{"id":799,"date":"2013-11-10T15:36:51","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T22:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=799"},"modified":"2013-12-08T06:44:18","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T13:44:18","slug":"annotating-the-news-111013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=799","title":{"rendered":"Annotating the News 11\/10\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poorer than we thought.\u00a0 <\/b>Using a calculation that factors in California\u2019s relatively high cost of living, the state has the highest poverty rate in the country<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 According to Census Bureau, 23.8 percent of Californians live in poverty where the official poverty rate is 16.5 percent.<\/p>\n

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Even using the official calculation, a quarter of the state\u2019s children live in poverty, a rate still somewhat lower than in the early 1990s, but thought to be increasing, this according to the Public Policy Institute of California<\/a>.\u00a0 Child poverty in the state increased markedly in the Great Recession.<\/p>\n

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Teacher pension fund crisis getting closer.\u00a0 <\/b>For at least a decade, the legislature and governors have ignored the shortfall in STRS, the state teacher pension fund.\u00a0 The shortfall\u2014the difference between current contributions and future payments\u2014 totals $70-billion and grows by $22 million a day, this according to Channel 10<\/a>. \u00a0STRS predicts insolvency in three decades, a long time off in political terms.\u00a0 Yet, the cost of righting the system would be an additional state contribution of $4.5 billion a year, almost as much as the state spends on the entire CSU system.<\/p>\n

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The California legislature, like others in the country, can only kick this can down the road so far.\u00a0 Former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan and journalist Tim Rutten<\/a> have suggested a federal insurance program.\u00a0 It would allow local governments to purchase guaranteed bonds that would stabilize their pension systems in exchange for fiscal discipline on the part of local governments and employee unions.\u00a0 Riordan\u2019s ideas have been heavily opposed by employee unions, but his plan\u2014or someone else\u2019s\u2014should be on the political agenda.\u00a0 Ignoring the elephant doesn\u2019t make it go away.<\/p>\n

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A footnote to freshman English.\u00a0 <\/b>Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, <\/i>is suing the museum in Monroeville, Alabama, where the novel is set and where she continues to live, at 87, in an assisted living facility.\u00a0 Lee claims that the museum has profited from her work and has not provided compensation.\u00a0 The Guardian<\/a> <\/i>tells the story in Southern gothic style with plot twists and twisted relatives.\u00a0 And did you know that Scout was really Truman Capote?<\/p>\n

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Poorer than we thought.\u00a0 Using a calculation that factors in California\u2019s relatively high cost of living, the state has the highest poverty rate in the country.\u00a0\u00a0 According to Census Bureau, 23.8 percent of Californians live in poverty where the official poverty rate is 16.5 percent.   Even using the official calculation, a quarter of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,6,98,9],"tags":[163,162,164],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}