Author: dtrend

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Women as breadwinners in North Korea

“In the past, our husbands would bring home rations, and we’d live off that,” says Mrs. Kim. “Now there are no rations, and the women support the families. If we don’t make money, they starve, so life is hard for women.”

It’s no secret that in many nations women are outpacing men in education and the workplace, despite being paid less. Indeed, a continuing revision of gender roles koreanseems to be occurring across a wide variety of cultures, often for varying reasons. Today’s npr.org features a story on women and the workplace in North Korea:

“Imagine going to work every day and not getting paid. Then, one day, you’re told there’s no work to do — so you must pay the company for the privilege of not working. Continue reading “Women as breadwinners in North Korea”

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Autism means reduced health care access

Autism is in the media spotlight these days, but for all the wrong reasons. Despite the absence of any causal connection between autistic spectrum diagnoses and propensities for violence, worries abound nevertheless following the Sandy Hook shootings. 6.57_AUTISM-CURE-PUZZLEMeanwhile, children and adults with some form of autism become the subject of greater stigma – and their odds of receiving adequate care diminishes further. Autism already is highly misunderstood in terms of its origins, causes, manifestations, and treatment. Continue reading “Autism means reduced health care access”

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Medal of Honor drops gun sales links

imgresIt’s hard to feel too much sympathy for Electronic Arts, the video game giant that displays no fewer than 14 corporate logos of real-life gun makers on the partner page of its bestselling game Medal of Honor. But at least today the links to gun stores are gone.

For anyone who has followed movie and game censorship issues, this kind of nimble response to complaints (first reported in national media two days ago) typifies an entertainment industry that always has been able to move much quicker than any legislative body. From the Hollywood movie Production Code of the 1930s to the ESRB game ratings of the 1990s, the industry has always been able to keep one step ahead of policy-makers by taking just enough action to forestall any legal intervention. The result has been an entertainment-industrial-complex that pretty much produces exactly what it wants. Continue reading “Medal of Honor drops gun sales links”

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E-books and the death of print

For many of us, this week’s final print edition of Newsweek was no great loss. Think of it as an editorial dinosaur succumbing in an age of the blogosphere.

But those of us who still write a bit for things actually published on paper get the sense they are coming for us next. The recession has been rough on everyone, but for publishers this has been a nightmare (especially for small, independent presses).14_52_39_416_file

If it isn’t big bookstore chains squeezing diversity from the retail marketplace, it’s e-books merchants like Amazon who  (following the iTunes example) extract ever larger slices of profit margin from both writers and original publishers. Today npr.org published a quasi-apology about the new e-reader. A few opening paragraphs are reproduced below:

“What counts as a book these days, in a world of Kindles, Nooks and iPads — and eager talk about new platforms and distribution methods? Continue reading “E-books and the death of print”

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US building air capacity to strike China

imgres-1The U.S. military has begun a staged build-up of military airpower within striking distance of China. Reported today in Danger Room, the five-year process that will see each of America’s three main stealth warplane types deployed to bases near China.

“When the deployments are complete in 2017, Air Force F-22s and B-2s and Marine Corps F-35s could all be within striking range of America’s biggest economic rival at the same time. With Beijing now testing its own radar-evading jet fighters — two different models, to be exact — the clock is counting down to a stealth warplane showdown over the Western Pacific. Continue reading “US building air capacity to strike China”

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Germany exports it’s old and sick

Germany exports it’s old and sick

“Inhumane” is the term being used to describe Germany’s new practice of exporting ailing seniors.

Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany, reports todays issue of The Guardian.imgres

“The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it ‘inhumane deportation. But with increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a ‘time bomb.’ Continue reading “Germany exports it’s old and sick”

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Looking beyond game violence

Until cooler heads prevail, for the time being we will be living through a war-of-positions on game violence. Despite the absence of empirical evidence linking media violence and real world “effects,” a moral panic atmosphere is rising throughout the U.S. But as this recent essay by Steve Benen points out, nationsimgres-1 where people play plenty of violent video games don’t seem to share America’s predilection for mass shootings. Reproduced below is an except from Benen’s article as it appeared on maddowblog.

“Plenty of officials, including folks like Joe Lieberman, have been arguing for years that violent games desensitizes young people to violence and contributes to a larger corrosive effect on the culture.

“There’s just no evidence to support the claims. Hunches and cultural criticisms notwithstanding, there is no science to bolster the contention that gaming and gun violence are connected. (Adam Lanza was reportedly obsessed with “Dance Dance Revolution” — which is a game, as the name suggests, about moving feet, not shooting weapons.) Continue reading “Looking beyond game violence”

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Straight porn and gay marriage

Could watching porn make straight men support marriage equality?imgres-2

A story circulating in blogs today tells of sociologist Mark Regnerus’ latest assertion that porn watching confuses the straight mind about marriage and results in higher levels of support for greater diversity.

Regnerus got some attention earlier this year when he published a now widely discredited study that supposedly found children of gay parents are worse off than those of straight parents. As Huffington Post reports, “In his piece Regnerus states that porn ‘undermines the concept that in the act of sexual intercourse, we share our ‘body and whole self … permanently and exclusively’ and “reinforces the idea that people can share their bodies but not their inmost selves, and that they can do so temporarily and (definitely) not exclusively without harm.’ Continue reading “Straight porn and gay marriage”

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How schools crush creativity

Schools often promote ideals of standardized knowledge and conformity to norms, which do not necessarily serve students well for the lives ahead of them. As Sir Ken Robinson discusses in the recent issue of Ted Weekends, it breaks down to two issues:

“First, we’re all born with deep natural capacities for creativity and systems of mass education tend to suppress them.imgres-3

“Second, it is increasingly urgent to cultivate these capacities — for personal, economic and cultural reasons — and to rethink the dominant approaches to education to make sure that we do. Continue reading “How schools crush creativity”

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Newspaper publishes names of gun owners

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Hundreds of gun-toting residents in New York’s Westchester and Rockland counties were surprised to find their names and addresses listed on a map posted by The Journal News on Sunday.

Users can click any dot on the map to see which of their neighbors has a handgun or pistol permit. As reported on ABCNews Online,

“The map sparked more than 500 comments from readers within a day of its appearance on the website, many of them voicing outrage at the paper’s decision to make the information public. Continue reading “Newspaper publishes names of gun owners”

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Assault on Reason, revisited

With the approaching elections in the US, the nation’s polarization is getting more and more attention. Similar divides persist in many countries, causing those on both sides to wonder why their opposition seems so entrenched in its opposition. How can they not understand? Why are people so wrong-headed? What causes people to vote against their own interests?  One infamous figure in American politics has given this matter a lot of thought––and for good reason. Let’s not forget that former Vice President Al Gore actually was elected by the popular vote when he ran for the nation’s highest office, Continue reading “Assault on Reason, revisited”