2019
August
19
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 19, 2019
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Amelia Newcomb
Senior editor

Welcome to your Monitor Daily. Today’s stories explore Pete Buttigieg‘s brand of folksy intellectualism, a proactive approach to wildfire prevention, the struggle for peace in Ukraine, a political collision over “granny flats,” and an artistic revival of a traditional Islamic document.

But first, consider the old adage: Look at the big picture. When you do, the results can sometimes be astonishing.

Take Boston, where kids are soon headed back to school. Two years ago, the school system led the nation in costs per pupil for the 25,000 who qualify for bus transportation. Children were often late, despite the annual devotion of about 10 people for a solid month to mapping each school’s bus routes.

Officials decided they needed to look at things differently. So, as Route Fifty reports, they issued a challenge to the Boston community: make it more efficient and cheaper, while still addressing everything from students’ mobility needs to different school start times to very narrow roads.

Two Ph.D. candidates at MIT stepped up, devoting hundreds of hours to the “bold and unusual” request. And their resulting algorithm literally changed the perspective, swapping a focus from each school’s individual routing needs to a more fluid routing system. Routes became 20% more efficient. That meant 50 fewer buses, 1 million fewer miles of driving, 20,000 fewer pounds of CO2 emissions daily, and $5 million more for classrooms. Bonus: Walking and riding times didn’t increase.

There’s another old adage: It takes a village to raise a child. In this case, the village grew out of a commitment to “reinvest in schools and improve the student experience.” And the kids were the winners.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor
Pete Buttigieg addresses a crowd of about 500 in Burlington, Iowa, on Aug. 14, 2019. Burlington, which manufactures everything from ammunition and spark plugs to chocolate chip cookies, is part of a blue-collar belt of counties along the Mississippi River that supported Barack Obama but flipped to Donald Trump in 2016.

In southeastern Iowa, Pete Buttigieg’s combination of smarts and folksiness is resonating, with many voters saying they want a presidential candidate who will “look out for the common man.”

California's sharp shift in combating the threats of drought and fire is also serving to highlight emerging common ground between forest conservationists and the timber industry.

Wishing for peace won’t end a war. Witness eastern Ukraine, where locals in opposing camps say they want peace, but show little inclination to soften views that help stifle its emergence.

Karen Norris/Staff

The expansion of “granny flats” can produce a political test of clashing values. More apartments can mean lower housing costs – but also a denser population, and neighborhood change.

Watch

One woman’s quest: Use art to bring focus to marriage

This video story looks at the universal uplift of art. When design that bolsters cultural traditions is lovingly applied to a marriage contract, the terms can take on extra meaning. 


The Monitor's View

AP
Visitors climb staircases at the "Vessel," a new structure in the Hudson Yards Public Square business development in New York.

The top executives of nearly 200 leading companies in the U.S. issued a statement Monday that tries to redefine progress in the business world. Instead of a sole focus on maximizing profits and share prices, stated the influential Business Roundtable, corporations must now deliver value to a range of constituencies, such as employees, local communities, and society writ large, not just the owners who have risked their money.

“Each of our stakeholders is essential,” said the statement. The Roundtable also proposed a broad vision of protecting the environment, investing in workers, and dealing ethically with suppliers.

In other words, instead of corporations being merely value driven – as in the legal obligation for financial returns to investors – they must also be values driven, for example in being accountable for their actions to a wider range of interests. The twin goals reflect a sophisticated balancing of what are often seen as competing forces.

This is not the first time the Roundtable has changed its view on the purpose of a corporation. And it may not be the last. Almost any company must continually seek ways to measure success against the shifting demands and rising expectations of those inside and outside the firm. One sign of a recent shift: A July survey for Fortune magazine found nearly two-thirds of Americans say a company’s “primary purpose” should include “making the world better.”

Almost as a rule, progress entails frequent improvements in the statistical yardsticks for determining progress. The search itself suggests a motive to forge a consensus on ways to better serve others as well as one’s own interests.

At the global level, the definition of progress has been in rapid churn over recent decades. One reason is a general desire to move beyond a common measure of a nation’s success: growth in gross domestic product. That single statistic, first devised in 1941, is seen as too narrow. Both governments and academics have struggled to go beyond merely measuring material progress and prosperity.

The United Nations has devised a “human development index.” In 2009, France gathered top thinkers to come up with statistical tools for calculating social goals, such as income equality and happiness. The European Union has proposed “sustainable development indicators.” The club of wealthy nations known as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has an ongoing project to measure “the progress of societies.”

The search continues to put numbers on concepts such as “well-being,” “sustainable development,” or “scientific advancement.” Yet the point is not so much to find the holy grail of one or more numbers. The pursuit itself is to elevate the idea of progress for all. Like today’s corporations, the vision just needs to be expanded to include everyone.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

For one special education teacher, what she’d learned about the real nature of God and His children empowered her to respond to challenges in the classroom with patience, compassion, and calm.


A message of love

Peter Nicholls/Reuters
A new footbridge lets visitors access Tintagel Castle in England the way the medieval residents used to. Located in Cornwall, Tintagel is linked to the legend of King Arthur. In the Middle Ages, residents walked from one side to the other using a narrow land bridge. The crossing disappeared after the 14th century, leaving the castle divided by a chasm.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for starting your week with us. Come back tomorrow, when global correspondent Peter Ford will introduce us to the all-female Uganda Women Birders group. They bring a special sensibility to their work with tourists – and are finding a sense of independence for themselves.

More issues

2019
August
19
Monday

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