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Diane M. Grassi - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Diane M. Grassi is a freelance columnist, reporting and writing commentary on current events of the day providing honest and often politically incorrect assessments. From U.S. public policy to Major League Baseball, she is an eclectic thinker, and demanding of her readers to reflect on their own thinking patterns from an alternative perspective. Whether you agree with her or not, Diane M. Grassi will have you coming back to note her opinions, and if ... [More]
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- MLB Bats Whittled Down to Uneven Playing Field
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] The scrutiny which has been paid, in only just the past two years, over drug use among MLB players, while having been a black eye for MLB, is also convenient as Commissioner Bud Selig need not address myriad other issues which also play their part in preserving the integrity of the game.
- Major League Baseball Profits From New Change in Immigration Law
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] New legislation changes the visa status of foreign-born minor league players to be able to use P-1 visas, formerly reserved only for major league players, and an upgrade from the H-2B visas, generally used by temporary foreign-born workers in numerous industries.
- NAFTA Superhighway Has Giuliani As Key Player
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Most interesting to the whole story is not only has Rudolphh Giuliani's involvement in the NAFTA Superhighway not ever having been publicly addressed, but how a foreign company is awarded the building of a mass highway system, versus maintaining it, for the first time in U.S. history, and negotiated by the law firm of the top Republican candidate running for President of the United States.
- New Mining Laws Year After Sago Non-Implemented
[Legal:Regulatory-Compliance] Idly standing by waiting for the federal government to fund the necessary changes in the new mining law or waiting for mine operators to police themselves in the meantime are both unrealistic and foolish premises.
- Troops Pay Hidden Cost Of Multiple Deployments
[News-and-Society:Military] Far too often American soldiers have been stung by the treatment they have received with respect to their health care upon returning stateside.
- Offshoring U.S. Patients No Cure for Ailing Healthcare System
[News-and-Society:Economics] With more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees' health insurance plans, it remains difficult for patients to get the necessary information needed to make a reasoned decision on whether to have surgery performed, let alone halfway around the world.
- Clinton Soda Deal Ignores School Funding Problems
[Reference-and-Education] Perhaps Mr. Clinton’s focus on his self-lauded vending machine deals will help illuminate the sad fiscal shape school districts are in across the country when forced to hinge their school budgets on the sales of soda and candy bars.
- Designs On Perfect Baby Drives Assistive Repro Industry
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] What started out to be an alternative in enabling women to become mothers has arguably created ethical concerns.
- Post-Katrina Role Of Property Insurers Threaten Consumers Nationwide
[Business:Ethics] Over the next year, 43% of the U.S. population which covers 18 states can expect their policies to either be dropped by their insurance carriers or have their premiums escalate between 20% and 100%.
- Unrestrained Globalization Will Defeat The American Athlete
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The increase of insourcing foreign players in the U.S. will become the new norm and the best American athletes will be sacrificed.
- U.S. Power Grid Unreliability Enabled By Legislation
[News-and-Society] While it seems that most everyone believes that the power grid woes culminated with the rolling blackouts of 2000-2001 in California, the initial concerns with major outages go back to November 1965 when power went out throughout most of the Northeast.
- Baseball & Rawlings Bring New Meaning to Free Trade
[News-and-Society:Economics] It is not too late for MLB and its superstars to take a stand on workers’ rights, regardless of lax U.S. laws in the world of free trade and its agreements’ legal loopholes.
- New Orleans Remains Problematic for Army Corps of Engineers
[News-and-Society] So far over $20 billion has been allocated by the federal government to assist in New Orleans and Gulf Coast restorations. Yet, such appropriations do not solve the most desperate problem New Orleans faces which is the restoration and reformation of its levee system.
- U.S. Military Suffers Equipment & Base Shortfalls
[News-and-Society:Military] For the Marine Corps, yearly costs in Iraq are about $5 billion. But the Marines will get little help in the $11.7 billion in "reset" costs to restore all of the equipment which has become worn out or lost over the past four years.
- Free Trade Agreement With Oman Disregards Best Interests of U.S.
[News-and-Society:Economics] Since the United States became a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, U.S. construct of the Foreign Trade Agreement (FTA) has changed considerably. Such agreements now have a much more profound impact on state and local economies across the country.
- Foreign Control of U.S. Interstates Encouraged by Feds
[News-and-Society:Economics] Eisenhower was prompted to persuade the nation’s people to build the interstate highway system, as a matter of national security. Yet, as funding from federal gas taxes and state user fees have fallen behind the inflated costs associated with road construction and maintenance, more and more state governors and lawmakers no longer see the operation of roads solely as a public responsibility.
- Case of Eminent Domain Resonates Year After Supreme Decision
[News-and-Society:Politics] Although the takings of private land belonging to homeowners and small businesses under the guise of eminent domain have been argued repeatedly and primarily over the past half century, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision came closest to heightening the blurring of legitimate use of such takings for public use.
- Breach of Trust Undermines Active & Retired Military
[News-and-Society:Military] The long history of security flaws within the VA does not come as news to many within the GAO, or within the VA's Office of Inspector General. For that reason, it makes it even more difficult for lawmakers to fathom.
- Why America's Pastime Is Losing Its Identity
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] Major League Baseball must be held accountable, regardless of myriad cultural reasons attributed to children’s lack of interest in baseball, predominantly in the inner city neighborhoods, for its lack of investment in them.
- False Documents of Undocumented Remains Problematic
[News-and-Society:Politics] The issue of false identity remains an intrinsic problem of immigration and necessitates it being a part of any discussion concerning immigration reform.
- EU Renews Pressure Over U.S. Airline Ownership
[News-and-Society:Politics] Should the latest proposal be adopted, with exception of few areas, all airline operations, including prices, scheduling markets, fleet structure, marketing and alliances have the option of being controlled by foreign investors.
- Congressional Recoil From Latest Dubai Takeover
[News-and-Society:Politics] The national security implications of a foreign entity operating key factories that are Department of Defense suppliers might well have demanded the same call for scrutiny from the Congress as the ports deal.
- D.C. & Capitol Hill Politics Intertwine With MLB Ownership
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] If MLB expects to continue to be referred to as America’s Pastime, it will need to do a far better job of recruiting right here at home, where there still remain a ton of great athletes from the black community. But they will not find them on Capitol Hill or in ivory towers, but rather in their very own backyards.
- China Sole Manufacturer of Material for U.S. Missiles
[News-and-Society:Politics] During this week’s U.S. visit of China President, Hu Jintao, and his meetings with President Bush, it would be apropos to revisit a deal finalized in 2004, which leaves the U.S. totally dependent upon China for key rare earth metals and their production necessary in the manufacture of the most crucial of U.S. military warfare.
- Deficit Reduction Act Requires Proof of Citizenship for Medicaid
[News-and-Society:Politics] The present requirements for Medicaid require no documentation, relying only upon a signature of the applicant to certify whether or not they are American citizens. But the issue is more about the continuing lack of enforcement of U.S. immigration law rather than an attempt to cut down on Medicaid fraud.
- IRS Proposal Allows Income Tax Info To Be Sold
[News-and-Society] According to IRS Commissioner, Mark Everson, the proposed changes actually improve the safeguards of taxpayer information and are "not significant." But upon closer examination, they increase the chances of identity theft and fraud not only throughout the U.S. but across the globe.
- Overhauled Homeland Security Funding Alarms Areas At Risk
[News-and-Society:Politics] Many lawmakers are dumbfounded over the lack of information provided by Homeland Security regarding their ineligibility of urban area funding.
- MLB's Soriano Hung Out to Dry By Nationals
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] Before all of the so-called expert pundits and baseballs’ fans have at it with their generalizations about the latest supposed "spoiled professional athlete who should grow up," it would be wise to examine exactly which athlete they are attacking and the circumstances involved.
- Insourcing of Foreign Students & Engineers Top U.S. Priority
[News-and-Society:Economics] Much like all other sectors of our government as well as commercial industry, both lawmakers and CEO’s myopically concentrate on the bottom line, while the U.S. educational system is being systematically abandoned and essentially dismantled.
- Bankrupting Medical Costs Symptom of Ailing System
[News-and-Society] While the federal government welcomes a global economy, lawmakers still do not welcome the chore of dealing with a fractured healthcare system which in the not too distant future threatens to provide only for the poorest and those in the top income brackets.
- Underfunded Federal Mandates Belie Port Security
[News-and-Society:Economics] There is no shortage of discrepancies as concerns the operations of the U.S. Coast Guard with respect to security operations.
- Winter Olympics TV Coverage Far From Golden
[Recreation-and-Sports:Olympics] Sports fans are not averse to watching Winter Olympics coverage, but trying to figure out NBC’s television schedule has become a sport of Olympic proportions unto itself.
- Foreign Ownership of U.S. Airlines & Ports Deemed Troubling
[News-and-Society:Politics] With ownership of U.S. airlines possibly permitted within a year, control of operations and security of six U.S. ports may be given to the United Arab Emirates and based in Dubai.
- Eroding U.S. Industrial Base Comes With Price
[News-and-Society:Economics] With a demand by China for foreign direct investment as its incentive to buy U.S. products, companies like Boeing are acquiescing by not only building major portions of airplanes in China, but also creating Research and Development opportunities for Chinese engineers.
- Disparity of Katrina Funds Short Changes Bayou
[News-and-Society:Politics] With so many agencies,primarily federal, without their own proverbial maps on how to proceed in un-chartered waters, it necessitates new ways of doing business in order to meet the imminent needs from the Gulf Coast disaster.
- More Than Double Standard for Winter Olympics Athletes
[Recreation-and-Sports:Olympics] We are fed a daily diet of indiscretions and inappropriate behavior including felonies committed by both professional and college athletes. But now, we have a World Champion athlete, he mentions that he goes out and downs a few cool ones after his ski races and we are supposed to be shocked and outraged.
- Corporate Buyouts of Mines Play Part in Safety Issues
[Business] The recent history of the Sago Mine as well as others its size is not unlike that which has become of other major industries in the 21st century, with individual companies and its workers left victim to bankruptcy or corporate takeover.However, with investors without a background in mining running operations, it could mean the difference between life and death.
- U.S. Gambling Culture Spreads to Wall Street
[News-and-Society:Economics] In 2005, worldwide online gambling revenue is expected to be over $US10 billion for such operators while a total of $US 200 billion is expected to have been wagered. The prevalence of online gaming and the large revenues enjoyed from it has now, however, prompted major U.S. brokerage firms to claim their piece of the pie.
- Add-Ons in Defense Bill Ill - Serves Troops & America
[News-and-Society:Military] Simply because the calendar is running out does not take lawmakers off the hook from rationally voting on legislation.
- U.S. Jobs in IT Development & Finance Solely Reserved for India
[Business:Outsourcing] Americans are well familiar with the downsizing, outsourcing and offshoring of the U.S. manufacturing base which has seen 2/3 of its jobs lost in the past 20 years, having been traded in for third world cheap labor. And while white-collar workers have hardly been immune from offshoring practices infiltrating boardrooms, indication now is that the tide has changed.
- Major League Baseball Jeopardizes 2006 Season for Nationals
[Recreation-and-Sports:Baseball] Not unlike the on-again off-again dash to finalize an agreement with the city of Washington, D.C. in December of 2004 between MLB and the Washington Nationals, the end of 2005 looms as a potential death knell to getting a stadium built, a lease agreement finalized and the installation of an owner or ownership group in place to prepare in time for the 2006 season.
- Air Traffic Controllers - FAA Talks Dispute Future Airspace Safety
[News-and-Society:Economics] With 9,000 of its 14,500 current number of air traffic controllers having been hired in the early 1980’s, the FAA has dragged its heels on implementing a replenishment system known about for years,increasing the risk that the FAA will not have enough qualified controllers when necessary to meet air traffic demands.
- Petrol & Katrina Impact Wide Array of Product Costs
[News-and-Society:Economics] Forecasters say that a wide range of products from food to auto parts will see rises in retail prices this winter with food products seeing the largest rise in several years.
- Delphi Gives Workers Choice of Pay Cuts or Shutdowns
[News-and-Society] The erosion of the manufacturing sector in the United States started decades ago. And while there are no guarantees in business, the lack of a decent wage for American workers will ultimately guarantee less revenue generated for the economy.
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