Author: Worlding

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Obama can shut Guantanamo

In his press conference Tuesday, President Obama repeated that he wanted to shut Guantanamo Bay but blamed Congress for stopping him, according to Slate.com images-3 “They would not let us close it,” he said. But that’s wrong. President Obama can lawfully release the detainees if he wants to. Congress has made it difficult, but not impossible. Whatever he’s saying, the president does not want to close the detention center—at least not yet.

“The relevant law is the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA). This statute confirms the president’s power to wage war against al-Qaida and its associates, which was initially given to him in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed shortly after 9/11. The NDAA also authorizes the president to detain enemy combatants, and bans him from transferring Guantanamo detainees to American soil.

“The NDAA does not, however, ban the president from releasing detainees. Section 1028 authorizes him to release them to foreign countries that will accept them—the problem is that most countries won’t, and others, like Yemen, where about 90 of the 166 detainees are from, can’t guarantee that they will maintain control over detainees, as required by the law. Continue reading “Obama can shut Guantanamo”

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Court rules for abused mentally disabled workers

A US jury has awarded $240m to 32 mentally disabled men who suffered decades of abuse while working at a turkey processing company in Iowa, reports the BBC today. “Jurors in Davenport heard how the men had been kicked, verbally abused and denied toilet breaks by their employers from Henry’s Turkey Serviceimages-2

“One expert said the disabled workers – who were each paid only $65 per month – had been “virtually enslaved”. The verdict is in addition to $1.3m in back wages awarded to the men in 2012.

“On Wednesday, the jury determined that the now-defunct Henry’s Turkey Service had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. It said the company had created a hostile environment and discriminating conditions of employment for the men, who had learning difficulties and worked at the West Liberty plant under the company’s oversight since the 1970s. The award gives each worker $7.5m in compensation. The authorities say they will now seek to recover the award from the remaining assets of the liquidated firm. Continue reading “Court rules for abused mentally disabled workers”

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Traumatic times

Each American generation has its characteristic psychiatric diagnosis, and, typically, a drug or medication that represents the times, states Salon.com

“When the world was on the verge of blowing up in the Dr. Strangelove 1960s, we lived in the Age of Anxiety. Valium, the drug that symbolized that period, was celebrated in books and movies like “Valley of the Dolls” and songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper.” The 1970s was the Age of Malaise, and the drug that attempted to mediate that malaise was cocaine. Starting in the Prozac-fueled late 1980s and 1990s, the omnipresent diagnosis was depression. Later, the diagnosis was attention deficit disorder and the representative drug was Adderall.images

“If this is so, the appropriate diagnosis of the last decade — since Sept. 11, 2001, to be exact — may be PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder. Of course legions of American soldiers have received the diagnosis, and enormous resources, appropriately, have gone into its treatment. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that nearly 30 percent of the more than 800,000 Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans treated in veterans’ hospitals and clinics are diagnosed with PTSD.

“But in the past 10 years, even non-veterans have been engaged in an ongoing narrative of American trauma. After 9/11 came Katrina, then the economic meltdown and the recession that never seems to end. This past year saw Sandy followed by Newtown. Along the way there’s been the mass killings at Virginia Tech, at Northern Illinois University, and in a Colorado movie theater. There also seems to be a deepening sense that one can never fully escape from potential catastrophe, not on a Boston street on a promising spring day or in a Connecticut elementary school a few weeks before Christmas.

“In the popular perception, the locus, both psychologically and geographically, of the tragedies has shifted. They’ve gone from being “out there” — in, say, the remote parts of the South or West, or the inner cities — to “right here,” in respectable, suburban America. The latest chapter is the bombing in Boston, with its indelible images — the 70-year-old runner laid out on the ground; the impossibly innocent smiling face of the 8-year-old boy who was killed. And it further cements post-traumatic stress in the popular psyche and lexicon in a similar way in which depression, bipolar disorder and ADD — and the drugs to treat them — were popularized in earlier eras. Continue reading “Traumatic times”

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Gillard’s disability gambit

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pinned her government’s re-election hopes on a new welfare program for the disabled, proposing on Wednesday a new tax to better fund care for Australians with severe physical and mental disabilities, reports the Associated Press

“The tax would not be paid until July 1, 2014. Gillard said legislation to create the tax would not be considered by Parliament before general elections on Sept. 14.images-1

“Opinion polls agree Gillard’s center-left Labor Party government is unlikely to retain power. While the conservative opposition supports the concept of a new disability support fund, it opposes a new tax to pay for it.

“Gillard had rejected a new tax last year but said Wednesday the government could not fund the program through savings because company tax revenue was falling billions of dollars short of Treasury Department forecasts due to the cooling mining boom and a strong Australian dollar damaging business competitiveness Continue reading “Gillard’s disability gambit”

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98

In his Sports Illustrated editorial,  Jason Collins wrote he wore the number 98 in 38 games this season while playing for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards as a silent tribute to Matthew Shepard, who was beaten and left to die outside Laramie, Wyo. in October 1998.

Collins writes:

“My one small gesture of solidarity was to wear jersey number 98 with the Celtics and then the Wizards. The number has great significance to the gay community. One of the most notorious antigay hate crimes occurred in 1998. Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student, was kidnapped, tortured and lashed to a prairie fence. He died five days after he was finally found.That same year the Trevor Project was founded. This amazing organization provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention to kids struggling with their sexual identity. Trust me, I know that struggle. I’ve struggled with some insane logic. When I put on my jersey I was making a statement to myself, my family and my friends.”

 

The Huffington Post carries a story about this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/jason-collins-matthew-shepard-tribute-_n_3187211.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular Continue reading “98”

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The immigration bill’s new complication

The most serious threat to bipartisan immigration reform doesn’t involve border security or guest workers or even the path to citizenship. It’s about LGBT rights, reports Politicoimages

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has told advocates that he will offer an amendment during the bill markup next week allowing gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born partners for green cards, just as heterosexual couples can. The measure is likely to pass because Democrats face pressure from gay rights advocates to deal with it in committee, rather than on the Senate floor, where the odds of passage are far less favorable.

“But by doing so, Republicans warn that Democrats will tank the whole bill.

“It will virtually guarantee that it won’t pass,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Gang of Eight negotiating group, told POLITICO in a brief interview. “This issue is a difficult enough issue as it is. I respect everyone’s views on it. But ultimately, if that issue is injected into this bill, the bill will fail and the coalition that helped put it together will fall apart.” Continue reading “The immigration bill’s new complication”

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Alcoholism as disability

If alcoholism is a disease, as most professionals in the treatment industry assert – then shouldn’t those who get in trouble with the law for alcohol-related reasons be treated as “ill” rather than “criminal.”?

LifeHealth reports that “A police officer fired for driving drunk in an unmarked police car while off-duty has filed a $6 million lawsuit against the city of Gresham, the police chief and others, alleging his rights were violated under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).imgres-1

“The lawsuit filed in Portland alleged the officer, Jason Servo, was suffering from alcoholism, a recognized disability under the act, and shouldn’t have been dismissed.The suit also alleged Servo was denied due process, and the police union failed to represent him adequately. Continue reading “Alcoholism as disability”

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Americans as guinea pigs

“A hidden epidemic is poisoning America,” writes the French publication Le Monde today in an article entitled “You Are a Guinea Pig.”Unknown

“The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name — and no antidote.

“The culprit behind this silent killer is lead. And vinyl. And formaldehyde. And asbestos. And Bisphenol A. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). And thousands more innovations brought to us by the industries that once promised “better living through chemistry,” but instead produced a toxic stew that has made every American a guinea pig and has turned the United States into one grand unnatural experiment. Continue reading “Americans as guinea pigs”

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Pedagogical Vaudeville Revisited: Yvonne Rainer

yvonne_0Pedagogical Vaudeville Revisited: Yvonne Rainer at UC Irvine

A celebration of Yvonne Rainer at UC Irvine and beyond, Monday, April 29, 2013 | 7 – 9 PM, UC Irvine, Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Contemporary Arts Center , Experimental Media Performance Lab (xMPL)

With performances and contributions by:  Yvonne Rainer, Ben Boatright, Maura Brewer, Pat Catterson, Marcus Civin, Heather Delaney, Aaron Guerrero, Maya Gurantz, Natilee Herren, Patricia Hoffbauer, Kuan Hwa, David Kelley, Simon Leung, Monica Majoli, Lyle Massey, Lara Odell, and Sara Wookey.

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Chinese tourists lead the world

The United States is ranked as the world’s biggest economy and the world’s largest military spender. But Chinese people lead the world in global tourist spending. Asia times reports that:images-2

“China, which has outranked Japan as the world’s second-largest economy and moved ahead of Russia as the world’s second-largest military spender, has hit the top spot in global tourism.

“Chinese tourists spent US$102 billion during their travels in 2012, more than any other nationality, making the Asian nation the world’s number one tourism source market, according to a report released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

“Asked if China will be able to hold on to the number one ranking inyears ahead, Lakshman Ratnapala, chair of Enelar International, San Francisco, and emeritus president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), told IPS, ”Yes, the primary reason being the continuing growth of the Chinese middle class.”  Continue reading “Chinese tourists lead the world”

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No wealthy child left behind

Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. As today’s New York Times puts it: “Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.

“Whether you think it deeply unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States for at least as long as we have thought to ask the question and had sufficient data to verify the answer.

“What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially. Continue reading “No wealthy child left behind”

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Art and Queer Culture

Recently released with book launches in Los Angeles and New, Art and Queer Culture by Catherine Lord and Richard Meyer is now available. As the authors write:

“Spanning 125 years, Art and Queer Culture is the first major historical survey to consider the ways in which the codes and cultures of homosexuality have provided a creative resource for visual artists. Attempts to trouble the conventions of gender and sexuality, to highlight the performative aspects of identity and to oppose the tyranny of the normal are all woven into the historical fabric of homosexuality and its representation. images-1“From Oscar Wilde to Ryan Trecartin, from the molly houses of eighteenth-century London to the Harlem drag balls of the 1920s, the flamboyant refusal of social and sexual norms has fuelled the creation of queer art and life throughout the modern period.

“Although the book proceeds in a chronological fashion, it does not propose a progressive narrative in which homosexuals become increasingly adept at negotiating the circumstances of censorship and overcoming the terms of stigma and invisibility. The dialogue between art and queer culture does not move towards ever more affirmative images of equality and dignity. Rather than countering homophobia with ‘positive’ images of assimilation, many of the artists and photographers featured in this book draw upon, and even draw out, the deviant force of homosexuality.  Continue reading “Art and Queer Culture”

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Prestige versus value in college choice

Having a choice is generally a good thing, and being able to choose among several college acceptances should be a wonderful thing indeed, as Paul Sullivan wrote this past week in the New York Timesimages

“But let’s face it: the cost of a college education these days ranges from expensive to obscenely expensive. So the decision is likely to be tougher and more emotional than most parents and children imagined as they weigh offers from colleges that have given real financial aid against others that are offering just loans.

“While some students will be able to go to college only if they receive financial aid and others have the resources to go wherever they want, most fall into a middle group that has to answer this question: Do they try to pay for a college that gave them little financial aid, even if it requires borrowing money or using up their savings, because it is perceived to be better, or do they opt for a less prestigious college that offered a merit scholarship and would require little, if any borrowing? It’s not an easy decision.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/your-money/measuring-college-prestige-vs-price.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Considering gender and shame

Women and men experience shame differently, according to Brene Brown in a new book discussed in a recent article in the Atlantic.  As the essay begins: “I recently devoted a lot of energy to avoiding an uncomfortable conversation with my wife. It involved, as many uncomfortable conversations with spouses do, the distribution of unpaid labor in our house, as well as the distribution of responsibility for paying the bills. It was difficult for her to see, and for me to explain, why it seemed like she was shouldering more than her fair share of both.images

“The reason for the imbalance was that I had been devoting more time to chasing implausible dreams of the writerly variety than to doing household chores, which, in my capacity as a (mostly) stay-at-home dad, would seem like something I should be able to stay on top of.”I started thinking about this book I had read, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, by Brené Brown, on a hunch that it might shed some light on why I was dreading this conversation.  Continue reading “Considering gender and shame”

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Looking for work with a disability

Five years after starting to keep track of whether people with disabilities are working, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has found fewer people with disabilities in the labor force even as the population has grown, reports the Pittsbugh Gazetteimages-1

“In June 2008 when the bureau started to keep track of the disabled population’s relationship to the labor force, there were 27.3 million people who were disabled and 21.7 percent of them were either working or looking for a job.As of March, that number had grown to 28.9 million, but their participation rate in the labor force had fallen to 18 percent.

“During the same time period, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities in the labor force has risen from 9.3 percent to 13 percent. The trends for people with disabilities mirrors the larger population, in which the unemployment rate rose from 5.6 percent in June 2008 to 7.4 percent in March (without seasonal adjustment) while the labor force participation rate has fallen from 72.6 percent to 68.7 percent. “In this market when there are so many people looking for work, people with disabilities have to outshine everybody else,” said Eric Smith, associate director of the Center for Accessible Technologies in Berkeley, Calif. Continue reading “Looking for work with a disability”

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Encyclopedia of the male gaze

Wikipedia stands accused of sexism and being the “encyclopaedic embodiment of the male gaze” after it was revealed the website is moving female authors from its ‘American novelists’ category into a sub-section called ‘American women novelists.’ As today’s The Post (UK) reports

“Successful novelists such as Donna Tartt, Harper Lee and Amy Tan have all been relegated to the sub-category by Wikipedia editors and the process is ongoing. American novelist Amanda Filipacchi says female writers whose surnames begin with A or B have been “most affected” so far. The explanation given by Wikipedia at the top of the page is that the American novelists category is “too long” and authors have to be put into sub-categories wherever possible, Filipacchi notes in the New York Times.images-1

“For Filipacchi the relegation of women authors to a sub-category is a pernicious process as people “get ideas” about which authors to “hire, or honour, or read” from Wikipedia lists. “They might simply use that list without thinking twice about it. It’s probably small, easily fixable things like this that make it harder and slower for women to gain equality in the literary world”, she writes. Continue reading “Encyclopedia of the male gaze”

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Blackface at Irvine

A UC Irvine fraternity is trying to distance itself from a member-produced video featuring a man in blackface, reports items in The Daily Pilot and the Chronicle of Higher Education todayimages-2

But UCI’s Black Student Union says it’s an example of racial insensitivity that is common on campus, states The Pilot

“This month, members of Lambda Theta Delta, a historically Asian-American fraternity, filmed four students lip-syncing to the Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z song “Suit and Tie.”The fraternity member portraying Jay-Z wears blackface throughout. OC Weekly first reported on the incident. The video had been uploaded to the fraternity’s YouTube page, where UCI students pointed out this week there was a second video featuring blackface. Continue reading “Blackface at Irvine”

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The appeal of conspiracy theories

Psychological forces like motivated reasoning have long been associated with conspiracy thinking, but scientists are learning more every year, states today’s Salon.com, continuing:  “For instance, a British study published last year found that people who believe one conspiracy theory are prone to believe many, even ones that are completely contradictory.images “We’ve written before about the historical and social aspects of conspiracy theories, but wanted to learn more about the psychology of people who believe, for instance, that the Boston Marathon bombing was a government “false flag” operation. Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Western Australia, published a paper late last month in the journal Psychological Science that has received widespread praise for looking at the thinking behind conspiracy theories about science and climate change. We asked him to explain the psychology of conspiracy theories. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

“There are number of factors, but probably one of the most important ones in this instance is that, paradoxically, it gives people a sense of control. People hate randomness, they dread the sort of random occurrences that can destroy their lives, so as a mechanism against that dread, it turns out that it’s much easier to believe in a conspiracy. Then you have someone to blame, it’s not just randomness. Continue reading “The appeal of conspiracy theories”

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The global technological state

Once upon a time, Google concerned itself with seemingly benign, profit-driven things: the optimal position of online ads for erectile dysfunction drugs, mapping the location of every sports bar in America, churning out free services to further cement a quasi-monopoly in global search, writes Mya Fraser in today’s Slate.comimages-1

“But these are no longer the comfortable, well-established guardrails around Google.

“More than two years ago, as governments on two continents were preparing to launch anti-trust investigations against it, Google began moving aggressively onto the turf of states. Today, Google is arguably one of the most influential nonstate actors in international affairs, operating in security domains long the purview of nation-states: It tracks the global arms trade, spends millions creating crisis-alert tools to inform the public about looming natural disasters, monitors the spread of the flu, and acts as a global censor to protect American interests abroad. Google has even intervened into land disputes, one of the most fraught and universal security issues facing states today, siding with an indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon to help the tribe document and post evidence about intrusions on its land through Google Earth. Continue reading “The global technological state”

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“Yo” as a gender-neutral pronoun

Over the past few decades, we’ve made a lot of changes in the English language to make it more gender neutral. We say “police officer” instead of “policeman,” and “people” instead of “mankind.”images

But there’s one thing we can’t seem to get right: pronouns, reports NPR today: ” We know that if you say, “Every child has his monkey,” it excludes girls. So instead we might say, “Every child has their monkey,” even though it’s not grammatically correct. And “Every child has his or her monkey,” is just clunky.

“But some kids in Baltimore have come up with a solution that has caught the attention of linguists.

“At the UMAR Boxing Gym, you hear the word “yo” a lot. Continue reading ““Yo” as a gender-neutral pronoun”