CULTURE/PEDAGOGY/BELONGING
A California lawmaker has introduced legislation aimed at guaranteeing transgender students the right to use public school restrooms and participate on the sports teams that correspond with their expressed genders, reports USA Today.
“The bill reflects the accommodations that a number of U.S. schools are being asked to make as Americans start identifying as transgender at younger ages. Continue reading “California schools & gender non-conformity”
About 69 percent of American adults are overweight or obese, and more than four in five people say they are worried about obesity as a public health problem, reports NPR:
“But a recent poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health revealed a curious schism in our national attitudes toward obesity: Only one in five kids had a parent who feared the boy or girl would grow up to be overweight as an adult. Continue reading “Your child is fat”
MOMA in New York as always saved a spot for design, and by extension, popular culture.Video games, as their name suggests, combine the ancient human practice of formal play with moving pictures, a younger form, reports today’s New York times. “But the unsatisfying name we are saddled with for this medium — itself approaching middle age, if you date its history to the first home console in 1972 and apply the rule that middle age begins when you are older than every current Major League Baseball player — doesn’t capture the essence of video games.
“The defining feature of video games is interaction, the three-way conversation among designer, machine and player. “Applied Design,” a new installation at the Museum of Modern Art — and an important one because it is the first time the museum has displayed the 14 video games it acquired in November — attempts to isolate this relationship. The games on view, from Pac-Man toCanabalt, are naked, without their packaging or other nostalgic trappings. There are no arcade cabinets on view, no outmoded consoles or computers to gawk at.
“Instead, each game is austerely contained on a screen set against a gray wall, with a joystick or other controller resting on a spare platform beneath it. The installation is “an experiment to isolate the experience of the interaction itself,” said Paola Antonelli, the senior curator of the museum’s department of architecture and design, comparing her decontextualized approach with Philip Johnson’s in his 1934 “Machine Art” exhibition at MoMA, which set things like propeller blades against white museum walls.
“This philosophy is markedly different from the one that motivated the Museum of the Moving Image’s “Spacewar!” show, which closed Sunday. That exhibition, which presented a more focused argument, refused to separate the interactive experience of playing a game from the object it first appeared in. An iPad game would be played on an iPad, and Space Invaders and its ilk were on view, and playable, in their original stand-up cabinets.
Ellen DeGeneres weighed in on Prop 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex message, penning a tongue-in-cheek “Supreme Court brief” on her blog, reports Huffington Post.
“The award-winning talk show host and comedian followed in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood, who joined more than 100 established conservatives in signing a legitimate Supreme Court-bound brief in favor of allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) couples the right to legally wed in California.
“Though DeGeneres’ entertaining piece won’t carry the same legal weight as Eastwood’s brief potentially could, it’s nonetheless poignant. She writes:
“Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life. And in those 4 years, I don’t think we hurt anyone else’s marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they’re fine.But even though Portia and I got married in the short period of time when it was legal in California, there are 1,138 federal rights for married couples that we don’t have, including some that protect married people from losing their homes, or their savings or custody of their children.”
Describing her much-publicized coming out as “one of the hardest things I ever did,” DeGeneres continues, “I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights. It’s going to help keep families together. It’s going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time.”
A Colorado school’s ruling over a transgender child has sparked questions that could affect schools all over the country. As reported by CNN, the questions and their implications include the following:
“Which bathroom should be used by a child who identifies as a different gender from his or her body? Where’s the line between accommodation and discrimination? Continue reading “School transgender decision raises questions”
It’s widely acknowledged that when it come to drug addiction, treatment is more efficient and effective than jail or other punitive measures. Rather than punishing a human being who is already suffering, society should move to more therapeutic and restorative strategies.
Federal judges around the country are teaming up with prosecutors to create special treatment programs for drug-addicted defendants who would otherwise face significant prison time, an effort intended to sidestep drug laws widely seen as inflexible and overly punitive, reports today’s New York Times. Continue reading “Treatment rather than jail for addiction”
The so-called “infantilization” of adults by American capitalism and media is a theme taken up increasingly in recent years, whether it is comes in the form of childish consumer values or the glorification of youthful behavior and appearance. Continue reading “Fairy tales for adults?”
Many New Yorkers previously unfamiliar with the term “pinkwashing” are getting some lessons from their local media.
Pinkwashing occurs when a political or corporate entity is the promoting itself as LGBT-friendly in order to downplay an otherwise negative agenda, not
unlike the way “whitewashing” glosses over or covers something up. Continue reading “Pinkwashing and the New York Post”
Games-for-Change continues to advance the use of interactive technologies toward pro-social goals, with a post today on a new game called 9 Minutes produced by Half the Sky.
9 Minutes was designed for mobile devices for users in India and East Africa, with content addressing pregnancy. “9 Minutes plays out the adventure of pregnancy and rewards pregnant women and their spouses for keeping both mother-to-be and the baby inside her healthy and happy.” Continue reading “A pregnancy health game in India and Africa”
Today two legendary figures wrote to the Supreme Court in opposition to California’s ban on gay marriage: Clint Eastwood and Barack Obama. The famous gunslinger (who famously admonished an imaginary Obama in a chair at the Republican Convention) and the president chose the same day to ratchet up their support for marriage equality. Huffington Post, covered Eastwood’s announcement this way:
“Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood has taken his well-publicized support of same-sex marriage one step further, calling upon the U.S. Supreme Court to drop Prop 8. As Breitbart’s Mike Flynn reports, the Oscar-winning actor and director joined more than 100 Republicans in signing a Supreme Court-bound brief in favor of allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) couples the right to legally wed in California.
“Flynn describes Eastwood as a “long-time Republican with strong libertarian leanings,” and says that signing the Supreme Court briefs implies that he “is going to stay active in the political landscape.” One of Eastwood’s representatives and a spokesman for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group spearheading opposition to California’s law banning same-sex marriage, confirmed the news to NBC. Former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and GOP strategist Steve Schmidt are among the other high-profile names to sign the brief, CBS News reports.
“The 82-year-old Eastwood discussed his generally pro-same-sex marriage stance in a September 2012 appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show. “The condition of society right now, with the high unemployment rates and the tremendous debt we’re increasing and the government spending, we’d think there’d be [many more worthy issues] to think about [rather] that worrying about gay marriage,” he told DeGeneres.In 2011, Eastwood similarly told GQ magazine, “I don’t give a f**k about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of … Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want.”
The Inspiration Mars Foundation has announced that a Mars mission is now possible and it is now putting a flightcrew . . . with one unusual slant.
A team led by millionaire and former space tourist Dennis Tito plans to send a “tested couple” to Mars and back in a privately funded mission. The Inspiration Mars Foundation plans to start its one-and-a-half-year mission in January 2018, reports the BBC. Among those involved in the project is Jane Poynter, who spent two years locked away in a sealed ecosystem with seven other people in 1991 which she described as a “New Age Garden of Eden”.
“She told BBC News that the mission planners wanted the crew to consist of an older couple whose relationship would be able to withstand the stress of living in a confined environment for two years.”I can attest from personal experience from living in Biosphere 2 that having somebody that you really deeply trusted and cared for was an extraordinary thing to have,” Ms Poynter explained.
“Ms Poynter, who ended up marrying one of those involved in the Biosphere 2 project, Taber Macallum, admitted that it could be “challenging” for the couple. But said that the selection process would attempt to find “resilient people that would be able to maintain a happy upbeat attitude in the face of adversity”.
The plan was to choose a middle-aged couple because their health and fertility would be less affected by the radiation they would be exposed to during such a long space mission. The couple would receive extensive training and would be able to draw on psychological support from mission control throughout the mission.
More at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21603490
It’s no secret that many museums and symphonies are feeling the pinch of declining philanthropy and hence now considering a strategy once practiced only by their scruffier and smaller counterparts: cultural democracy.
Attendance is down this season at the Metropolitan Opera, and officials there acknowledge that the fault is their own. They made going to the opera too expensive, reports today’s New York Times. Continue reading “Metropolitan opera cuts ticket prices”
Australia is to introduce tough penalties, including jail sentences of up to 25 years, to confront what it says is a growing trade in sex slaves, reports The Guardian.
“The crackdown follows increasing evidence of young Asian women being brought to Australia and forced into sex slavery in Sydney’s red light King’s Cross district and other state capitals. Continue reading “Australia cracks down on modern-day slavery”
The Punk Syndrome is the title of a recent independent film about musical band made up of people with intellectual disabilities
This attractive Finnish film brings to mind the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys Go America, a zany comedy about a terrible Finnish rock group touring the States, reports The Guardian.
“The difference, however, is that Kärkkäinen and Passi’s film is a documentary about a real punkquartet called Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day, a genuine punk quartet made up of the autistic duo of Pertti Kurikka (lead guitar) and Karl Aalto (singer), and the Down’s syndrome duo of Sami Helle (bass) and Toni Välitalo (drums). Continue reading “The Punk Syndrome”
Now that the post-Newtown nation has suddenly woken up to the breakout popularity of the AR-15, a host of questions are being asked, especially about who is buying these rifles, and why. Why would normal, law-abiding Americans want to own a deadly weapon that was clearly designed for military use?
These somewhat unsettling questions are taken up in Danger Room: “Why are existing AR-15 owners buying as many of these rifles as they can get their hands on? Are these people Doomsday preppers? Militia types, arming for a second American Civil War? Or are they young military fantasists whose minds have been warped by way too much Call of Duty?
“In the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the AR-15 has gone from the most popular rifle in America to the most scrutinized and, in some quarters, vilified. Also known in its fully automatic, military incarnation as the M16, the rifle was racking up record sales in the years before Sandy Hook, but now, in the midst of a renewed effort to ban this weapon and others like it from civilian hands, the AR-15 market has gone nuclear, with some gun outlets rumored to have done three years’ worth of sales in the three weeks after Newtown.
“Preppers, militia types, and SEAL Team 6 wannabes are certainly represented in the AR-15′s customer base. But fringe groups don’t adequately explain the roughly 5 million “black rifles” (as fans of the gun tend to call it) that are now in the hands of the public. No, the real secret to the AR-15′s incredible success is that this rifle is the “personal computer” of the gun world.
“In the past two decades, the AR-15 has evolved into an open, modular gun platform that’s infinitely hackable and accessorizable. With only a few simple tools and no gunsmithing expertise, an AR-15 can be heavily modified, or even assembled from scratch, from widely available parts to suit the fancy and fantasy of each individual user. In this respect, the AR-15 is the world’s first “maker” gun, and this is why its appeal extends well beyond the military enthusiasts that many anti-gun types presume make up its core demographic.”
Full story at: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/ar-15/
Eighty-eight percent of Americans say preventing future acts of international terrorism should be a very important foreign policy goal of the U.S., top among nine issues, reports the Gallup organization.
“Americans also give a high priority to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and to securing adequate energy supplies for the U.S. Americans are less likely to see promoting economic development in other countries and helping other countries to build democracies as very important U.S. foreign policy goals. Continue reading “Americans still fear terrorism”
Now the horsemeat thing is getting serious. It’s gotten into IKEA’s meatballs.
Sweden’s IKEA has stopped nearly all sales of meatballs at its furniture store cafeterias across Europe after tests in the Czech Republic showed some contained horsemeat, reports today’s Al Jazeera
“The world’s leading furniture retailer, known also for the signature restaurants at its huge stores, said on Monday it was pulling all meatballs produced by its main supplier in Sweden after the tests showed horsemeat in its beef and pork meatballs
In trying to get back on track, Yahoo is taking on one of the country’s biggest workplace issues: whether the ability to work from home, and other flexible arrangements, leads to greater productivity or inhibits innovation and collaboration, reports The New York Times. Across the country, companies like Aetna, Booz Allen Hamilton and Zappos.com are confronting these trade-offs as they compete to attract and retain the best employees.
“Bank of America, for example, which had a popular program for working remotely, decided late last year to require employees in certain roles to come back to the office. Continue reading “Yahoo says work is better at the office”
Games-for-Change facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.
Unlike the commercial gaming industry, Games-for-Change aims to leverage entertainment and engagement for social good. What follows is an item on what they’ve been up to recently
“At GameTheNews.net we have been working on creating news-games for the past three months. We’ve covered a wide range of topics from solar power to the US election. However it was Endgame:Syria that got people talking and reopened the questions about games and reality Continue reading “Endgame/Syria: The game”
In a world in which we share an ethical imperative to value all people, this means finding a place for everyone. Consider the plight of today’s fathers. Well, not all of them, but think about the semi-evolved ones who actually think about and participate in domestic life and are willing to set aside a bit of gender privilege.
It turns out those fathers – the good guys, relatively speaking – have been getting mocked and bullied by mainstream media and advertising, and some of them are getting a bit weepy about it. Hence, today’s piece in the New York Times about a group of daddy bloggers who are talking about their “feelings” about it all Continue reading “Make room for daddy”