--------------------------------------------------
Weekly Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. I, No. 7 -- June 16, 2001
(This newsletter distributed to 2,990)
--------------------------------------------------
***************************************************
F E A T U R E D I
N T H I S I S S U E
***************************************************
1) NADER AND "SAVE FENWAY PARK!"
2) FEWER WORKERS OFFERED HEALTH
COVERAGE
3) GREEN PARTY OF OHIO STATE PARTY PETITION
4) GREEN PARTY NEWSLETTERS
5) KIDS WHO WATCH LESS TV DEMAND FEWER TOYS
6) HIGH LEVELS OF ANXIETY IN CHILDREN
7) INDEPENDENCE DAY FLAG JAM
8) MOBILIZATION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE
--------------------------------------------------
***************************************************
1) NADER AND "SAVE FENWAY PARK!"
***************************************************
Ralph Nader has founded a new national sports fan project
with the Center
for Study of Responsive Law. It is an
effort designed as a sports industry
watchdog to assure
accountability to fans and less harm to the cities that
host sports franchises. The project is currently work-
ing to stop the flood
of taxpayer subsidized stadiums
and arenas across the country.
On
June 13, Ralph Nader and Save Fenway Park! released
an economic report concluding
that (1) the Boston Red
Sox at existing Fenway Park are already financially
competitive with the rest of Major League Baseball;
(2) it is unlikely that
a new stadium would enhance
the Red Sox revenues to a point that allows them
to
be more financially competitive than they are now;
and (3) the proposed
new stadium is such an economi-
cally risky endeavor that a worsening financial
con-
dition of the Red Sox is a distinct possibility. The
study was done
by nationally known sports economist
Robert Baade, a professor at Lake Forest
College in
Illinois who is an expert with extensive experience
in examining
new stadium deals.
"We've
known from the beginning that this was a drain-
ing deal for taxpayers, but
Prof. Baade has exposed
this debacle to be a bad deal for Red Sox fans and
even
the team itself," said Nader.
"Abandoning
Fenway Park would needlessly deprive fans
of the opportunity to experience
baseball in one of
its greatest fields of historic memories," said Nader.
"The stadium deal would destroy the magnificent Fenway
neighborhood while
giving hundreds of millions of tax-
payer dollars to wealthy owners, bankers
and developers
in a city with many unmet public needs."
Professor
Baade's analysis can be viewed at:
http://www.savefenwaypark.org
***************************************************
2) FEWER WORKERS OFFERED HEALTH COVERAGE
***************************************************
Workers in low-wage and manufacturing jobs are "less
likely to be offered"
employer-sponsored health insur-
ance now than in 1979, according to a new
report from
the Commonwealth Fund. The Bloomberg/Denver Post re-
ports
that in 1979, 66% of workers overall had coverage
compared to 54% in 1998.
The decline in employer-
sponsored coverage was the "most striking"
among those
earning the least. Among "blue collar" workers, the
percentage of workers with coverage through their
employer fell from 63% in
1979 to 43% in 1998. In
addition, all employees with coverage are now more
likely to contribute to their health plans, as 26% of
employers covered the
full cost of premiums in 1998,
down from 45% in 1983. The study found that
the re-
duction in firms offering health benefits is "partly
explained"
by a shift in the economy from manufac-
turing jobs to service jobs.
Bill
Lindsay, president of Benefit Management & Design,
said, "Health
care rates are increasing in excess of
25% a year. What happens as a result
[is that] younger
workers, lower wage workers and workers that are
healthy
have been declining coverage for themselves
and their dependents." Because
premiums are increasing
quicker than wages, the decline in low-wage workers
with coverage may continue and low-wage workers will
be the "most likely"
to have difficulty obtaining
coverage, according to the report. "When
you have a
family rate that's well in excess of $750 a month,
(workers)
are saying that's a house payment. I'll
decline coverage and put the money
in the bank and
take a chance that my spouse or my kids won't get
sick,"
Lindsay said.
To
view the study, go to:
http://www.cmwf.org/programs/insurance/medoff_labor_449.pdf
***************************************************
3) GREEN PARTY OF OHIO STATE PARTY PETITION
***************************************************
The Green Party of Ohio (GPO) seeks to acquire 80,000
signatures on a petition
to achieve official state
party status with the state of Ohio in 2002. Your
assistance is needed. Information is available on the
Ohio Greens Web site
at:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/petition.htm
***************************************************
4) GREEN PARTY NEWSLETTERS
***************************************************
In addition to the Green Party of Ohio newsletter,
you can now read online
the party newsletters from
the states of Connecticut, Maine, New Mexico,
Oklahoma and Texas.
For
links to these Green Party newsletters visit:
http://www.greenpartyus.org/newsletters.html
You
can also read the Association of State Green
Parties (ASGP) News Circulator
at
http://www.green-party.org/circ/circulator.html.
The new weekly edition of news articles of Green
Party activity throughout
the world is posted each
Monday.
***************************************************
5) KIDS WHO WATCH LESS TV DEMAND FEWER TOYS
***************************************************
Children who watch less TV want fewer toys, reports
a new study published
in the June issue of the
Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
The study documented
the effects of a school-based
effort to reduce television, video game and
video
tape use among third- and fourth-graders upon those
children's requests
for toy purchases. It found that
by the end of the school year, among those
students
encouraged to watch less TV, "the odds of a child
requesting
a toy purchase in the prior week was about
70% lower..."
The
study concludes that "reducing television viewing
is a promising approach
to reducing the influences of
advertising on children's behavior."
The
study notes that "On average, the number of
commercials a child sees
has increased from 20,000
per year in the 1970s to about 40,000 commercials
per
year today."
A
PDF version of the study is available at:
http://www.commercialalert.org/television/Toytv.pdf.
***************************************************
6) HIGH LEVELS OF ANXIETY IN CHILDREN
***************************************************
According to Sesame Workshop, children today have
high levels of anxiety about
guns, death, violence
and the environment. The study, which was designed
to better understand the educational and developmen-
tal needs of children
ages 6-11, asked children to
describe their lives, in a booklet, using the
written
word, photographs, drawings and collages. Both a
summary of the
findings and the booklet used are
available online at:
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/research/0,6483,109921,00.html
***************************************************
7) INDEPENDENCE DAY FLAG JAM
***************************************************
A blast of symbolic disobedience on Independence Day
(July 4) will have many
thinking hard about the mean-
ing of this national holiday. Five hundred (500)
"Brands-and-Bands" flags will be unfurled in over
200 cities. In
New York City, a 600 square foot flag
will be displayed on a billboard just
off Times Square.
In
Ohio, flags will appear in Bowling Green (2),
Cincinnati (4), Columbus (3),
Dalton, East Liverpool,
Lakewood, Springfield and Youngstown.
For
more information, visit the Independence Day Flag
Jam at: http://adbusters.org/campaigns/july4/.
***************************************************
8) MOBILIZATION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE
***************************************************
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank will be holding their
Joint Annual General
Meetings in Washington, DC from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4,
2001. A variety of groups have called on people to
converge in DC that week
to protest the policies of
these two undemocratic international institutions.
To
join an organizing listserv for the coordination
and networking for these
counter actions, send a blank
email to destroyIMF-subscribe@topica.com.
For
information on the policies of the IMF and the
World Bank, visit the "50
Years is Enough" Web site at:
http://www.50years.org.
***************************************************
Miss an issue of our newsletter? You can now read
past newsletters of the
Green Party of Ohio by
visiting the newsletter archives at:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/newsletters/
Also,
you can view the latest weekly segment of the
Association of State Green Parties
(ASGP) News
Circulator by visiting the ASGP Web site
at http://www.green-party.org
and selecting "ASGP
News Circulator" from the menu at the top of
the
left column. Or, sign up to get it by email by
sending a blank email
to ohiogreens-asgp@yahoogroups.com.
***************************************************
We publish this newsletter weekly (with some
exceptions) to keep you informed
about events,
activities, and news of interest to the Green Party
of Ohio
-- http://www.ohiogreens.org.
We
invite you to review our party Web site
after you've read this newsletter.
We welcome your
comments or suggestions about our site or party.
Send
comments: secretary@ohiogreens.org.
We
value our relationship with you. If at any time
you wish to leave our mailing
list and not receive
future newsletter mailings, reply to this message
with "unsubscribe" in the subject field.
We
also encourage you to help us spread the word
about our newsletter and the
Green Party. Please
feel welcome to forward a copy of it to your friends.
They can be added to our mailing list by submitting
the form at: http://www.ohiogreens.org/newsletter/register.html.
***************************************************
Green Party of Ohio
PO Box 851, Kent OH 44240
Email: secretary@ohiogreens.org
Web: http://www.ohiogreens.org