Jim B., from T-Mobile’s soon-to-be-closed call center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, captured our feelings perfectly: “Who in the world is okay with this?”

T-Mobile chose to close these call centers, but they have another option. Instead of routing calls from U.S. customers to overseas call centers, they could keep calls from U.S. customers in the U.S. and keep the call centers open. T-Mobile has shifted 6,000 customer service jobs offshore to countries like Honduras and the Philippines.

The call centers won’t shut down until June, so we have time to convince T-Mobile executives that they’ve made a mistake.

T-Mobile’s decision is a double whammy. In four of the seven communities where centers are slated to close, the company has received millions in economic development subsidies. Now the jobs are leaving and taxpayers have nothing to show for their investment.

Each job lost and each taxpayer dollar wasted means more working families facing an uncertain future. Jon B. from the soon-to-be-closed call center in Frisco, Texas, put it simply:

“Loyalty was to stay with T-Mobile during the [proposed AT&T] buyout even though management lost their focus on what was important. Betrayal is when T-Mobile put price tags on our heads and decided that cutting our jobs within the United States was better than bringing the jobs back home.”
Real people will lose their jobs on June 22, from Redmond, Oregon, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Are you okay with that? Is Philipp Humm?

Smart companies work together with their employees to produce higher quality service. They don’t just cut the workforce in a blind attempt to lower costs.

Send T-Mobile’s CEO a message today, and tell him to reverse the decision to cut the jobs of hard-working T-Mobile workers and keep the call centers open.

In Unity,

Beth Allen
Online Communications Director

This happens everyday where I’m from so why is it that when it happens to someone black with some money it’s unbelievable and highlighted?

They also voted overwhelmingly to return republicans to state offices. All of the governors they put into state offices have signed some kind of bill to discriminate against women now Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has signed a bill into law to remove a woman’s right to ask for equal pay.

The majority of american white women are just plain stupid. This has been true from the beginning and it is still as true today. Many white women will rush to the defensive and claim that it is not true that they are dumb.

But check the facts. They elected white men into office in superior numbers who are now electing to enact draconian laws aimed at taking back all the advances they have gained from the activism of OTW women.

Maybe STUPID is the better term.

Debra

Circumcision, of all things, has been in the news of late. In October, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that the need for circumcision “revision” surgery among infant boys had increased by more than 100% between 2004 and 2009.

And back in June, a group of activists who call themselves “intactivists” petitioned a San Francisco court to enact a new law that would make the circumcision of males under the age of 18 a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to one year in jail. (It never came to a vote because a judge nixed the idea.)

Well, this may be an interesting way to get a conversation going if you are at a boring dinner party over the holiday season — but is there something behind these stories that we should know about?

I was surprised by this latest kerfuffle over circumcision, because in my years of reporting on health news, I’ve seen more research confirming the safety and benefits of circumcision than otherwise.

WHY THE TREND?

Jewish and Muslim males are virtually always circumcised in infancy for religious reasons, but among the rest of Americans, the popularity of the procedure — which involves cutting off the foreskin of the penis — has ebbed and flowed over the years.

The proportion of circumcised American male infants rose to about 90% in the 1970s, but since then it has declined to about 55% as of 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Many parents have questioned whether this procedure is necessary, and the American Academy of Pediatrics continues to take a neutral position as to whether or not it is advisable.

Is circumcision more dangerous than we had realized? Are there good reasons to be — or not to be — circumcised? What are the implications of male circumcision for women — is there any difference, in terms of health and/or satisfaction, between having sex with a man who is circumcised and one who isn’t?

I sat down with one of the nation’s leaders in men’s health, Harry Fisch, MD, a urologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City and author of Size Matters:

The Hard Facts About Male Sexuality That Every Woman Should Know, to get some expert insights into what men — and the women who love them — should know about this apparently still controversial procedure.

WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS

I was interested to hear that Dr. Fisch himself used to believe that circumcision was not medically advisable. His reasoning: Like any procedure, circumcision has risks and — he thought — no apparent health benefits.

But now he feels otherwise. He said that evidence-based research now demonstrates clear and compelling medical benefits throughout life — not only for men, but also for the women who are their sexual partners…

• For men, it decreases the risk of acquiring HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, by as much as 50%, but it is not clear whether or not it reduces transmission of HIV to a partner.

• It reduces the risk among men and women of transmitting and acquiring genital herpes by about 28% and human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cervical cancer in women and penile cancer in men, by 35%.

• It decreases infant boys’ risk of getting urinary tract infections in the first year of life from one in 100 to one in 1,000. UTIs should be avoided in infancy because in 10% to 30% of cases they scar kidneys for life, and UTIs can lead to major health problems such as hypertension and chronic renal failure.

Dr. Fisch said that it’s not entirely clear how circumcision provides all of these health protections, but since the foreskin leaves a warm, moist pouch between the inside of the foreskin and the head of the penis, disease-causing microbes can multiply there.

And because the inner surface of the foreskin is especially permeable, said Dr. Fisch, it may facilitate entry of microbes into the male’s body.

Removing the foreskin also makes genital hygiene easier and therefore allows men to avoid a wide variety of foreskin-related health problems, such as infections and phimosis, a condition that’s often triggered by an infection in which the foreskin becomes tightly stretched around the head of the penis and makes retraction impossible.

Phimosis may interfere with urination and sexual function, and because it makes genital hygiene even more difficult, it can lead to further infections.

In terms of sexual satisfaction, though, no studies have yet been able to evaluate whether or not being circumcised increases or decreases pleasure for a man or a woman, said Dr. Fisch.

He added that they would be difficult to conduct, since pinpointing the exact cause of pleasure isn’t easy.

TO SNIP OR NOT TO SNIP?

Experts are looking into the reasons behind the doubling of the need for circumcision revisions among infant boys (it rose up to 119% — from around 2,600 to around 5,600 cases), but, according to Dr. Fisch, it’s surprising.

Up until now, it has generally been widely accepted that complications from infant circumcision are rare, minor (e.g., bleeding, infection) and easily controlled.

He added that a local anesthetic will reduce any associated pain and discomfort and that the penis heals fully within a week to 10 days.

According to Dr. Fisch, the most significant health advantages of circumcision do not kick in until many years later when males become sexually active —

but he and others in the medical community believe that infant circumcision is a safer and less traumatic procedure than adult circumcision.

When you have the procedure done as an adult, it is generally quite painful, often requiring general anesthesia — as opposed to local anesthesia — which makes it a much riskier option. Plus, the healing tends to take longer (four to six weeks).

Parents: It’s a tough decision, but it’s up to you to decide for yourselves.

Source(s):

Harry Fisch, MD, a urologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York City.

Dr. Fisch has been named to the “Best Doctors in America” and “New York Magazine Top Doctors” the past nine years, and regularly appears on “The Dr. Oz Show” as a medical expert on men’s health. http://www.HarryFisch.com.

He is author of Size Matters: The Hard Facts About Male Sexuality That Every Woman Should Know (Three Rivers).