Economic decline. Record unemployment. Anti-immigration. Anger toward government. Does any of this sound familiar? Well this isn’t the American Republican Party we are talking about. These are the markers of a rising fascist movement in Greece, where the neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” is gaining political momentum. It seems that hardship has a differential effect among nations, bringing citizens together in some countries, and dividing them bitterly in others. In Greece the situation is getting ugly these days. In an article entitled “Fear and Loathing in Athens: The Rise of Golden Dawn and the Far Right,” The Guardian describes a tale of civil unraveling that indeed might give US voters something to consider. Put simply, the platforms of Greece’s Golden Dawn and the US Tea Party movements are nearly identical. As The Guardian’s Maria Margolis writes, 
“You can hear it from blocks away: the deafening beat of Golden Dawn’s favourite band blasting out … ‘Rock for the fatherland, this is our music, we don’t want parasites and foreigners on our land’…Tonight is the opening of the Golden Dawn office in Megara, a once prosperous farming town between Athens and Corinth. Continue reading “Signs of rising fascism in Greece and …”
And now, the three-parent embryo
As debates about marriage equality continue in nations around the world, science is changing the terms of the debate. Remember that behind much of the argument for the “one-man/one-woman” stance is that “God” established such “natural” pairings for breeding purposes. Hence heterosexual unions are deemed pre-ordained and above government––even though divorce statistics reveal that most conventional marriages fall apart. In fact, according to current statistics the most common “family” unit in the U.S is now a single person living alone.
Now the traditional breeding paradigm faces a new threat. Scientists in Oregon have created embryos with genes from one man and two women. Continue reading “And now, the three-parent embryo”
World opinion on U.S. presidential election
Outside the United States, people favor Obama by a five-to-one margin in the upcoming American presidential 
election. A BBC World Service opinion poll has found sharply higher overseas approval ratings for US President Barack Obama than Republican challenger Mitt Romney.An average of 50% favored Mr Obama, with 9% for Mr Romney, in the survey of 21,797 people in 21 countries.Only Pakistan’s respondents said they would prefer to see Mr Romney win November’s election. France was the most strongly pro-Obama (72%). The survey was conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA between 3 July and 3 September.
Even worse than hating your body
It’s not great secret that fashion ads portray women and men unrealistically, promoting unachievable standards of beauty and reinforcing stereotypical codes of gender identity. This week one story is getting a fair amount of play, as a Christian Dior ad featuring Black Swan 
actor Natalie Portman has been banned in Great Britain for being airbrushed. At first it seemed that the British Advertising Standards Authority was irked at the ad featuring Portman promoting a mascara, accompanied by the boast that the product delivers a “spectacular volume-multiplying effect, lash by lash.” But it turns out that rival L’Oreal cosmetics first noticed the ad and filed a complaint. As The Guardian reports, ironically L’Oreal has been one of the biggest offenders in controversies over airbrushed and exaggerated beauty ads in recent years, with ads Continue reading “Even worse than hating your body”
68 nobel winners endorse Obama
“If you believe, as we do, that America’s future is bound in essential ways to science and innovation, we urge you to join us in working to ensure the reelection of President Obama. “ So reads, “An Open Letter to the American People” in which 68 Nobel Prize winners in different scientific fields have come out and openly endorsed the Democratic candidate for another four years in office.
Recall that in 2009 Obama himself won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to improve global cooperation and non-violence. 
Here’s how the letter begins: “America’s economic future, the quality of our health, and the quality of our environment depend on our ability to continue America’s proud legacy of discovery and invention. As winners of the Nobel Prizes in science, Continue reading “68 nobel winners endorse Obama”
First Native American saint
This week the Vatican will canonize its first ever Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha. As the Catholic Church has already bestowed such status on 10,000 other people, this is 
a pretty big deal. A member of the Mohawk tribe who lived in the seventeenth century, Kateri was chosen for canonization following the miraculous recovery of a five-year old boy in 2006. Large numbers of Catholic Native Americans from the US and Canada will make the journey to Rome to witness the recognition of their own personal Saint by Pope Benedict XVI. Coverage of the canonizaton appears in the current edition Time News Feed, and elsewhere. As Sorcha Pollack writes, “Kateri Tekakwitha, also known as Lily of the Mohawks, was born in 1656 in what is today upstate New York. Continue reading “First Native American saint”
The science of forgetting
As the baby boom generation ages towards retirement, attention grows over how people can remain mentally sharp. Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia make boomers start to worry when they lose their car keys or stumble over a name. At the same time, Internet search engines
and home data storage have made the actual need to remember less
important. Add to this the rapid pace of media and the public’s seemingly relentless focus on immediacy over history, and it seems like a wholesale assault on memory is sweeping the culture. So a story like “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories” recently appearing in Wired magazine would seem to support the current culture of amnesia. Continue reading “The science of forgetting”
Violent crime ends 20-year decline
Violent crime has spiked upward for the first time in nearly two decades, according to a report released yesterday by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. “The report shows the rate of violent crime among teen and adult victims grew 17 percent in 2011 from the previous year, a finding that stopped the historic decline since 1993. The timing couldn’t be worse for supporters of California Ballot Initiative 34, which would abolish the death penalty in the state. Analysts say that statistical crime increases often trigger reactionary “moral panics” resulting in measures such as California’s infamous “Three Strikes” law, also the subject of a ballot initiative to lessen its punitive severity this year.
According to the recently released federal numbers, between 2010 and 2011, the rate of violent victimization increased 17 percent, from 19.3 to 22.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. The increase in total violence was due to a 22 percent increase in the number of aggravated and simple assaults. There was no statistically significant change in the number of rapes or sexual assaults and robberies. While the percentage change in violent crime from 2010 to 2011 is relatively large, the actual difference between the rates for those years (3.3 victimizations per 1,000) is below the average annual change in violent crime (4.3 victimizations per 1,000) over the past two decades. The low rates make the percentage change large, but crime still remains at historically low levels. Since 1993, the rate of violent victimization declined 72 percent. The rate of total property crime increased 11 percent, from 125.4 to 138.7 victimizations per 1,000 households between 2010 and 2011. Household burglary increased 14 percent, from 25.8 to 29.4 victimizations per 1,000 households. In 2011, 49 percent of violent victimizations and 37 percent of property victimization were reported to police. From 2010 to 2011, there was no statistically significant change in the percentage of violent victimizations reported to the police. The percentage of property victimizations reported to the police declined from 39 percent in 2010 to 37 percent in 2011.”
Print is dead?
The “death of the book” has been talked about for half a century, along with the demise of the newspaper, he obsolescence of the magazine, and, more generally, the end of reading.
It started with worries about radio and television, then shifted to concerns about computers and games, and now attaches to social networks and mobile devices. Today this topic resurfaced with the announcement that Newsweek would suspend production of the print version of the magazine in 2013, with unsympathetic observers immediately offering an “it’s-about-time” response. After all, electronic media bring us “stories” in ways that are faster, cheaper, more dynamic, more visual, and in greater more abundance. It’s a no brainer right? Continue reading “Print is dead?”
Ending modern day slavery
“You know that moment when you read something, and then immediately have to re-read it because you cannot believe it is true? That happened to me when I read that the levels of slavery and people trafficking today are greater than at any point in history.” These words by Tony Maddox introduce the CNN Freedom Project, which two weeks ago won an Online Journalism Award (OJW) for its newly launched digital magazine combatting global slavery. CNN received honors in the Best Feature category for it series “Slavery’s Last Stronghold,” which followed the stories of slaves and slave owners in Mauritania, the last country in the world to abolish slavery but where it is thought between 10% and 20% of the population still live in servitude. The United Nations estimates the total market value of human trafficking at 32 billion U.S. dollars.
But slavery isn’t an abstract or far-away issue. California accounts for 25% of human trafficking in the US, with the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco leading the list of slave cities. This November, California Ballot Initiative #35 would strengthen criminal penalties for those who gain from such exploitation. Continue reading “Ending modern day slavery”
To track or not to track
If you haven’t heard, the internet privacy wars are gearing up to what could be Armageddon for advertisers and commercial data collectors. With Microsoft automatically setting the “Do Not Track” option “On” in its latest version of Internet Explorer 10 as many as 43 percent of internet browsers may stop reporting customer information to merchandisers and other snoopers. As discussed recently in the New York Times, “The advent of “Do Not Track” threatens the barter system wherein consumers allow sites and third-party ad networks to collect information about their online activities in exchange for open access to maps, e-mail, games, music, social networks and whatnot. 
Marketers have been fighting to preserve this arrangement, saying that collecting consumer data powers effective advertising tailored to a user’s tastes. In turn, according to this argument, those tailored ads enable smaller sites to thrive and provide rich content.” Continue reading “To track or not to track”
Fatwa issued against Yousafzai shooters
A group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan have issued a fatwa against the Taliban assailants who tried to kill a 14-year-old girl, famous for campaigning for the right of young females to an education. 
As reported in The Guardian, “The Islamic scholars from the Sunni Ittehad Council publicly denounced attempts by the Pakistani Taliban to mount religious justifications for the shooting of Malala Yousafzai and two of her classmates as they sat inside a school bus on Tuesday. Hamid Saeed Kazmi, a former religious affairs minister, replied that Islam “holds the killing of one innocent person as killing the entirety of humanity”. There was continued outrage over the attack, which has left Yousafzai in a critical condition at a Pakistani military hospital after surgery to remove a bullet from near her spinal cord. Authorities are offering a reward of $100,000 for the capture of her attackers. Continue reading “Fatwa issued against Yousafzai shooters”
Fibber might change your mind
There are lots of theories about how people get wrong-headed ideas or vote against their own interests. Now game designers are trying to do something about it. Fibber is a game about political deception and voter self-awareness. It’s a political “strip guessing” game where players try to determine whether the candidates for the American presidential election of 2012 are telling facts or fiction. The goal of the game is to raise self-awareness and personal fact checking in a world inundated with misleading political ads, social media, and personal bias. Fibber was created by Seek Change, an organization dedicated to using technology to advance self-empowerment and personal well-being. Continue reading “Fibber might change your mind”
Let the debate drinking games begin
Forget about The Hunger Games. The latest craze sweeping the nation is Debate Drinking Games. Blame it on peer pressure, political anxiety, or simply the desire to party, but a new phenomenon has appeared in the current election cycle. Every time Obama says “millionaire” or Romney mentions “private sector,” you toss back a shot. And if you start to lose track after a few rounds, just keep your eyes on Twitter, which has become an necessity in the drinking game phenomenon. Blame the new fad on apathy or political anxiety, but the new excuse for binge drinking has taken off like a rocket on college campuses, where health experts have already proclaimed an alarming increase in alcohol consumption in recent years. Continue reading “Let the debate drinking games begin”
The inside job
At one moment in the 2012 presidential campaign season, President Obama lamented the difficulty of “changing Washington from the inside” in direct reference to the “Hope” and “Change” themes that had brought him into office in 2008. Of course, the desperate Romney immediately seized on this as an acknowledgement of Obama’s failure to fulfill election promises, declaring that Obama’s remarks signaled the President’s final surrender in arguments over his competence. 
If we think of recurring “inside/outside” Washington rhetoric in terms of worlding, it’s worth remembering that binary conventions have always been the devil in definitions of world systems. Continue reading “The inside job”
What will we tell the children?
The U.S. has the highest child poverty rate of any country in the developed world. That means right now, not some abstract national deficit future. Right now millions of kids are hungry, sick, living in economically stressed homes, attending rotten schools –– and not getting talked about because they fall outside the noble “middle class.” According to a recent article in the New York Times, “federal expenditures on children — including everything from their share of Medicaid and the earned-income tax credit to targeted efforts like child nutrition and education programs — fell one percent last year and will fall an additional four percent this year, to $428 billion, according to estimates by the Urban Institute based on the Congressional Budget Office’s projections.” Yet aside from advocacy from few groups like Nuns of the Bus, the actual plight of children is getting short shrift in the current election cycle. The Times’ “Cutbacks and the Fate of the Young” contrasts Romney’s assertions of a “moral responsibility” to protect the inheritance of the nation’s kids from debt with his winner-take-all approach to economics more generally, especially in light of his running-mate’s famously draconian budget. Continue reading “What will we tell the children?”
Has the gaming bubble burst?
By some reports in the financial sector, the meteoric ascent of computer games in the 2000s has officially ended, with sales of titles like Diablo and World of Warcraft dropping 28% in the past two years. The New York Times recently ran a story comparing gaming today to the dot-com phenomenon of the 1990s, as it now “ has found itself teetering at the edge of a financial cliff.” 
But closer examination of the situation reveals that while big-name console games have indeed sold less, the number of people playing games on smart-phones and tablet computers continues to surge by as much as 35% in 2012 alone. Excerpted and linked below are two stories on this topic. Continue reading “Has the gaming bubble burst?”
One in five Americans now “non-religious”
These days the Pew Research Center has been doing more than polling voters. In a new study, Pew reports a precipitous drop in the number of Americans who identify as “religious.” In a report entitled “”Nones” on the Rise,” Pew finds that “one-fifth of the 
U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling. In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%). This large and growing group of Americans is less religious than the public at large on many conventional measures, including frequency of attendance at religious services and the degree of importance they attach to religion in their lives. Continue reading “One in five Americans now “non-religious””
Fallacy of the term, ‘the Muslim world’
A classic example of “worlding” in it’s imperialistic application is discussed in an essay entitled “The fallacy of the phrase. ‘the Muslim world”
by Sarah Kendzior, appearing in Al Jazeera. As Kendzior writes, “The day after the attacks on the US diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya, the New York Times set out to explain what it called the “anguished relationship between the United States and the Muslim world.’ According to the Times, the ‘Muslim world’ was prone to outbursts of violence, and the reaction to the 14-minute anti-Islam movie trailer The Innocence of Muslims was both baffling and predictable. ‘Once again, Muslims were furious,’ wrote reporter Robert F Worth, ‘and many in the West found themselves asking why Islam seems to routinely answer such desecrations with violence.’ Continue reading “Fallacy of the term, ‘the Muslim world’”