from his Taliban kidnappers by New York Times correspondent David Rohde, the release from an Iranian jail after months of detention and trial of NPR and BBC contributor Roxana Saberi, and North Korea’s imprisonment for nine years at hard labor of Current-TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee are reminders that choosing to cover what are among today’s best stories around the world is a very serious business. I use “business” advisedly because so much of the attention around journalism today is about the reduced resources to fund it. What the Rohde-Saberi-Ling-Lee cases underscore is that the thugs, theocrats, and autocrats couldn’t care less who is paying the reporters they manhandle. It is the very considerable threat journalism represents to these regimes and movements that make them ready to use whatever means they can—including murder, in the case of the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl—to block the gathering of news.

            When the Iranian leadership moved to shut down the protests against the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of their first steps was to limit foreign reporting, refusing to renew visas, expelling the resident BBC correspondent, and ordering remaining journalists to stay away from demonstrations. The triumph of “citizen” reporting distributed via Twitter and YouTube provided glimpses of what was happening. But the cumulative impact of professional coverage was drastically reduced. At last count, the Iranians had arrested forty journalists, including several who had written for Western publications, and were holding one reporter with British/Greek nationality. Iran’s ayatollahs, like their counterparts elsewhere around the globe, may claim spiritual or doctrinal supremacy, but they are terrified of what reporters can do to their power.

Obama Undercuts Leverage on Climate Enforcement

In attacking congressional Democrats' provision for tariff penalties against goods from countries that do not curtail their emissions of greenhouse gases, President Obama may be holding progress against global warming hostage to the shibboleths of Washington's free-trade lobby.  No agreement to reverse global warming will be effective without enforcement against those countries that refuse to implement emissions limits.

The Battle Over Biologics Begins

Drug companies have been allowed to introduce generic versions of traditional pharmaceuticals since 1984—saving the U.S. health care system an estimated $734 billion over the last ten years alone. But there currently is no regulatory pathway for creating generic versions of “biologics”. Unlike traditional, small-molecule pharmaceuticals, biologics such as  Avastin, a drug used to treat cancer, are protein-based and include monoclonal antibodies, growth factors, immune modulators and other molecules that are derived from living matter or manufactured by cells. Currently, brand-name biologics account for approximately 15 percent of total U.S. prescription drug sales—and they are growing in importance.

Little wonder that President Obama is determined to try to bring generic biologics to market.

Why don’t we already have generic versions of these popular drugs? One reason cited for the holdup is that biologics are more complex than small-molecule drugs and that it’s virtually impossible to create an exact replica (a so-called bioequivalent) of a pioneer biologic drug. The “follow-on” version of a biologic can be very similar to the branded drug but it might be manufactured a bit differently or might have slightly different side effects in certain patients. That means the approval process for follow-on biologics will involve more testing than is normally done for generic versions of small molecule drugs like antidepressants or heart drugs.

Obama, Reagan, and the Media Glow

Barack Obama has "enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either of his two predecessors," according to the analysis of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That is not really surprising. Bill Clinton's early months were chaotic, mainly because his White House staff was weak and his personality, while engaging was, well, untidy. George W. Bush scrambled into office after a contested election that left more than a residue of bitterness and fatigue all around. A better measure of comparative coverage for Obama so far is with Ronald Reagan. Both administrations were/are led by charismatic and popular men with a clear vision that sharply differs from the presidents they replaced, who were from opposing parties and left economies in a mess and crises in Iran and Afghanistan.