From the business section: news of a pill that might help treat Type 2 diabetes.
The disease, the article tells us, "affects about 20 million Americans," and around the world, "Diabetes is expected to affect 350 million people by 2025." These statistics are quoted here, in the business section, because Andrew Bridges of the Associated Press seems to think they indicate a large potential market for the pill's maker, Merck, and thus a good investment opportunity for those looking for a good return from the pharmaceutical sector.
So now I'm wondering, which are there more of? Americans with Type 2 diabetes? Or Americans with thousands of surplus dollars they're looking to invest? The article is only concerned with the interests of the latter category, the interest of the 20 million people in the former category is, apparently, not as newsworthy.
A coalition of think tanks and "education, community and business leaders" has pitched something called the Vision 2015 plan— a "strategy [that] calls for sweeping reforms and investments" in Delaware's schools, and also a pony.
That last link is to an accompanying article titled, "Finding money a hurdle for Vision 2015," which is something of an understatement, considering this story comes two days after an article titled, "Districts fear Smyrna defeat won't be last." The defeat referred to there was the defeat of a referendum to fund desperately needed renovations to the district's overcrowded high school which would have gotten students out of the trailers they're now using for classrooms. The three-year cost to the average homeowner in the district would have been about $300. Hence that article's subhead: "Paying for schools is becoming unpopular." People unwilling to ante up less than $100/year to get their kids out of the doublewide aren't likely to cough up even more money for "sweeping reforms and investments."
(One, possibly minor, but real, contributing factor to the trend of failing referendums and, thus, cuts in school budgets: "Tax hike" uses four fewer characters than "school funds." This is why, my headline-writing friends on the copy desk tell me, you are more likely to read a headline that says, "District to vote on tax hike" than one that reads "District to vote on school funds.")
All of which is why the Vision 2015 Plan reminds me of something Aaron Sorkin had Sam Seaborn say once on The West Wing:
Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.
Unremarkable headline of the day: "Poll: Many blacks distrust police." That's not even "dog bites man." That's "dog bites man who was kicking him."
The article includes some remarkably unguarded comments:
Wilmington Chief Michael Szczerba said, "There's a blindfold on lady justice" in his department but better public education is a must.
The true crisis, Szczerba said, is not in the criminal justice system but in society at large. "We're dealing with a segment of the population that believes O.J. didn't do it," he said, referring to the controversial acquittal in 1995 of football Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson, who was charged with killing two people, including his ex-wife in 1994. "There's lack of personal responsibility, decay to the family structure and decay in the community you serve, and that's where the chaos comes in."
OK, then. The problem isn't that there's any credible reason for black citizens to suspect the criminal justice system of bias. The problem is, the chief says, "a segment of the population." You know, those people.
Ahem.
Plenty more about that irresponsible, chaotic "segment of the population" in the reader-feedback "Storychat" for that article.
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