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<title>WGTE Public Media : Deadline now l 2011 july aug sept</title>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Lucas County Children Services</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=10209</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, September 30, 2011Dean Sparks is this week's guest. Mr. Sparks has been executive director for Lucas County Children Services for 14 years. His organization is charged with leading the community in the protection of children at risk. How difficult is that to do in an era of less money and more need? On the web: www.co.lucas.oh.usHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:The philosopher Albert Camus once said, €Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.
€And if you don€t help us, who else in the world can?€
More than thirty years ago, as a young reporter at The Blade, I covered the trial of two men who were charged with murdering a five-year-old Toledo boy named Matthew Catlett.
One of them was a boyfriend of Matthew€s mother, who apparently was more worried about losing her man than protecting her son. They beat and kicked and tortured him till he was finally rushed to the hospital dying. The killers were convicted.
I don€t know whether anyone remembers Matthew Catlett, who I never met in life, and only saw on an autopsy table.
But I will never forget him. And I€ll never stop thinking that whatever else we do, we need to make public policy decisions that will prevent as many tortured children as humanly possible.
That€s what Lucas County Children Services is trying to do -- and a lot more than that besides. They try to find forever homes and foster homes; try to help people become better parents.
That€s not work the newspapers and the bloggers write about every day. It does, however, probably happen to be the most important work there is. In Michigan, foster care issues mattered so much to State Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan that she left the court to take an appointment overseeing social welfare agencies.
She, by the way, is a conservative Republican -- but one who recognizes the importance of children. Yet there are other politicians who think that cutting children€s services is an appropriate response to times of economic hardship. Michigan is also about to permanently throw almost thirty thousand children off the welfare rolls because their parents have been getting assistance for four or more years.
I think depriving children makes less sense than eating your seed corn when you run out of food in the winter.
Today€s children are the seeds of the society we adults want to grow old in. If we neglect them, it€s not just their peril, but our own.
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	<pubDate>Tue, 4 Oct 2011 08:49:58 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Claudia Annoni and Bob Vasquez</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=10033</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, September 9, 2011Deadline Now explores local issues that affect our region, with a  special focus this week on the Latino community. Host Jack Lessenberry's  special guests include Robert Vasquez, President of the Toledo Public  School Board of Education, and Claudia Annoni, Associate Editor of La  Prensa. Until recently, Ms. Annoni was the interim director of Adelante  Latino Resource Center.
On the web: www.tps.orgOn the web: www.laprensatoledo.comHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:Several years ago, the hugely popular and highly realistic television show The West Wing ended its run with the election of a Hispanic American President of the United States.
That may happen in our lifetimes. Indeed, I would have guessed we€d have a Hispanic president before a black one.
Having more diversity in the White House would be nice. But what is far more important is that all of us appreciate the degree to which Latino Americans have helped shape and continue to shape our culture and our nation. Last week I had a long interview with Rick Snyder, the newly elected governor of Michigan.
He is a self-made multi-millionaire who earned three college degrees before he was twenty-four. But when I asked him if he had any regrets in life, he said only two. He wishes he had lived abroad for a while, and he wishes that he had become fluent in Spanish.
Contrast that with what a college advisor told me back in 1970. Learn French, German or Russian, he said. Spanish isn€t important.
That was wrong even then, and it is even more wrong today. What€s even more wrong, however, is to lump all people of Hispanic origin together. Jennifer Aniston and an illiterate farm mechanic I once knew in Tennessee both have North European genes.
They also have absolutely nothing in common. Hispanic Americans include migrant workers whose parents came from Mexico, and blonde, blue-eyed Cuban aristocrats. The former tend to vote Democratic; the latter, Republican.
But not always.
Today, one of the most vibrant parts of Detroit is the southwest corridor, which has become home to a fast-growing mainly Mexican-American population. In Toledo, while the overall population declined during the last ten years, Hispanic population increased dramatically.
Today, there are more than twenty thousand Hispanic Toledoans, with more in the suburbs. They are adding immeasurably to the scene. That doesn€t mean that they don€t have problems to overcome, some as a result of discrimination, and some not. Addressing some of those problems are what the private social welfare group Adelante is all about.
My guess is that within a few generations, the terms Latino and Hispanic-Americans will be regarded as out of date.
Instead, we€ll have people with a lot of colors and backgrounds, some of whom have Spanish-sounding surnames, and some who don€t. And if we€re lucky, they will have all helped create a better economy and society than we are experiencing today.]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Wed, 7 Sep 2011 19:00:04 EST</pubDate>
	<guid><![CDATA[http://www.wgte.org/wgte/watch/item.asp?item_id=10033]]></guid>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Rail Travel</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=10037</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, September 2, 2011Where is passenger rail transportation headed in Ohio and Michigan? When and how will high speed rail become a viable option in the Great Lakes States?Ken Prendergast, Executive Director for All Aboard Ohio!, and Timothy Hoeffner, Administrator for Michigan's Office of High Speed Rail and Innovative Project Advancement, are this week's guests.On the web: www.allaboardohio.orgOn the web: www.michigan.gov/mdotHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this week's edition of Deadline Now:There are lots of people who have romantic visions of cross-country travel by train. There are others who think commuting by rail would be financially sound and good for the environment as well.
And indeed, it would be.
But there are just a few problems. First, the cost of building and maintaining the system, which would be in figures that sound astronomical. The next problem is related to the first.
Would we really use high speed rail enough to make it worthwhile? Ten years ago, the answer was almost certainly no. We€d gotten used to the speed of travel by air and the convenience of driving, and stopping wherever we want to.
Since then, however, a number of things have happened. Airline travel is no longer especially convenient, or fun. And the cost of gas is making traveling by car more and more difficult.
Plus, driving is often frustrating, stressful and just plain exhausting. You can€t surf the net or read a good book while driving, not without taking your life into your hands.
The governor of Ohio doesn€t believe high speed rail will ever make economic sense for the state. That€s why he rejected federal rapid transit money and canceled the project when he took office earlier this year. He doesn€t think it has a future.
My guess, however, is that any governor of Ohio would have felt much the same way about building roads for automobile travel a century ago. Politicians are rare indeed who can see, much less plan, for the long-term future.
My own feeling, based on a combination of studies, my own prejudices and other factors, is that high-speed rail does make enormous sense. In June, I took a fast train from London, England to Edinburgh, Scotland, and it was marvelous.
I could read, doze, or work on my computer. It was cheaper than air travel without the security nightmare.However, I am less optimistic about so-called local light-rail schemes. They may have made sense when everyone went to work in one location at the same time every day and stayed there.
But for many of us, that is no longer the case, and the train won€t stop at doggie day care. Improved and expanded local bus service may make more sense. I may be wrong about any particular transportation option. But what I do know is that the present system of everyone going everywhere all the time in a gasoline-burning private car can€t last. If we prepare for the future now, it will be cheaper and less traumatic when it actually arrives. 
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	<pubDate>Wed, 7 Sep 2011 19:00:06 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Regional Economic Development</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9979</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, August 26, 2011Paul L. Toth Jr., Executive Director and CEO of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, and Ford Weber, President &amp; CEO of the Lucas County Improvement Corporation (LCIC) are this week's special guests.Founded in 1955, the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority was the first port authority in Ohio. Today, the Port Authority focuses on three initiatives -- Maritime, Aviation and Development.The LCIC is a private, non-profit corporation working to retain, attract and grow businesses; align workforce development with career opportunities; and facilitate the development of brownfields and other vacant and under-used properties.On the web: www.toledoportauthority.orgOn the web: www.lcicoh.comHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:Back in the old days, we tended to see transportation issues as if they were separated into rigidly defined compartments or silos. There were railroad issues and water issues and road issues.
Similarly we saw manufacturing and development much the same way. There were blue-collar concerns and white-collar concerns. There were steel industry problems, and problems that affected grain, and problems that affected the auto industry.
Yet that age is ending, just as the era has ended where everyone went to work every day at the same time in the samefactory or other building somewhere, usually downtown.
These days, it€s no longer so much a matter of management versus union or this industry versus that, but of revitalizing the Toledo area. We have to become competitive, if we are to regain our old prosperity, and we are all in this together. It€s no longer a matter of Ford vs. GM or Toledo vs. Detroit or Cleveland, but one of our region trying to be economically competitive with the rest of the nation.
And in many areas, the rest of the world. That€s what the port authority, the Lucas County Improvement Corporation, and the Regional Growth Partnership are trying to do these days.
Toledo has problems, and legacies of the past to overcome. Those include brownfields and the remains of an outmoded manufacturing infrastructure, and alsoto some extent, old ways of thinking and a sometimes defeatist mentality.
But we also have a lot going for us.
Thirty years ago, in his book The Great Lakes States of America, author Neal Peirce observed that since the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a boy could actually go to Toledo to run away to sea, although it was doubtful whether any did.
What is true is that Toledo€s proximity to both the Great Lakes and the oceans, plus freeway and rail, make our region potentially highly competitive. Having a single, highly experienced port authority overseeing air and water transportation is a major plus as well.
There€s a general agreement that multimodal or intermodal transportation is the coming thing, and an intense competition is now under way to determine which area will be the regional hub. Detroit area planners are hoping for a site between Willow Run and Detroit Metropolitan airports. But they lack some things Toledo has.
If we manage sufficient regional cooperation and coordination, Toledo just might surprise a lot of people.]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:00:03 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Autism</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9930</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, August 19, 2011Deadline Now takes an in-depth look at Autism  and finds out what resources are  available here in the WGTE viewing  area. Guests include Catina Harding,  MSW, Executive Director of the  Great Lakes Collaborative for Autism,  Linell Weinberg, Executive  Director for the Autism Society of Northwest  Ohio, and Kelly Elton,  Community Services Director at Bittersweet Farms.On the web: www.greatlakesautism.orgOn the web: www.asno.orgOn the web: www.bittersweetfarms.orgHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:A few years ago, a friend of mine was running for a judgeship in northern Michigan, when one day she got devastating news. Her young son had just been diagnosed with autism.
She didn€t know what to do. Should she give up her dream of becoming a judge? Would she and her husband and other children be able to have anything resembling a normal life?
After some deliberation, she decided to go ahead with the race. She won, and the last time I talked to her, she told me that she thought having a child with autism made her a better person, and perhaps a better jurist as well. We€ve come a long way from the days when people thought the autistic were possessed by demons and ought to be burned at the stake. Even in my childhood, the autistic were often institutionalized, kept in back rooms or shunned.
We€ve come a long way since then. Today, some members of the community -- those we refer to as the €high-functioning autistic€ have become spokesmen for those like themselves. Temple Grandin, perhaps the most famous of these, has earned a PhD, become a best-selling author and a leading advocate for the animal welfare movement. And when asked if she would like to be cured of autism, she says emphatically no, adding €autism is part of who I am.€
But she admits she is unable to form emotional relationships. And few of the autistic are able to function as well as Temple Grandin does. Most of those whose family members are autistic would probably choose to have them what we consider €normal.€
Normal, or at least better able to function in our world. There€s a lot that science needs to learn yet about autism, how it is caused; and what if anything can be done to cure it, if that€s the right word. We also need to explore and understand ways in which we can better live with autism, and help those with the disorder to lead happier and more fulfilling and productive lives. Our guests tonight are spending their professional lives doing just that.]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:00:02 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Tourism Industry in Ohio and Michigan</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9831</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, July 29, 2011Summer means memorable vacations and daytrips in both the Buckeye and Wolverine states. How important is travel and tourism to the economies of both states? What's new for travelers this year? Amir Eylon, State Tourism Director for Ohio, and George Zimmermann, Director of Travel Michigan, bring host Jack Lessenberry up to date.On the web: www.DiscoverOhio.comOn the web: www.Michigan.orgHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:Thirty years ago, few people in Ohio took tourism very seriously as an important part of the economic mix, and for that matter, not many people in Michigan did either. Michigan always had a head start as a tourism destination, thanks to the fact that both peninsulas are surrounded by water and northern Michigan has long been a place rich people went to stay cool in the summertime.Ohio had rich and varied regions, including an almost southern feel in Cincinnati and double the number of major league baseball and football teams. But nobody in 1970, say, saw tourism as a major economic engine, though there were some profits to be made from folks hunting deer in the fall. Real money came from manufacturing, back then. Cars in Michigan; car parts and components and steel and Jeeps in Ohio. Well, what a difference a few years make.Today, good paying manufacturing jobs are few and far between -- especially in the auto industry. In Michigan, more than ninety percent of all the General Motors blue collar jobs that existed back in 1979 are gone now, and they are never coming back.Ohio€s economy is more diverse, but there are plainly parts of Youngstown and Cleveland, even Toledo, which have been ravaged by the automotive recession. Both states have governments and people who need more money flowing in, need it almost desperately.So our states have begun to aggressively market tourism as a source of revenue, and it seems to be paying off. Tourism has become a multi-billion dollar business for both Ohio and Michigan.Both states have more to do, however, to market themselves to a national audience. Ohio has to get the word out that there is more to the state than sports teams, Cedar Point, and the Rock n€ Roll Hall of Fame. Michigan has to overcome the national image of a state whose major city is a corrupt landscape of ruins inhabited by killers.The good news is that our guests tonight have done a lot already to raise the image of both our states in the nation€s eyes. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.wgte.org/wgte/store/cart_add.asp?item_id=9831">Purchase</a>]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:00:03 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Great Lakes Issues</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9828</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, July 22, 2011Jack Lessenberry digs into a variety of issues related to the Great Lakes and its watersheds with Kenneth Kilbert, Director of the University of Toledo College of Law's Legal Institute of the Great Lakes, Keith Kompoltwicz, Meteorologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Steve Pollick, Outdoors Editor for The Blade.Here are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:If we do anything that permanently damages or destroys any of the Great Lakes, life as we€ve known it will end forever in this part of the world. That€s not an overstatement, just a matter of fact.The Great Lakes are the largest body of fresh water in the world. They contain ninety percent of North America€s fresh water supply, and they are why large populations are concentrated here.Over the past century and a half, we have sadly mistreated the lakes. We€ve polluted them and used them as a toilet. We€ve stirred up things with dredging, and filled their waters with invasive species.We blindly assumed they were so vast that none of this could possibly make a serious dent in them, that they€d always regenerate themselves. Well, there is no longer any excuse for thinking that.Anyone who thinks there€s no threat to Lake Erie from unlimited water withdrawals should go to Kazakhstan, and study the Aral Sea. Fifty years ago, this was a giant freshwater lake, teeming with fish, three times the size of Lake Erie. But in the decades since, it has been utterly destroyed. Ninety percent of the water is gone, and abandoned fishing vessels lie scattered on a polluted and abandoned lake bed. The local economy has been destroyed and there are monumental health problems. The causes of this disaster are complex, but the biggest seems to be that vast amounts of water were pumped out by first, the Soviet, then the Kazakh governments on a misguided attempt to irrigate cotton fields.Agriculture chemical pollution runoffs also contributed to first killing the fish and then poisoning the land, in a manner similar to the way phosphorous has affected Lake Erie. The Kazakh government is now attempting to restore the lake, but the outlook isn€t hopeful.We never want to find out what it would be like if we allowed that to happen to Lake Erie -- or to risk sport and commercial fishing being destroyed by hundred-pound Asian bighead carp. This may sound trite, but when it comes to anything environmental, it might be a good idea to keep in mind the immortal words of the songwriter Joni Mitchell, who observed €Don€t it always seem to go that you don€t know what you€ve got till its gone.€ That€s especially true when you can never get it back. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.wgte.org/wgte/store/cart_add.asp?item_id=9828">Purchase</a>]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:00:03 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Toledo Museum of Art</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9780</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, July 15 at 8:30 p.m.Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) Director Brian Kennedy and Kelly Garrow, Director of Communications for the Museum, join host Jack Lessenberry to share with viewers what's new at the TMA, how the Museum faces economic challenges, and much more.On the web: www.toledomuseum.orgHere are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:For years, I€ve heard people who are new to the Toledo area tell me they were surprised by three things. They tell me the newspaper is better than they€d expect for a city this size. They are impressed by the public library system. But most of all, many seem blown away by the Toledo Museum of Art. Not only by the size of its collections, but their quality. Some are incredulous that this museum is in a mid-sized city in the Midwest.Well, it was started by the wealth and vision of one couple, Florence and Edward Drummond Libbey, who made the founding gift. But many others have given since. There was a tradition in past centuries that those who could afford to support the arts did so. As a result, others who made fortunes in industry helped endow the museum. Their generosity has enabled the Toledo Museum of Art to be always open free of charge to the public.Yet times are changing. The manufacturing industries that made Toledo prosper have declined, as has the population of the city itself. There are fewer great fortunes. And, there is perhaps less of a tradition that supporting the fine arts is something the fortunate should automatically do as a matter of course.Add to all that the rise of the internet, and it is clear that the Toledo Museum of Art and director Brian Kennedy have more than enough challenges to stay vigorous and relevant as we move deeper into the twenty-first century. The good news is that€s what seems to be happening. The museum has put three hundred of its masterworks on line. The hope is that this won€t be something viewers do instead of coming to the galleries. Instead, the goal is partly to whet their appetite, so online viewers will come downtown and see some of the other thirty thousand pieces in the museum€s collections.If Toledo does succeed at reinventing itself in the post-automotive era, it will be partly because of this immense cultural jewel in our midst. There are those who think that museums like this are a frill in a city desperate for new jobs. But they should take note of something the museum€s director, Brian Kennedy, wrote last fall. He said, responding to a statement that science and math are more important, that the arts €stimulate the creativity and imagination that feel exploration and discovery. Therefore, THEY are the fuel that drives the economic engine.€Works for me. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.wgte.org/wgte/store/cart_add.asp?item_id=9780">Purchase</a>]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:00:02 EST</pubDate>
	<guid><![CDATA[http://www.wgte.org/wgte/watch/item.asp?item_id=9780]]></guid>
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	<title>Deadline Now: Our Nation's Obesity Crisis</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9775</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, July 8, 2011Obesity rates are climbing at alarming numbers in the United States. Besides harming one's health, obesity affects virtually all aspects of our society and economy.Lucas County Health Commissioner Dr. David Grossman and Stephanie Cihon, leader of ProMedica's obesity prevention initiative and hunger free community project, are Jack Lessenberry's guests this week.Here are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:There are some issues people get too worked up about. But I don€t think we are worried enough about the obesity epidemic, especially among children. A few years ago, I was doing a project on something that happened in Detroit during World War II.As I looked at photographs and newsreel footage, it struck me that the people were different somehow, in ways that had nothing to do with their clothing. Suddenly, it struck me. They were almost all thin. Incidentally, I was considered a fat kid, and didn€t grow out of it till I went away to college. But by today€s standards, at my worst I would have been fairly unremarkable.The degree of obesity among children today is something close to horrifying. Last weekend, I ran into a grocery store, and virtually every person in the store was heavily overweight.Now, if you think that I could stand to drop ten pounds out of my middle, you are right. But I am middle-aged, and I am talking about young people, even pre-teens, who were fifty or seventy or maybe even a hundred pounds overweight.Our guests tonight know far more about why this has happened than I do. I think that junk food and video games have something to do with it. But I do know we as a society aren€t doing nearly enough about it. The fact that soda pop is sold in vending machines in elementary and high schools is outrageous for many reasons. Not only does this promote obesity, it makes no sense from a nutritional or dental standpoint. The recession has had an effect, too.As George Orwell wrote back in the 1930s, those who aren€t well off are less able and have less psychological incentive to prepare nutritious meals. It is possible to misuse statistics.But you can easily read, online, the federal Centers for Disease Control€s detailed figures for the obesity epidemic. There is clear evidence that things have continued to get worse at a frightening rate.If this doesn€t change soon, there is ample evidence that obesity could be a far greater threat to our collective health, prosperity and security that al-Qaeda ever could be. ]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:00:04 EST</pubDate>
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	<title>Deadline Now: China Invests in Toledo</title>
	<link>http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=9724</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Friday, July 1 at 8:30 p.m.With the Chinese firm Dashing Pacific's purchase of 69 acres of  Toledo's east-side Marina District, Deadline Now explores what foreign  investments mean for our region.
This week's guests are Scott  Prephan, CEO of Prephan Enterprises in Perrysburg, Toledo City  Councilman Tom Waniewski (R-Fifth District) and education and business  consultant Tom Watkins.Here are Jack Lessenberry's Final Thoughts for this edition of Deadline Now:For someone my age -- 59 -- the fact that the People€s Republic of China has become a world economic superpower is still somewhere between amazing, astonishing and hard to believe. When I was in my twenties, China was a land of subsistence agriculture and fanatic radical communism. Hordes of €Red Guards€ humiliated and tortured intellectuals, murdering some and sending doctors and professors to work spreading manure.The United States had no diplomatic relations with China, and officially even denied its right to exist. That started to change within one or two years after Chairman Mao died in 1976. Today, China has the second largest and the fastest growing major economy in the world.When I was growing up, we worried about the possibility of Communist China starting a nuclear war. Nobody ever dreamed of a scenario in which our government ended up borrowing more than a trillion dollars from China in order to sustain our lifestyle.Nobody ever saw a day when General Motors would sell more Buicks in China than in the United States.But those things in fact happened. Nobody in Toledo ever imagined Chinese firms buying land and investing in our city. But that too is happening, and the mayor and many others are working hard to attract even more Chinese business and investment.Yet there is cause for some uneasiness. China may look and behave like a modern capitalist country. But the government is still officially Communist, and in reality, a dictatorship.Political opposition is not tolerated, and human rights are fundamentally non-existent. Things haven€t appeared to change since the Chinese military slaughtered thousands of pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square 22 years ago.The world today really is a global village, and turning our back on the world€s fastest-growing economy is no longer possible, or desirable. But Toledoans might be well advised to approach any business dealings with China with eyes wide open. We perhaps should also remember what Ronald Reagan said was his guide to dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev€s reforming Soviet Union back in the 1980s: Trust, but verify. ]]></description>
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	<pubDate>Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:00:03 EST</pubDate>
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