Behind the health care vote

Posted at 8:46 AM on November 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

The House last night voted 220-to-215 to pass the health care bill. The vote was not surprising. All but one Republican voted against it, joined by mostly conservative Democrats, including 7th District Rep. Colin Peterson of Minnesota.

The New York Times, however, has a fascinating graphic showing the "no" Democrats. Peterson had the 4th largest margin of victory in his last election of those who voted no (and weren't unopposed).

Not far behind was Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota.

Eight of the Democrats represented districts carried by Barack Obama in the last election, an increasingly questionable yardstick for political punditry, since the presidential election is at least as much about the opponent who's running (and his vice presidential pick, occasionally) as it is about the candidate who carried the district.

The Times attempted to link the percentage of uninsured residents of each district (who weren't elderly) with the "no" vote. In Peterson's district, for example, only 11% of non-elderly residents don't have insurance.

The intent of the graphic appears to be to show the factors that went into the "no" vote besides the bill itself. But it actually suggests that most of the "no" votes among Democrats had more to do with their opinion that it's a bad bill.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, took a different approach to linking external factors to the votes. It provides a graphic showing campaign contributions from the health care industry. Curiously, however, it shows that most of the lawmakers with the biggest war chests from the health care industry voted "yes."

And with all of the votes displayed, rather than just the Democrat "no" votes, the Post does a better job of relating the percentage of uninsured in a district, with the representative's vote.

Comment on this post

A letter to my loan shark

Posted at 9:27 AM on November 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

This week the House closed the barn door as the horses galloped over the horizon, voting to freeze interest rates until a credit card law passed 8 months ago kicks in. The credit card companies have been wallpapering consumers' homes with notices of increased rates.

Many credit card companies, which had offered no-annual-fee accounts, are now slipping in charges. In many cases, the card companies are trying to "test" how much you love your credit card, and how much money you're willing to fork over to keep it, according to Marketwatch.

And this week, Pew's Safe Card Card Project released a study showing credit unions as a far more logical source of credit cards than commercial banks:

In July 2009, median advertised interest rates on cards from the 12 largest credit unions were between 9.90 and 13.75 percent annually, depending on a consumer's credit profile approximately 20 percent lower than comparable bank rates. Meanwhile, credit union penalties were generally less severe than those of banks.

That was all I needed to hear to write letters to the half dozen credit card companies, whose notices arrived in the mail this week:

To whom it may concern:

Thank you for your notice of the above date informing me that you're raising the APR on my Discover (Account #XXXXXXXXXXXX) card to 22.9%, raising the APR for cash purchases to 25.9%, increasing the penalty for APR to 29.9%, and the late payment fee up to $39.99.

As you probably know, I pay my balances every month, and am not foolish enough to get cash advances from this account. That should suggest to you that I manage my finances relatively conservatively. I wish you had.

As I understand it, your industry is not raising your fees to confiscatory levels because of new credit laws. That's just a coincidence. Your industry says you're trying to recoup massive losses from your customers.

Whatever the reason, during these difficult economic times, I'm sure you understand that I cannot enter into any business agreement with financial institutions that are so clearly in peril. For that reason, I am rejecting the changes per the terms of this account, which we agreed to when you were a more solvent institution.

You are certainly free to close the account, although I can't say I understand why you'd want to. Customers who use your card, allow you to skim the purchase price from merchants. Customers who pay their bills on time do not seem to be the people responsible for bringing you to the apparent precipice of bankruptcy.

No doubt, when that occurs, you'll be seeking a bailout from me - the taxpayer. So this letter is to inform you that when that time comes, you will immediately be charged 25.9% for the cash advance, and 22.9% for any outstanding balance each month. Trust me, you don't want to know the late payment fee. On the other hand, I will offer you the same reward your credit card statement offered me this month: A discount on Beano tablets. Enjoy!

Please be sure I'm taken off the mailing list for your daily solicitations for me to become an account holder again. You had your chance.

Sincerely,

Robert B. Collins

Comment on this post

Fresh Eye on the Radio: The clues

Posted at 5:57 PM on November 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Clues always look obvious after the fact. Declining personal debt: Good or bad? The case of the stolen VW van. And babies who cry like their mothers. Those are among the week-end components of the daily discussion with Bob Collins and Mary Lucia.

Comment on this post

What is the TSA thinking?

Posted at 3:01 PM on November 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

The Northwest Airlines Flight 188 debacle gave us the opportunity to examine whether the communications between the air defense officials and air traffic controllers have improved much since 9/11. They haven't.

What about on the ground?

When we go to the airport, we've been taking off our shoes, stashing our mouthwash, and dragging our handicapped parents out of their wheelchairs long enough that the Transportation Security Administration procedures almost seem normal; they almost make sense.

Almost.

The Atlantic's James Fallows calls our attention this afternoon to a General Accounting Office assessment of the Transportation Security Administration.

The GAO report found that the security checkpoint procedures don't match the relative risk, GAO-speak for "they don't make any sense."

From time to time, we hear about new technologies to make getting through security easier. In fact, after 9/11, a Minnesota firm's facial-recognition software was supposed to be one of the next big things. It failed.

In fact, the GAO notes, the Department of Homeland Security has invested $795 million in technologies to screen passengers at airport checkpoints since 9/11. Since TSA was created, 10 passenger screening technologies have been in various phases of research and development.

How many have been deployed over that time and at that cost? None.

"The ongoing impossibility of applying logic to this situation really is discouraging -- or, more positively, is an opportunity for someone in government to address," Fallows writes.

By the way, the TSA has a response to the cartoon above:

The batteries may be more dangerous than a bottle of water, but they are not more dangerous than a water bottle filled with liquid explosives.

Find the whole post here. Feel free to share your going-through-security story below.

Comic: xkcd

Comment on this post

Today in flu

Posted at 1:44 PM on November 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Media

It seems like only yesterday when the news media was being skewered for overblowing the H1N1 flu (which for some reason is increasingly being referred to as the "swine flu" again). Now, a survey by Pew Research Center suggests the news consumer can't get enough.

According to the survey of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press:

About three-in-ten (29%) name reports about the fast-spreading flu and its vaccine as the story they followed more closely than any other last week, according to the latest weekly News Interest Index survey, conducted Oct. 30-Nov. 2 among 1,001 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Somewhat fewer mention news about health care reform (22%) or the economy (17%) as their top story.

But a second survey, from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), shows a disconnect between what the people want and what the people are getting:

The national news media devoted 5% of the newshole to swine flu, much less than the coverage given to the health care debate (16%), Afghanistan (13%) or the economy (12%).

Let's see if we can adjust that a little bit. Here's some H1N1 news:

Most people who are looking for the H1N1 vaccine can't find it, Harvard reports today.

Since the H1N1 flu vaccine became available in October, 17% of American adults, 41% of parents, and 21% of high-priority adults have tried to get it. Among adults who tried to get it for themselves, 30% were able to get the vaccine and 70% were unable to get it. Among parents who tried to get the H1N1 vaccine for their children, 34% were able to get it and 66% were unable to get it. Among high priority adults who tried to get the H1N1 vaccine, 34% were able to get it and 66% were unable to get it.

So far Minnesota has ordered more than 460,000 doses of vaccine from its share of the federal supply, MPR's Lorna Benson reported today. The state health department has been using a random lottery system to select sites from among thousands of clinics who'll get the vaccine.

Officials are worrying that people are getting frustrated in their search for the vaccine, and will just give up looking.

Comment on this post

Rising by Degrees

Posted at 12:04 PM on November 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Schools

I'm calling your attention to an American RadioWorks documentary, airing at this hour on MPR's Midday program. Rising by Degrees looks at a developing problem. The fastest-growing segment of our society -- young Latinos -- are the least likely to graduate from college. What does this mean for the future of the country?

You'll meet Veder Garcia, who spoke no English when he arrived in the U.S. from El Salvador as a high school junior, and is now completing his Ph.D. in plant biology at UC Berkeley. Community college was a critical step along the way. And the program introduces us to Mike Carvalho, who "always knew he would attend community college. What the 20-year-old didn't know is that he would drop out two years after he started."

If you can't listen, you can find the Web site for the project here.

Comment on this post

Fort Hood victim has Minnesota ties

Posted at 7:51 AM on November 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

The local angle in the Fort Hood shootings has emerged.

The Kansas City Star reports that Army Reserve Spc. Keara Bono (Torkelson) was one of those shot in the assault on Thursday. She's a graduate of a high school in Independence, MO., but she recently married and lives in the St. Paul area, according to the newspaper.

Here's her Facebook page. A posting on her wall there says she was treated and released.

Just a few hours before the shootings, she posted that life at the facility was "boring."

KMBC in Kansas City has some images of her on the base in happier times. KTKA Television reports that Bono worked with soldiers returning from war who were dealing with stress.

Says the London Evening Standard:

Another of the injured, 21-year-old Private Keara Bono, called her husband to say: "They shot me. And I'm still here in this country." He heard shots and shouting, before the line went dead.

Comment on this post

Five at 8 - 11/6/09: Why are we so murderous?

Posted at 7:23 AM on November 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

1) In the aftermath of yesterday's tragedy in Texas, the bigger question is being asked again. The New Yorker is asking it. "The United States has the highest homicide rate of any affluent democracy, nearly four times that of France and the United Kingdom, and six times that of Germany. Why?" I know what you're thinking -- a gun control riff. But no. One theory: We have the freedom to be murderous.

2) History lesson. The U.S. military has a long history with goats. MPR's Euan Kerr profiles Jon Ronson's work on the new movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats." The Guardian approaches this differently. Ronson heads to a goat sanctuary and provides this multimedia presentation. Is the movie any good? Here's NPR's review.

3) Researchers say babies are born already knowing the language of their mothers. Sort of. They cry with the accent of mom. The findings suggest that unborn babies are influenced by the sound of the first language that penetrates the womb. They studied French and German babies and you can hear the differences in their cries here.

4) Members of Congress are outraged -- outraged -- that banks used the 9-month grace period before a new law limiting credit card practices to jack up rates, effectively neutering the law. Who gave them the grace period? Members of Congress, most of whom get a ton of campaign cash from financial institutions.

"I didn't think they would be as blatant as they were about doing this,'' Rep. Barney Frank said, showing an amazing lack of understanding about why the biggest buildings in cities are banks. "This is really just a way for them to make more money.''

The banks say they're not trying to circumvent the new law, they're trying to recover losses. What can consumers do? According to an article on Newsweek.com:

If consumers feel unfairly targeted by their credit-card companies, consumer advocates say they should act rather than simply mope. First, people should watch their statements closely and contact their banks if they see interest rates rising or additional fees tacked onto their monthly statements. In other words, there's room to haggle. "If you have a strong credit score, some institutions are willing to say, 'You're an exceptional cardholder for us,' " says Adam Levin, founder of Credit.com and a former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs.

How is this playing out in the real world? Now I'm forced into a situation to survive, to pay for my family's needs. I've got to use what I've got to use to keep my head afloat," Dale Petrie of St. Paul tells MPR's Michael Caputo. "I decided to charge on these cards ... pay 11-12 percent for now because the interest rate is so low and it's probably not going to go anywhere. But all of sudden they jack it up by 8 percent."

The house always wins.

5) Science! How does Jello work? Why does such a small amount of gelatin powder make such a huge amount of water "hold together'' in a block of Jell-O? Nothing like that happens with similar amounts of salt or sugar?

Is internal combustion dying? On TVs American Chopper last evening, they started building a "green" motorcycle." It's electric.

But what guy is going to drive a motorcycle that goes "buzzzzzz" and not "vroom"?

Bonus: Economic fallout. NFL ratings on TV are through the roof this season, apparently because people are cutting back on leisure activities and watching the tube instead, the Washington Post reports today.

TODAY'S QUESTION

Saturday is opening day of Minnesota's firearm season on white-tailed deer. According to the Department of Natural Resources, about half a million hunters participate in the hunt each year. What does the opening of deer season mean to your family?

WHAT WE'RE WORKING ON

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: National unemployment is expected to reach 10 percent, a high not seen since the early 1980s, and the Senate has approved an extension of unemployment benefits. But should other positive economic indicators lessen our fears about September's increase in job losses and slip in wage increase?

Second hour: Infant mortality rates in the U.S. are high relative to other industrialized countries. But one hospital in Texas may have figured out how to reduce infant deaths, in part by putting more clinics closer to the women who need prenatal care. A look at the factors that may lead to better births.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - First hour: Midday features stories from Minnesota cities with some of the highest jobless rates in the state, cities that will test the strength and breadth of the economic recovery.

Second hour: A new documentary from American RadioWorks, "Rising by Degrees," tells the story of Latino students working towards a college degree, and why it's so hard for them to get what they want.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - It's Science Friday! First hour:
Bacterial machines that sniff out pollution.

Second hour: Should values should be reflected in our health care system?

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - MPR's Elizabeth Stawicki looks at how a public option would work in a reformed health care system and who would be covered by it.

After all the fuss and town hall meetings, how would this thing work and who would be covered?

When Sadiya Mohamed arrived in Minneapolis five years ago, she didn't speak a word of English. The only school she'd ever been to was a Madrassa to learn the Koran. Life in Minnesota with its cold winters and ubiquitous English was a shock. Mohamed wondered, "Does it get easier?" The Youth Radio reporter answers the question this afternoon.

The author of "The Wolf at Twilight" talks about the challenges of telling stories about the native community, and what it's like to have your book blurbed by Leonard Peltier.

NPR's David Kestenbaum will report that the Fed's determination to drive interest rates down may be making things worse in other markets -- oil, for example. It's the economic equivalent of Whack-A-Mole.

Comment on this post

Fresh Eye on the Radio: What we know and what we think

Posted at 5:00 PM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

How we interpret the news stories we hear may tell us something about ourselves. But what? When you heard the initial reports of the Fort Hood shootings, what did you think? A soldier with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome? A terrorist attack? A robbery gone bad? And when you heard one of the assailants had a Muslim name, what did you think?

As humans, when we don't know the full details of a story, we fill in the blanks. Several stories in the news today provide an example. That's the subject of today's discussion on The Current with me and Mary Lucia.

Comment on this post

Help for the struggling homeowner

Posted at 3:32 PM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

Lost in the breaking news of the day was an announcement out of Fannie Mae in Washington that most certainly will be of interest to those struggling with the possibility of foreclosure, including many of the people, perhaps, whom I've profiled on the The Unemployed series.

The new program is designed for borrowers who do not qualify for or have not been able to sustain other loan-workout solutions, such as a modification. Under Deed for Lease, borrowers transfer their property to the lender by completing a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and then lease back the house at a market rate.

To participate in the program, borrowers must live in the home as their primary residence and must be released from any subordinate liens on the property. Tenants of borrowers in this circumstance may also be eligible for leases under the program. Borrowers or tenants interested in a lease must be able to document that the new market rental rate is no more than 31% of their gross income.

Some of the qualifications can be found here.

Borrowers cannot have 12 or more past-due payments on their mortgage. And they must have made at least three payments since the loan was first taken out--or since the last time it was modified. Borrowers can't be in the process of declaring bankruptcy.

People in danger of foreclosure should call their lender. If you do, please let me know how it works out for you.

And while I'm at it, I'm looking for more people who are struggling with unemployment (or unemployed but not struggling, even). Contact me here.

Comment on this post

Mythbusting H1N1: Hand sanitizer

Posted at 2:32 PM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Health

Today's H1N1 mythbuster is one that's been circulating around the News Cut Cubicle over the last day or so:

Hand sanitizer can make germs and bacteria more "super" and using it in the long run can hurt you.

True or False?

False, according to Dr. Mike Osterholm, who appeared on MPR's Midday and got a similar question from a caller. Osterholm, an expert on the flu, says he's not sure using hand sanitizer is reducing your risk of contracting H1N1, but it's helping with a lot of other things:

We often think about antibiotics that we take and because the viruses can mutate when they are exposed to these kinds of things, we get resistance; some of them that are growing in your body develop through mutation, a way to get around the antibiotic and they become the prevalent one.

What we're killing these bugs with is alcohol, which is like boiling. You don't get resistance. So we're not worried about breeding superbugs by using alcohol-based handrubs. That's a good thing. Don't worry about that.

Not only does that kill a great deal of the microbial life on your hands -- viruses and bacteria -- but in Minnesota we all know that in Minnesota, hands become more chapped. Hangnails become more common. It turns out that some of the bad bugs actually do much better on our hands and actually survive quite well when our hands are under challenge of the elements.

What happens with these alcohol-based handrubs, they not only have alcohol in them, they have emollients in it. And it turns out, we have shown in studies in health care studies, we can greatly reduce the burden of bad bugs on your hands by using these hand gels routinely. You can't use them too much.

One interesting point: Osterholm says that hands play a much less role in the transmission of the flu than previously thought.

Today, I would never tell someone to scrub down a workplace if someone had influenza there. Schools needlessly are scrubbing themselves down after cases of influenza there; that's not where the transmission is occurring.

So the key message is I'm not sure how much all this hand hygiene is really doing to reduce flu transmission, but it's sure good for a lot of other things.

Keep in mind, however, that some research a few years ago found that if the hand gel isn't at least 60-percent alcohol, it won't be very effective. Think about that before you give some to your kids:



Here's the entire show:

Comment on this post

Was Flight 188 out of radio contact for three hours? Probably not.

Posted at 12:11 PM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Northwest Airlines

Fox News is reporting that Flight 188 -- the Northwest Airlines flight that overshot its Minneapolis destination a few weeks ago -- was out of radio contact for three hours.

Sources told FOX News there were three NORDO's --- or non-contacts -- the first one occurring shortly after the plane reached cruising altitude out of San Diego. The military was not notified until after the third NORDO -- which occurred as the plane approached Minneapolis.

If the insinuation that this is one big hunk of silence is true, it undercuts the pilots' story that they were too busy on their laptops and it undercuts the assertion of others that they probably fell asleep from the sheer boredom of flying an airliner these days.

A better explanation? Fox News is wrong.

According to the report, the plane lost contact shortly after reaching cruising altitude. That occurred at 5:30 p.m. (Central Time) according to the flight log.

But at 6:18 p.m., the flight changed altitude from 35,000 feet to 37,000 feet. That couldn't and wouldn't have happened without an instruction from the ground.

In addition, the FAA letter to the pilots that revoked their licenses said this (click for a larger view):

That's a typical controller handoff and would not have occurred that way if the pilots weren't talking to him or her. And that means the flight must have been also handed off properly from controllers in Albuquerque at 6:36 p.m., about 50 minutes earlier.

The letter from the FAA piled on about as much on the two pilots as any letter ever sent to a pilot, and yet it mentioned nothing about losing radio contact earlier in the flight. And all the evidence points to the original story being correct.

At 8:16 p.m., the flight began a descent, the first indication that the pilots were back in control of the airplane and communicating. That's 52 minutes.

There may well have been periods when the pilots didn't answer a particular call. But that's not at all unusual, and it's not a story.

Comment on this post

Is Joe going to go?

Posted at 12:10 PM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Sports

Is Joe Mauer like Kevin Garnett? It's one of the questions that was impossible to ignore while watching Garnett fillet the Minnesota Timberwolves last night. Garnett, the best in the business, was paid a ton of money to stay and play basketball in flyover country. But then he tired of not winning championships because there wasn't much money left for the team to spend on other players that might accomplish that.

Last night, of course, the New York Yankees won the World Series and as Yankee catcher Jorge Posada was interviewed afterwards, it was impossible to ignore the fact that (a) he's old and (b) he's old and (c) Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins isn't.

The Twins will be rolling in cash, thanks to the new stadium that taxpayers paid for with the assurances that it would help the team remain competitive with the likes of the New York Yankees. Why we believed any team can remain competitive with the New York Yankees is a story for another day, but Minnesotans are possibly about to go through what hopeful fans in Cleveland -- the long goodbye.

Mauer's contract with the Twins ends next year. Because he's the best in the business, he'll get -- as Garnett did -- a pile of of cash to stay, unless it becomes obvious that won't leave the Twins with enough money to surround him with good players in which case -- and in consideration of his age -- he may want to go off to New York to win a World Series.

Don't think it's just people in Minnesota thinking about this. But there's hope, according to Evans Clinchy of New England Sports Network:

When dealing with an unprecedented, unparalleled talent like Mauer, the best strategy is to lock him down long-term, as soon as possible, no matter what the price. Mauer might cost the Twins a lot now, but it'll cost them even more to lose him to Boston or New York. The open market is a scary proposition.

Unless the Twins have a death wish, re-signing Mauer should be a top priority for the Twins' front office this offseason. And according to MLB.com's Twins beat writer Kelly Thesier, it is.

Thesier writes that "the club is committed to getting a deal in place with Mauer," and that "the key will be structuring the deal so that they can continue to add talent around Mauer in the coming seasons to keep the club competitive, as he's made it clear that winning is high on his priority list."

If a deal can't be reached, Joe may never play in the House That Joe Built. Baseball teams are now trading their free agents a full year before their contracts expire.

Comment on this post

Hip-hop Hamilton

Posted at 11:10 AM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)

This could actually be a valuable tool for America's frustrated high school history teachers. But I'm guessing it's not.

I'm looking forward to Cash for Clunkers: The Musical.

(h/t: Kai Ryssdal)

Comment on this post

Five at 8 - 11/5/09: No time for Blom

Posted at 7:28 AM on November 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

1) What would get 1,224 people to join a Facebook "event?" Practically anything but this one is serious. In Duluth, the people threatened a boycott of advertisers of KBJR TV if it aired an interview with Donald Blom, the man who abducted and killed Katie Poirier from a Moose Lake convenience store more than 10 years ago. It worked. Late yesterday the station's news anchor, Michelle Lee, sent an e-mail to an organizer saying the story was yanked:

"We never intended to broadcast the interviews from Donald Blom or give a platform for his rants. Our goal was to inform the Northland about his court petition to be returned to Minnesota. Out of respect to the Poirier family our story has been pulled and I will be putting this into context for our viewers and apologize to the Poiriers tonight at ten."

There's an ethical decision-making example here, and it's not an easy one. If you think you've got news, when do you withhold it out of deference to a family? Who controls the "off" button on the TV?

Blom, by the way, is being held in a high-security prison in Pennsylvania, and wants to be moved closer to home. (h/t: JP Rennquist)

2) The fight in the Washington Post newsroom last week has got journo circles all atwitter about the 'good old days' when reporters roamed the earth cold-cocking each other, or at least it seems that way the way they tell it.

But at least it's led to everyone telling their favorite newsroom fight story. Here's one from former NPR -- NPR! -- ombudsman Jeffrey Dworkin.

At NPR the level of civility was much greater. I only witnessed one serious confrontation when a very nice woman in the support staff of the news department developed a serious case of hatred for her supervisor. Nothing would reconcile them.

It ended one day when the lady in question walked in to her supervisor's office and showed her a .357 magnum in her purse. The gun remained in the purse and no shots were fired, thankfully. But I heard a scream, went into the office, saw the gun and called security. She was escorted off the premises in about 5 minutes.

I believe she found another job working in some government department on the other side of Washington, DC.

Confessional: I threw a sleeve of Ritz crackers at Mark Zdechlik once. But I was just kidding. It fell short, struck the cubicle wall of reporter Catherine Winter and exploded -- the first Ritz Cracker Stun Grenade.

Surely there are fistfight stories in other businesses.

3) A company in Japan has invented glasses that will translate foreign languages. Originally, the BBC, the glasses were going to be a tool for salespeople. A customer's records could be beamed into their eyes. They'll cost about $100,000. Good luck getting reimbursed from your FLEX account.

More tech: Google today is unveiling a dashboard today which will review how much information about you the behemoth is collecting.

Even more tech: The Motorola Droid debuts. The best smart phone on the market? No.

4) Go ask Alice. From American Public Media's "The Story."

Carolyn Schapper was a 30-something Army sergeant serving in Iraq, and the only woman in a unit full of men in their teens and 20s. One day her convoy was approached by an Iraqi boy selling bunnies. Carolyn tried to dissuade one of her fellow soldiers from buying one, but Carolyn was soon reluctantly holding a white rabbit on her lap as the convoy headed back inside the wire.

The bunny was a hit as soon as it arrived at the base - the soldiers called it Combat Infantry Bunny, or CIB, for short. Soon it became Carolyn's job to care for CIB. And before long she realized the bunny was saving her from her loneliness and isolation. Carolyn talks with Dick Gordon about how her unlikely relationship with a rabbit changed her experience of the war.

Find the bunny:

5) What's involved in being a great orchestra conductor? You just get up there and wave your arms around, right? The musicians are busy looking at their music, aren't they?

Perhaps not. (h/t: Open Culture)

Compare:

TODAY'S QUESTION

Last month the FBI made arrests in a fraud case that allegedly involved tricking people into revealing their Internet passwords or other information. How careful are you to protect your identity online?

WHAT WE'RE WORKING ON

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - First hour: John Hope Bryant rose from a childhood of poverty to become a social entrepreneur and an advocate for financial literacy. In a new book, he argues that the best type of leadership is based not on fear, but on love.

Second hour: George Halvorson, Chair and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. His new book is "Health Care Will Not Reform Itself."

Midday (11 a.m. -1 p.m.) - First hour: Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, answers questions about the H1N1 flu.

Second hour: Harvey Cox, Jr., Baptist minister and retired Harvard University professor, speaks live at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis. Cox is the author of the new book, "The Future of Faith."

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - First hour: Talking race. Has it changed in the last year?

Second hour: In case you didn't get enough of the non-stop pontificating in the wake of Tuesday's elections of relatively few significant races, here's another hour of it.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - State officials are scrambling to respond to new CDC guidelines that say health care workers treating H1N1 patients need to use protective respiratory masks. Minnesota's supply of the masks is running out and groups are fighting over how the remaining devices will be distributed and what will be used in their absence. MPR's Rupa Shenoy will have that story.

MPR's Elizabeth Baier has a profile of the violin repair program at Minnesota State College - Southeast Technical in Red Wing. It's the only program of its kind in the country. In it, students learn about tools, wood, trees and basic maintenance and repair for the whole string family.

We'll have another episode in our series stress-testing the economic recovery. This afternoon the spotlight falls on Brainerd., the area that once boomed with lake home construction. And manufacturing companies offered some good paying jobs. But both of those industries have taken major employment hits. Now there may be signs of a recovery, but it depends on whom you ask. Employers are growing more confident even as workers see no end in sight to tough times.

NPR will have and entire hour analyzing the war in Afghanistan.

NPR's Adam Hochberg will profile one of Rep. Jim Oberstar's favorite programs -- the Essential Air Service program, in which the government funnels millions to airlines to run mostly-empty planes to middle-of-nowhere airports.

Comment on this post