Category: News

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College gender gap widens further

Women are a third more likely to go to university than men, according to a new report, widening the gender gulf in higher education. The Guardian reported today that”

“Demand for university places fell in terms of applications (-8.8%) and acceptances (-13%) when higher fees were introduced for students this October. But the fall in the number of young men applying was about twice that of young women, with entry rates for both at 24.6% and 32.5% respectively. Continue reading “College gender gap widens further”

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God now tweets @pontifex

Remember now, the Pope is God’s official spokesperson on this earth. So when Benedict XVI says something, well …. you get the idea.

“Pope Benedict XVI he sent his first tweet from his new account, a move seen as part of the Catholic Church’s attempt to attract a new audience of believers through social media,” reports Al Jazeera.

“In perhaps the most drawn out Twitter launch ever, the 85-year-old Benedict pushed the button on a tablet brought to him at the end of his general audience of Wednesday. ‘Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Continue reading “God now tweets @pontifex”

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Why “right to work” means anti-union

“Right to work” laws argue that they insure workers the “freedom” to sell their labor, without interference from meddling entities like, for instance, labor unions.

This week, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed such a law. As Slate, further explains, conservatives “have been pressing for so-called “right to work” laws across the Midwest. Major labor groups almost uniformly oppose these bills, so why do we call them “right to work” laws?

Because they allow you to work through a strike. Commentator and lexicographer William Safire chronicled the origins of the phrase “right to work” in his Political Dictionary. A 1912 Bernard Partridge cartoon depicted an employer telling a striking worker, “I can’t make you Continue reading “Why “right to work” means anti-union”

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Phone apps collecting data on kids

The developer behind Mobbles, a popular free game app for children, temporarily pulled the product from the Apple App store and Google Play store on Tuesday after learning that it was the subject of a complaint to federal authorities by children’s advocates.

The app, introduced this year, is an animated, location-based game in which children collect, take care of and trade colorful virtual pets called Mobbles. Continue reading “Phone apps collecting data on kids”

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Scalia’s disturbing views on marriage

Speaking at Princeton University, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was asked why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder. The question comes as the court prepares to consider America’s contested Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), defining marriage as an exclusively heterosexual compact. As reported in HuffPost Gay Voices,

“’I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective,’ Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral. Scalia has been giving speeches around the
country to promote his new book, “Reading Law,” and his lecture at Princeton comes just days after the court agreed to take on two cases that challenge DOMA. Continue reading “Scalia’s disturbing views on marriage”

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Child obesity drops, but not everywhere

Child obesity experts say that this could be the first generation to live shorter lives than their parents. This is why this month’s reported drop in child obesity in Philadelphia is important, although recent drops do not represent a nation-wide trend. Reported in the New York Times today, the Philadelphia Inquirer says the study was released in September. The Inquirer’s Peter Rusha writes:

“The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a substantial piece about the news on Sept. 7, the day after the foundation published a Web page on Philadelphia, along with a video interview, crediting the original source, a lengthy article in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

“The rate of obese local public-school students dropped nearly 5 percent between 2006 and 2010, when national obesity rates remained unchanged after tripling since the mid-1970s,” wrote the Inquirer’s Continue reading “Child obesity drops, but not everywhere”

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Say what? Europe wins the Nobel Prize

The European Union has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo’s City Hall, despite criticism from past winners that the bloc is based on “military power”.

A number of Europena leaders were in attendance, including Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Francois Hollande, the French president, who were seated beside each other.

The prize was received jointly by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Parliament President Martin Schulz and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

The prize was awarded for the stability and democracy brought to the continent more than five decades after two world wars. Continue reading “Say what? Europe wins the Nobel Prize”

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Marijuana support now exceeds 50 percent

Celebrated poll-analyst  Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight reports that national opinions on marijuana are moving over the 50% mark, up from a bit from just a month ago. As Micah Cohen reports, “As the Obama administration weighs its response to the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana in Washington and Colorado, a new YouGov poll has found that a slim majority of adults believe the federal government should not enforce federal laws — under which marijuana use is still illegal — in those states.

“The YouGov survey, conducted for The Huffington Post on Dec. 5 and 6, found that 51 percent of the 1,000 Continue reading “Marijuana support now exceeds 50 percent”

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World Human rights

Yesterday, the White House issued the statement below on the occasion of U.N. Human rights Day. Say what you may about American government, sometimes it gets it right. This statement by UN Ambassor Susan Rice was featured in today’s JoeMyGod:

“Today, we pledge to live up to Eleanor Roosevelt’s inspirational example, for in far too many places human freedoms are still denied. As long as a family anywhere is tormented by a state-sanctioned killer; a peaceful agitator is hounded by a violent brigade; an artist is locked away for expressing what she thinks; an LGBT individual is harassed because of whom he or she loves; a community is beleaguered because of how it worships; a person with a disability is marginalized by those who ignore plain injustice; or a girl is threatened for having the audacity to pick up a book; all of our rights have been violated. Continue reading “World Human rights”

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The politics of disability

Fresh on the heels of repeated, reasonably high profile forays into insulting Obama voters, minority voters, Asian-Americans, Latino-Americans, and whoever they’ll figure out they hate next, it turns out there are a fair number of disabled people in this country. As reported in Bal’oon Juice,

”How many? According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2010, 56.7 million Americans from the civilian, non-institutionalized population had a disability—that’s 18.7% of the US population.  Of those, 38.3 million, 12.6 percent, had a severe disability. Bringing it down to the sharp edge of what it takes to make it through the day,  ‘About 12.3 million people aged 6 and older (4.4%) needed assistance with one or more activities of daily living (ADLs) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). That’s a lot of folks, no matter what level of disability you choose to emphasize.  They’ve all got families—and that’s a lot more people.  They have friends too…and you get the point.”

Read more at: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/12/05/alienating-the-electorate-nineteen-million-americans-at-a-time/

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Habits Learned from Being Bullied

In our continuing series on bullying, here is a bit that has gone viral in recent weeks, authored by Annalee Newitz and found on a site called io9.

“Like a lot of geeks, I spent several years in social hell as a kid. You know the routine. They passed mean notes about me in class. They got together in big groups at lunchtime, surrounded me, and asked me weird, sneering questions. They punched me, insulted me, crank called my house at 3 AM, and smeared pizza sauce on my favorite white shirt. And the strange thing is that I think they made me a better person. Here are six life lessons I learned from being bullied when I was a geeky kid.

1. Ignore Insults and Keep Going

2. Everybody Is Probably Laughing at You, But It’s Not Really A Big Deal


3. There Is Nothing More Important than Friendship

4. Fantasies Are More Powerful Than Pain


5. Always Distrust Popularity


6. Give Up On Revenge

For full story, see: http://io9.com/5966749/six-lessons-i-learned-from-being-bullied-as-a-geeky-kid

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Do college admissions overlook brilliant artists?

“The truth is that many future poets, novelists, and screenwriters are not likely to be straight-A students, either in high school or in college.” Helen Vendler writes in the current Harvard Magazine about the pitfalls of by-the-numbers admissions practices that can overlook creative brilliance. “The arts through which they will discover themselves prize creativity, originality, and intensity above academic performance; they value introspection above extroversion, insight above rote learning. Continue reading “Do college admissions overlook brilliant artists?”

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Far from the tree

For anyone who hasn’t heard about Andrew Solomon’s Far from the Tree, this book is much more than a tome (900+ pages) about parents and special-needs kids. Solomon has written a tour-de-force discussion on difference and identity worthy of anyone’s attentions, especially those of us who do not conform to the tyranny of normativity. Julie Myerson wrote a wonderful piece on the book in a recent New York Times Book Review. While the later chapters in Far From the Tree each could be their own separate books about specific conditions of being, the first 200 pages are pure gold. As Myerson begins her review,

“How does it feel to be the mother of a teenage dwarf who’s desperate to start dating? What if you love the daughter you conceived when you were raped but can’t bear to be touched by her? And, as the father of a happy, yet profoundly deaf son who’s forgotten how it feels to hear, how do you deal with your memories of the times you played music together? Continue reading “Far from the tree”

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Why you don’t feel happy

“Few aspirations are seen as more worthwhile and self-evidently desirable than the pursuit of happiness. These days, no one is against it. All of us can become happy, whether poor or rich, Christian or Muslim, conservative or libertarian.” So writes Carl Cederstrom in today’s Al Jazeera

“It is no wonder then that Freud – the father of psychoanalysis – is often regarded with suspicion. Categorically, he claimed that man is not designed for happiness. If happiness would fully come out and realise itself, he claimed, we would not be prepared for it. We simply wouldn’t know what to do with it. Admittedly, this sounds rather disconcerting. Yet, there’s a profound and important point here, one that is worth considering at a time when we are told, again and again, that happiness is the one true way to a meaningful life. Continue reading “Why you don’t feel happy”

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Drone strikes on Afghanistan break records this year

As if there was any doubt, official statistics show more deadly drone strikes against Afghanistan in 2012 than the U.S. has ever done anywhere. As Danger Room reports,

“Last month, military stats revealed that the U.S. had launched some 333 drone strikes in Afghanistan thus far in 2012. That made Afghanistan the epicenter of U.S. drone attacks — not Pakistan, not Yemen, not Somalia. But it turns out those stats were off, according to revised ones released by the Air Force on Thursday morning. There have actually been 447 drone strikes in Afghanistan this year. That means drone strikes represent 11.5 percent of the entire air war — up from about 5 percent last year.

“Never before in Afghanistan have there been so many drone strikes. For the past three years, the strikes have never topped 300 annually, even during the height of the surge. Never mind 2014, when U.S. troops are supposed to take a diminished role in the war and focus largely on counterterrorism. Afghanistan’s past year, heavy on insurgent-hunting robots, shows that the war’s future has already been on display.

 

For more see: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/2012-drones-afghanistan/

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American maxing out their credit cards

We like to crack a joke about this, but the reality is just too sobering. Consumer credit-card debt in the US has hit an all time high. The poor economy, a consumption-driven culture, and predatory banks offering credit to those who can’t pay. These facts from the current Huffington Post contradict a recent article in Time Magazine celebrating an apparent decline in overall household debt. But if you read the fine pint in the Time article, you see that the gross number drop is cause by massive loan defaults across the country. As Martin Crutsinger writes in Huff Post,

Americans swiped their credit cards more often in October and borrowed more to attend school and buy cars. The increases drove U.S. consumer debt to an all-time high.

The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumers increased their borrowing by $14.2 billion in October from September. Total borrowing rose to a record $2.75 trillion. Continue reading “American maxing out their credit cards”

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And now, fees to apply for art teaching jobs

“A tenure-track job is surely a valuable commodity, but would you pay for a shot at one?” Inside Higher Education reports that  “A listing for a faculty painting position at Colorado State University attracted some heat on Twitter when several academics noticed the $15 fee attached to the position.

“The job ad states simply: ‘In lieu of postage and duplication costs you will be charged a fee of $15.’ Gary Voss, chair of Colorado State’s art department, confirmed in an e-mail to Inside Higher Ed that there is a fee for applying for the position. The fee, he said, is paid to SlideRoom.com, the site that hosts the job listing and that applicants use to submit their portfolio. SlideRoom, which is used by a number of colleges and universities, is an applicant management system that allows for the transmission and organization of forms, references, creative materials Continue reading “And now, fees to apply for art teaching jobs”

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Temper tantrums mean the child is crazy

Anyone paying attention knows that the forthcoming DSM-5 guide book for psychiatrists been getting plenty of advance criticism.

Because this medical volume influences very non-medical factors like insurance coverage and definitions of mental “health,” exactly who gets classified and in what manner can have huge material and social consequences.  The new DSM will redraw the lines on conditions ranging from autism to transgender identity. As Slate reports today, yet another diagnosis is drawing fire:

“Nothing burns the critics worse than “Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder,” a new diagnosis for kids 6 to 18 years old who three or more times a week have “temper outbursts that are grossly out or proportion in intensity or duration to the situation.” It actually started out as “temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria” (tantrums, plus you feel bad) but got changed so as not to openly malign tantrums. But the diagnosis still focuses on them, and critics say it is Continue reading “Temper tantrums mean the child is crazy”

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Sense of taste fades with age

“As we get older, there may come a time when we find ourselves drawn not to food with good taste or food that tastes good but simply to food that has any flavor at all.” This depressing statement came from today’s New york Times.”

“Blame your aging taste buds, if you want. You’ll probably be wrong, but there are a lot more of them (about 9,000) to point the finger at than the likely real culprit, your nose. “When people talk about their taste, they’re really talking about the smell rather than the taste,” said Dr. Scott P. Stringer, chairman of the otolaryngology department at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

“As it happens, taste buds do diminish as people get older, usually starting at 40 to 50 in women and 50 to 60 in men (why later for them is unknown). And those that remain do not, so to speak, step up to the plate to make Continue reading “Sense of taste fades with age”

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Australian prime minister warns of apocalypse

Today Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told her nation the world was about to end:

“My dear remaining fellow Australians, the end of the world is coming. It wasn’t Y2K, it wasn’t even the carbon price,” Gillard said, referring to her controversial environmental tax on business. “It turns out that the Mayan calendar was true.”

“Whether the final blow comes from flesh-eating zombies, demonic hell-beasts or from the total triumph of K-Pop, if you know one thing about me it is this — I will always fight for you to the very end,” Gillard added in the mock-apocalyptic warning, carried by Australian radio station Triple-J..

But there’s always a silver lining: “And at least this means I won’t have to do [political talk show] Q&A again.”

Read more: http://www.upi.com/blog/2012/12/06/Australian-PM-Julia-Gillards-warns-of-zombie-K-pop-induced-apocalypse/2531354802605/#ixzz2EJ7sDjV7