#Fernald State School

[edsonjnovaes]

6 Evil Things Done By Corporations Throughout History

6 Evil Things Done By Corporations Throughout History

Corporations entering the crosshairs of regulatory battles is a typical scene, you’ll find that regulatory issues and litigious mistakes are part of the package. You will hardly find a corporation that presents itself as a saint, however, some corporations are known for their ignoble roles in facilitating some of the most atrocious acts in history. 6 Evil Things Done By Corporations Throughout…

[afterthegreatunknown]

An ASOUE-Fandom related question regarding the Netflix Show Continuity

Netflix's ASOUE made many changes from the books, major and/or minor. Some changes occur in the Widdershins family photo.

In the center of the photograph was a large man with a long mustache that was curved at the end like a pair of parentheses -Captain Widdershins, of course, although he looked much younger and a great deal happier than the children had ever seen him. He was laughing, and his arm was around someone the two Baudelaires recognized as the hook-handed man, although he was not hook-handed in the photograph- both of his hands were perfectly intact, one resting on the captain’s shoulder, and the other pointing at whoever was taking the picture- and he was young enough to still be called a teenager, instead of a man. On the other side of the captain was a woman who was laughing as hard as the captain, and in her arms was a young infant with a tiny set of triangular glasses.

The Grim Grotto, Chapter 12, page 267

Being curious about how the fandom thought of the age difference is between Fernald and Fiona in the books, I made a poll to ask this. The poll can be located here, and an analyze of sorts on the data can be found here (if you're curious about it).

Compare the book's description with the Netflix family photo:

Mrs. Widdershins being absent is one change. Another change is that Netflix!Widdershins, who is part of the SBG in the books, is now an old man of Ishmael, TMWBBNH, and TWWHBNB's (and others, like Josephine and Ike) generation (basing this off actors age at time). But the change being focus here is between Fernald and Fiona.

Netflix's photo aged Fiona up to be a young child of an unknown elementary school age (more reasonable for her to be wearing glasses). Fernald is now someone of unknown age in his twenties. With how Widdershins is an older man of a different generation, meaning Fernald is probably now a proper SBG member than a lump in-betweener, Fernald's years of being older than Fiona is probably not the same as the books. So, using the data off the book-verse poll, because it's a good baseline, for the Netflix show Continuity...

[dannyhellman]

"Atomic Baby," illo for NYPress, 6/4/01

#illustration #illustrator #comics #radiation #atomic #nuclear #experiment #medical #ProjectSunshine

[myhauntedsalem]

Fernald State School

Fernald School was opened in 1948 as the Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children and was originally a school for boys with low intelligence although according to later reports, more than half of students tested had an IQ deemed to be normal. There were a total of 72 buildings and 2500 people were confined there at its peak. The school was renamed in honor of its first superintendent, Walter E. Fernald, in 1925.

The school has been the subject of allegations of sexual and physical abuse of the students. The standard of education was said to be extremely low and the boys were housed in large crowded dorms. The students were even the subject of medical experiments in the 1950s when the Quaker Oats company along with Harvard and MIT researchers fed boys cereal laced with radiation tracers. The Quaker Oats company eventually paid out over $1.85 million in damages to the victims. The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments had this to say about the case in a 1994 report:

In 1946, one study exposed seventeen subjects to radioactive iron.

The second study, which involved a series of seventeen related sub-experiments, exposed fifty-seven subjects to radioactive calcium between 1950 and 1953. It is clear that the doses involved were low and that it is extremely unlikely that any of the children who were used as subjects were harmed as a consequence. These studies remain morally troubling, however, for several reasons. First, although parents or guardians were asked for their permission to have their children involved in the research, the available evidence suggests that the information provided was, at best, incomplete. Second, there is the question of the fairness of selecting institutionalized children at all, children whose life circumstances were by any standard already heavily burdened.

Part of the facility remains open as a residence for mentally ill adults but most of the buildings lie abandoned and decaying. Efforts have been made to close the facility however and with only 13 patients left, it looks like it won’t be long before it closes in its entirety.

[morbidology]

Fernald State School

Built in 1888, the Fernald State School is known for its deplorable practices and purpose as opposed to anything positive that ever came from it. It was originally named the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic Children but was later renamed after the third owner, Walter E. Fernald. Fernald was a stanch advocate for eugenics. He genuinely and strongly believed that the best way to improve society was to isolate those who he considered unwanted or inferior, mainly due to physical or mental disability. It would later be estimated that at least half of his patients were physically fit but just deemed unwanted or a burden to their family.

The institution was often cramped due to taking on many more patients than they were able to cope with. Almost immediately, it was rife with abuse at the hands of the staff - sexual, mental, and physical. Furthermore, the institution was involved in human experimentation including sterilisation and radiation experiments on living and unwilling subjects. Between 1946 and 1953, the institution exposed young male children to radioactive isotopes to document the effects.

It wouldn't be until the 1970s that a class action suit was filed to upgrade the conditions. In 2014, it finally shut down.

[More at Morbidology]

[straydog733]

Reading Resolution: “The Degenerates” by J. Albert Mann

30. Wild Card: The Degenerates by J. Albert Mann

List Progress: 25/30

Morons. Idiots. Imbeciles. Feeble-minded. These are some of the many terms used to refer to the lead characters of the YA novel The Degenerates. Young teens London, Alice, Maxine and Rose are patients at the Walter E. Fernald State School, originally known as the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded, and this is where they will live the rest of their lives. The novel takes place in 1928, at the center of the American eugenics movement, and the girls’ imprisonment is seen as a necessity for the good of society as a whole, removing corrupted parts of the population to benefit humanity. But the patients are people, with inner loves and hopes and dreams, and they deserve better.

Author J. Albert Mann drew much of the doctors’ and nurses’ dialogue for the book from historical documents, to show exactly how the physically, mentally and socially disabled were seen by dominant society. The girls are fictional characters, but their world is a very real one. The book begins with London, fourteen, rebellious and pregnant, being dragged to Fernald for “moral feeble-mindedness”. She meets and befriends Alice, and sisters Maxine and Rose. The four of them cover a wide swath of situations, but they are united in being “undesirable” to greater society. Their lives follow strict, rigid routines where doctors, nurses and attendants tell them when to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, and the rare occasions when they can talk to one another. And they are the lucky ones, compared to the severely disabled women kept in the Back Ward and treated no better than animals. Or the babies with congenital deformities left to be poked and prodded at for the duration of their short lives.

The Degenerates can be a hard book to read, and I was surprised at how graphic it was allowed to be for a YA novel. Aside from the occasional burst of violence, it has a strong tendency towards the scatological, to highlight how little dignity is allowed in these young women’s lives. But I did really enjoy it, even as I squirmed sometimes. The point of view alternates between the four by chapter, including to Rose, who has Down Syndrome (or in the contemporary parlance, is a “Mongoloid”). This gives her a lot more agency than is usually afforded to mentally disabled characters, and she often reflects on how she can use people’s low expectations of her to her advantage. One of my few quibbles is that she loses a bit of focus by the end of the book, because she is a great character. (Another quibble is that Mann has clearly never lived through a Massachusetts winter. The barefoot runaway in late December would not have kept the use of her toes, if she kept them at all.)

But all small critiques aside, I am glad I read this book. Fernald was closed in 2014, and while there were many reforms between 1928 and then, we cannot pretend that disability rights in America are anywhere near where they should be. The Degenerates shows us one of the darker chapters of this history, and states a clear demand for the future. Hopefully one that will be listened to in time.

Would I Recommend It: Yes, very much so.

[penaltybox14]

The MetFern cemetery is an institutional burial ground situated near the former site of Metropolitan State Hospital and Fernald State School in Waltham, Massachusetts, 20 minutes outside Boston.  Open to burials between 1947 and 1979, the cemetery served as the resting place for the indigent dead from both institutions.  (it should be noted that, as a result of eugenicist laws and policies, as well as the prevailing medical and social attitudes of the time, long-term institutionalization of those with disabilities - and, in many cases, simply those who had nowhere else to go - was considered the norm well into the 1970s.)

This is a small cemetery, divided into Catholic and Protestant sections, with graves marked by sequentially numbered headstones.  While not atypical of pauper or institutional cemeteries, because of the nature of the institutions, records are often piecemeal at best.  The work that the students of Gann Academy have done to uncover the lives of the deceased - their names, their birth and death dates, the small facts of their lives - is remarkable.  This website serves not only as a fascinating historical snapshot of how and why people were (and are) institutionalized, it gives dignity and memorial to people who might otherwise have been forgotten. 

[veryfashionabledesigns]

Analyzing the Snicket Aesthetic, Part 5/5: Society and Law

-Values and social conventions are all over the place. A good rule of thumb is that sympathetic characters tend to be more progressive, and bad/stupid ones more old-fashioned. This is most clear in the way other characters react to Violet’s interest in a traditionally masculine field; namely, the only characters who overtly disapprove are Mr. Poe and Count Olaf. Olaf’s baddie squad often remark on her appearance, while her friends/family are more likely to compliment her intellect.

Figure 1: Crow fascism is a thing in this universe, apparently.

GENDER

         -Despite the old-school style, the Snicketverse doesn’t seem to be much more patriarchal than most of the modern world. Female characters take on a variety of traditionally masculine careers such as medicine and politics, and can presumably make a fair amount of money independently. Esme is almost certainly the breadwinner of the Squalor household.

         -Despite being pregnant while presumably unmarried (possibly, see my note on marriage and last names below), Kit does not seem to face any stigma, nor is her ability to support a child by herself questioned. In real life, single motherhood has been (and still is to some extent) stigmatized until quite recently. As late as the mid-20th century, it was not uncommon for single mothers to institutionalized and/or pressured into giving up their children for adoption.

-One or two characters disapprove of Violet’s inventing, and in the show she apparently takes enough offense at the term “tomboy” to risk breaking character while in disguise. It may have been used towards her in a derogatory sense at some point.

-Women may not necessarily take on the last names of their husbands at marriage. Esme does not change her last name after splitting with Jerome. Quite a few fans also theorize that Bertrand changed his last name to Baudelaire to match with Beatrice’s.  

-The token nonbinary character, the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender, is given a notably more sympathetic portrayal in the series than in the books. (The books even use the pronoun “it” on a regular basis—yikes.)

-Personally, I’m 100% on board with the interpretation of Isadora as transgender, since the books suggest that the Quagmires are genetically identical. Sadly, this can’t really be considered canon to the Netflix series, which portrays her as looking very different from her brothers. It can still be canon in our hearts, though.

 GAY STUFF

         -The stance of LGBT etc. issues in this universe is sort of up in the air, and seems to roughly reflect those contemporary to the writing of each adaption. Sir and Charles are ambiguously gay in the books, and openly so in the show. Lemony laments that “it will be some time before two women are allowed to marry” in the Beatrice Letters, but mentions “more progressive court rulings” in the show.

         -In the show, Larry Your-Waiter mentions his mothers, presumably Mrs. Your and Mrs. Waiter. The Penultimate Peril, Part One reveals the pairings of Jerome/Charles and Babs/Mrs. Bass.

         -In the one of the Grim Grotto episodes, however, Esme opines that a family consists of “one man, one woman, and their children,” although this is mostly to flex on Fernald.

 RACE

         -Race is never overtly mentioned in the text itself. The illustrations and the movie are conspicuously white, although the cast of the show is fairly diverse. For the most part, the Snicketverse seems largely “color-blind,” for better or worse.  

 RELIGION

-Religious practices are almost never overtly shown, but Judaism, at least from a cultural standpoint, is quite prominent, especially in the Netflix series. Both the Baudelaire and Snicket families are confirmed as Jewish by the author. Other religions certainly do exist, however. Lemony mentions hiding out in a cathedral, and the Hotel Denouement boasts “a church, a cathedral, a chapel, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a shrine” and “a shuffleboard court.”

LEGAL SYSTEM

         -Aristocracies seem to pop up in odd places. The city has at least one Count, Winnipeg has a Duchess, and Arizona apparently has a King. That being said, neither Count Olaf nor the Duchess seem to reap any political power from their titles, so we can’t necessarily assume that His Arizonian Highness actually serves as a functional monarch. On the whole, the Snicketverse’s aristocracy is likely a relic from the past, now lingering only in social custom.

         -In fact, we can really only speculate on who, if anyone, is in charge of the region where the series takes place. No government above the city level is ever alluded to, and each town seems to have its own legal system. Paltryville has its own constitution, and the Village of Fowl Devotees has a seniority-based oligarchy.

         -Likewise, each town can make and enforce its own laws—and even carry out extrajudicial executions—with no apparent restriction or oversight. This is especially noticeable in The Vile Village.

         -However, if each town in the Snicketverse functioned like a sovereign nation, things would most likely play out a bit differently. Characters travel frequently without encountering any apparent borders or having to exchange currency. Nor were the Baudelaires able to seek asylum in neighboring towns after The Vile Village. It is likely that each town functions more or less independently, while formally being unified by the rather permissive and/or ineffectual government of the City.

         -The only governing body established to exist in the City is the High Court. Presumably, however, there are other city-level officials; someone must be making and probably enforcing those laws. (?) Government and law enforcement tend to be collectively and vaguely referred to as “the authorities.”  

Figure 2: Despite thier aura of menace, these two were apparently elected to powerful government positions. Assuming the City actually has a democracy.

         -That being said, the High Court is, in many ways, absurdly powerful. Judges can apparently determine when, where, and how trials are carried out, and can even order the entire courtroom to wear blindfolds.

         -The trial in The Penultimate Peril does not appear to have a jury or any lawyers. Due to some narration in The Bad Beginning we know that lawyers exist in the Snicketverse, and apparently there is enough demand for their services for them to earn considerable income.

         -Police are mentioned once or twice in ASOUE, but they seem to be utterly ineffectual. All of the named officers in either series are stationed in small towns. As early as The Reptile Room, the Baudelaires demand that Mr. Poe attempt to catch Count Olaf personally rather than relying on police. Later on, when the Baudelaires are on the run, they hardly ever seem to encounter actual police officers. Before the trial in TPP, murder suspects are locked in the storage closets of a hotel rather than an actual jail. Some degree of vigilantism seems to be expected of citizens.

         -In fact, vigilantism seems to be one of V.F.D.’s main directives. In ATWQ, Lemony describes himself as a detective. Dewey’s library reportedly consists of evidence that could be used to prosecute various criminals. The Netflix series features several volunteers actively trying to capture Count Olaf. The need for secrecy could stem from interpretations of the law that differ from those of the official government.

         -City laws are interpreted and enforced in a highly literal and pedantic manner. For instance, a signature coerced via threats is considered legally binding, but one signed with the non-dominant hand is not. Fleeing the scene of a crime is illegal, even if said crime scene is on fire.

         -The age of legal adulthood is 18. It is not clear if individuals must be of age to inherit property or live independently throughout the city, or if this is a stipulation only of the Baudelaire family will.

         -Caligari Carnival is able to openly advertise their intentions to publicly feed live employees to lions without so much as a lawsuit, let alone criminal charges. Human rights, apparently, are not a big deal here. On the other hand, Justice Strauss clearly states that dangling caged babies from tower windows is illegal. Remote outposts such as the carnival may operate outside the jurisdictions of any towns. Come to think of it, that would explain why someone decided to build a carnival in the middle of nowhere.

[youngmonsters]

Long time followers of this tumblr may recall me mentioning my short film ‘Malacostraca.’ Well after literal years of work it is finished and starting to crawl its way out to the film festival circuit! It had it’s world premiere last month at FilmQuest in Utah and now has several screenings happening this month both in LA and on the East Coast. Here’s the info on all of those for those who may be interested and around the areas!

LOS ANGELES SCREENINGS:

-LA PREMIERE: Cinema Darlings at Club Bahia. Thursday October 25th, 8 pm. Malacostraca will be screening with a rad group of other short films and curious delights so come on out and be HORRIFIED! Tix are $10 dollars at the door (and dare I say are well worth the price). ALSO: As it will be Halloweeny there will be a COSTUME CONTEST. So if you want come in your most RADICAL of costumes. 21 + (Drink and food available at the bar)

https://www.facebook.com/cinemadarlings/

-Mistress Black: Real Housewife of Hell. Friday October 26th, 11:59 pm at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre. Join Mistress Black for a night of comedy and film set in the darkest depths of the underworld... Featuring: Lizzy Cooperman (Time Out LA Comedian To Watch) Kyle Ayers (Never Seen It / Just For Laughs) Teresa Lee (NBC Asian America / Good Mythical Morning) Zach Broussard (MTV/BET/ The New York Sorta Marathon) Nate Fernald (Late Late Show With James Cordon / Comedy Central) Madonna Refugia (Reductress) Hannah Einbinder (Performed Stand Up In Front Of A Dumpster / Golf News Alex Hanna (The Comedy Store / Sweet Boy of Alt Comedy) Plus a screening of Charles Pieper's MALACOSTRACA, 4-time Filmquest nominee and winner for Best Makeup - Short. Trust us, it'll leave you squirming.

https://www.facebook.com/events/499447490571607/

EAST COAST SCREENINGS:

-Friday Night Frights at Montclair State University, New Jersey. Friday, October 26, 2018 at 8 PM. Join former FANGORIA editor Ken W. Hanley as well as select cast and crew for a special free advanced screening of Erik Bloomquist's thriller "LONG LOST," preceded by a special exhibition of Charles Pieper's short form creature feature "MALACOSTRACA." Montclair State University, School of Communication and Media, Presentation Hall 1040. WHEN: Friday, October 26th, 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.

https://www.facebook.com/events/370200403723921/

-WITCH CITY HORROR FILM FESTIVAL, Salem Massachusetts, Saturday October 27th. Malacostraca will be screening at 6 pm as part of ‘Scary Shorts block 2.’

http://witchcityhorrorfilmfestival.com/

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/witch-city-horror-film-festival-all-day-pass-tickets-50927296916

[hanakogames]

Yeah, there’s a... lot of history that isn’t really covered because it’s mildly embarrassing And Anyway We Swear We Don’t Do That Anymore please don’t look in that file cabinet.

Many people, especially on Tumblr, are at least dimly familiar with the awful betrayal of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It’s fairly famous and gets talked about a lot in terms of why some people might have a reasonable distrust of the medical profession. What’s less commonly discussed is that this is not a lone aberration in an otherwise flawless record. 

Just as, RIGHT NOW, we have some politicians trying to eagerly offer up various populations to test out whatever their insane theories are, there have been plenty of times in the past where someone thought they knew a nice easy way to get some test subjects...

Let me introduce you to the wikipedia page of Unethical Human Experimentation In The United States.

Too long? Want some random highlights? How about feeding children poisoned oatmeal?

From 1946 to 1953, at the Walter E. Fernald State School in Massachusetts, in an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the Quaker Oats corporation, 73 mentally disabled children were fed oatmeal containing radioactive calcium and other radioisotopes, in order to track "how nutrients were digested". The children were not told that they were being fed radioactive chemicals; they were told by hospital staff and researchers that they were joining a "science club".

Or perhaps burning off their skin?

A 1953 article in the medical/scientific journal Clinical Science described a medical experiment in which researchers intentionally blistered the skin on the abdomens of 41 children, who ranged in age from 8 to 14, using cantharide. The study was performed to determine how severely the substance injures/irritates the skin of children. After the studies, the children's blistered skin was removed with scissors and swabbed with peroxide.

Researching the possible dangers of contraceptives by using people as test subjects without their knowledge

The San Antonio Contraceptive Study was a clinical research study published in 1971 about the side effects of oral contraceptives. Women coming to a clinic in San Antonio, Texas, to prevent pregnancies were not told they were participating in a research study or receiving placebos. Ten of the women became pregnant while on placebos.

You want a more recent one?

In August 2010, the U.S. weapons manufacturer Raytheon announced that it had partnered with a jail in Castaic, California in order to use prisoners as test subjects for its Active Denial System that "fires an invisible heat beam capable of causing unbearable pain."

anyway reading the whole page gets kind of depressing, it’s easier to take in one random WTF at a time. Like the fun times when the army releases biological/chemical weapons (which they believe to be not TOO dangerous) on US cities to find out how many people they could hit!

COVID-19 was not “created” by anyone, but the conspiracies that China made it in a lab are funny when you remember that the count of non-consensual biomedical expermiments on US citizens by the Chinese government in history is zero, while the count of non-consensual biomedical experiments on US citizens by the US government is well into the double digits

[silver-and-ivory]

Howe was appalled by the horrifying conditions in which many “idiots” lived—crammed into almshouses, kept in cages, left to wander unwashed and uncared for. He demanded that society do better by this vulnerable group. When the community failed “to respect humanity in every form,” Howe wrote in a letter to a state legislator, it “suffers on account of it” and “suffers therefor [sic] in its moral character.”

Part of his agenda was to persuade the legislature to fund a school for the mentally disabled. He succeeded. After reading an interim report about his survey, lawmakers appropriated $2,500 for the purpose, which allowed Howe to take in ten mentally disabled students at Perkins. He proved, in short order, that they could indeed be educated. Based on that success, Howe founded a second school—the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded, subsequently renamed the Fernald State School, and then the Fernald Center. Unfortunately, in later decades, his innovative facility fell victim to the neglect that defined many similar institutions in the 20th century. More like warehouses than schools, these institutions confined people in overcrowded conditions, while delivering little that could be called education. Despite real efforts at reform in the last part of the 20th century, the center was finally closed for good in 2014.

[theghostlymuse]

My first Inktober entry! I’ll be working on a couple of zines this inktober, including one about the ‘unidentified’/’obscure’ Cryptids of Ohio and Northern Kentucky. 

For the first specimen, we have the ‘Anderson Owl’ or ‘The Woodland Mound Owl-man’.

Sightings for the Anderson Owl go back to the 1800s in regards to odd stories of an unnaturally large avian creature. Those owning livestock and farmland have reports of dead livestock, regularly small cattle and goats, with unnatural wounds not in accordance to native predators at the time. Sightings increased during the early days of the industrial revolution, but many blame this on the immigrants and workers migrating from other states coming to work in the factories popping up along the Ohio River- not being accustomed to the sheer size and wingspan of the native Vultures and Buzzards.

However, the first ‘official’ sighting emerged during a particularly cold Autumn day in 1978 in Clermont County when a group of five school aged children, riding their bikes during dusk, passed by what we know as the 50 acre Clepper Park. They had been on their way to a sleepover after a local little league football game when they arrived to their destination in a panic. All five reported that during their journey a large, swift humanoid/avian shape swooped down and attempted to lift one of the children from the ground. The child in question happened to be the eldest of the five and stated that the only reason it hadn’t taken him away was due to him holding tightly to his bike which had been attached to a wagon that held all of their slumber party supplies. The creature attempted to swoop down twice more before retreating. The child was left with no injuries, but the football gear he’d been wearing underneath his large winter coat suffered a series of large, talon-like gashes. 

Sightings have continued since then, but sparsely. One more near Clepper Park in 1980, three in Woodland Mound during 1986 and 1990, two by adult employees of the Fernald Nature Preserve in both 2001 and 2007, and another in Woodland Mound during 2008. The frequency of the sightings have led to the assumption that the creature’s nest is in the Woodland Mound area and the hypothesis that it is likely responsible for a number of the missing pets in both Anderson Township and Clermont County- not coyotes as locals suspect. 

The most recent sighting, however, happened in late July in 2016. Three Pokemon Go players entered Woodland Mound after designated park times at around 10:15pm in hopes of capturing the virtual monsters during the peak of the games success. The group followed along one of the normal designated hiking trails before venturing off the path in search of a Blastoise that had appeared on the tracker in-game. Lacking caution and proper supplies for such terrain, one of the three lost their footing and rolled down a steep incline. At the bottom, they recounted having seen a large owl-like creature with the light of their cell-phone. The creature had massive round eyes, wings, and four limbs that ended in clawed hands. It had been in the middle of eating a medium sized animal- later clarified to be a deer, when it straightened and extended its neck as many birds are able to do, either to observe them or to make itself appear larger, before taking off from the sudden noise and intruder. The individual was later brought to the hospital by their friends where they were diagnosed with a sprained ankle and a slight concussion.

Ever seen the Anderson Owl and your story isn’t reported here? Send me an IM and I’ll be happy to record your experience for my zine!

[arclight2011]

A spoon full of sugar helps the radioactive oatmeal go down

A spoon full of sugar helps the radioactive oatmeal go down

When MIT and Quaker Oats paired up to conduct experiments on unsuspecting young boys By Lorraine Boissoneault smithsonianmag.com March 8, 2017

When Fred Boyce and dozens of other boys joined the Science Club at Fernald State School in 1949, it was more about the perks than the science. Club members scored tickets to Boston Red Sox games, trips off the school grounds, gifts like Mickey…

[nhlabornews]

What Politicians’ Votes Say About Their Values

In politics, there are some things that everyone is for—like good schools, low taxes for the middle class, and good public services.

When politicians vote, we see where their values truly lie.

The New Hampshire legislative session that ended in June was no different.  On many issues we saw a huge gulf between the opening rhetoric, and the actual votes–and a stark contrast between the Republicans and the Democrats.

Public schools

In Concord, everyone speaks highly of the public schools.  Everyone’s favorite this year was state funding for full-day kindergarten.  But when it came time to fund kindergarten, the differences became clear.

The Republicans wrote a budget that provided an additional $1 million of tax dollars a year for charter schools.  Full-day kindergarten will receive no state tax dollars.  Instead, we will have Keno (video slot machines) to fund kindergarten.�� The Lottery Commission estimates we will realize $9 million a year from Keno—but at what cost in gambling addiction, personal bankruptcies, and broken homes?

The basic amount of state aid to the public schools is about $3600 per student per year.  Charter schools receive almost twice as much—about $6600 per student—but none of it is from the local property tax, which allows charter schools to present the fiction that they don’t cost taxpayers anything.

Tax cuts

Politicians love tax cuts.  It’s their chance to play Santa Claus.  At the end of the legislative session, we find that some taxpayers are ‘naughty’ and get a lump of coal, while some are ‘nice’ and get a tax cut.  This year was no different.

At the beginning of the session, it was proposed that the State resume paying part of the retirement system cost for schools and municipalities.  The goal was to provide a $40 million tax cut to property taxpayers.  The Republicans in the legislature said ‘no way.’

Tax cuts for big business were another matter.  The state budget includes a big cut in the Business Profits Tax.  This is a tax that virtually no small business pays, because they pay their profits out as salaries to their owners, reducing their taxable income to zero.  70% of the cut will go to approximately 500 of our largest, most-profitable businesses, particularly national and multinational firms.

Score this as big business 1, property taxpayers 0.

Setting Budget Priorities

In every budget process, wants exceed revenue.  When budget priorities are set, it reveals the values of the budget writers.

During each budget cycle in Concord, Republicans treat it like a morality play, where they tell the Democrats that they have to live within their allowance.

The reality is that the Democrats go to bat each year for the property taxpayers, the poor, the disabled, the University System, the sick and the elderly, while the Republicans go to bat for big business and the wealthy.  Most of the time, the Republicans win.

Every budget year, Republicans say we do not have enough revenue to make UNH affordable, eliminate the waiting list for the severely disabled, restore our community mental health system, fund Medicaid, or provide property tax relief.

And every budget year, Democrats ask why the wealthy are not paying their fair share of taxes.  New Hampshire has one of the most regressive tax systems in the nation.  On average, the poor pay over 8% of their incomes in tax.  The middle pays about 6%.  The top pays about 3%.

Our tax system is regressive because New Hampshire relies on the property tax for over two-thirds of all state and local tax revenue.  Since 2000, the legislature has repeatedly down-shifted obligations to the local level.  Meanwhile, the total of property taxes collected in NH has doubled.  Very few people have seen their incomes double during that same time period.

Representative Dick Ames, Democrat of Jaffrey, proposed a reform of the Interest and Dividends tax that would have reduced the tax on small savers, and broadened the tax to include capital gains.  The State would have realized about $100 million in new revenue–mostly from our wealthiest residents.  Predictably, the bill failed on a nearly party-line vote.  And the underfunding of the safety net, the short-changing of higher education, and the down-shifting to the property taxpayer will continue for another two years.

Legislating is about making choices.  Our Republican legislature has made clear that it values charter schools more the public schools; thinks businesses need a tax cut, but homeowners do not; and would rather underfund UNH and the safety net, than ask the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.

It’s all about choices.  You get to make your choice next year.

Mark Fernald is a former State Senator and was the 2002 Democratic nominee for Governor.  He can be reached at mark@markfernald.com.

What Politicians’ Votes Say About Their Values was originally published on NH LABOR NEWS

[cryptidantiquarian]

I’ve always got my eyes open looking for interesting places to go urban exploring. I love abandoned, decaying places, as well as their history. So when I stumbled upon info about the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, so close to where I live, I knew I had to go. I took the journey with my usual spooky companions (my mother and my nana) and we headed to Waltham armed with comfy sneakers and…

[moral-autism]

Remember, kids, ableism is a scientific issue, and wanting government approval in addition to peer approval for studies is completely unjustified. (It probably wouldn't have done much in this case, IDK if it's actually a good idea or not.)

(see also an MIT article on the subject)