Worlding – Page 25 – CULTURE/PEDAGOGY/BELONGING

August 17, 2013August 18, 2013

Taking on the “gay panic” defense

The nation’s largest legal organization, meeting in San Francisco, will consider Monday whether to urge lawmakers to clamp down on the “gay panic” defense, in which murder defendants claim they were provoked by a victim’s homosexual advances.

As California has discovered, however, it’s a hard issue to define and even harder to address.

A resolution before the American Bar Association calls for the federal and state governments to prohibit such defenses in noncapital murder cases – or, as a more moderate option, to require antibias jury instructions modeled after a California law enacted after the notorious East Bay slaying of a transgender teenager.

“There’s still plenty of bias out there,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor who will present a resolution against “gay panic” defenses to the ABA’s policymaking House of Delegates.

But California’s example raises questions about whether such measures are effective.

In 2002, 17-year-old Gwen Araujo of Newark was choked and beaten to death by two men who said they became enraged when they learned that the person with whom they had just had sexual relations was born male. As one defense lawyer, Michael Thorman, put it, the killing could be traced to Araujo’s “deception and betrayal” of Thorman’s unsuspecting client.

An Alameda County jury deadlocked on first-degree murder charges against the two men in 2004. A second jury convicted them in 2005 of second-degree murder, with sentences of 15 years to life, while rejecting hate-crimes charges.

In response, the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 enacted the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act, the first law of its kind in the nation. It requires juries in such cases to be instructed that they should not be influenced by the sexual orientation or gender identity of either the victim or the defendant.

Gay rights advocates praised the new law as a possible breakthrough. But it didn’t seem to have much impact in its first known courtroom test.

That case arose from the February 2008 slaying of Larry King, a gay 15-year-old junior high school student in the Ventura County town of Oxnard. A day after King asked 14-year-old classmate Brandon McInerney to be his valentine and called out “Love you, baby” in a hallway, McInerney pulled a pistol out of his backpack in a classroom and shot King in the back of the head.

More at: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Law-group-to-take-up-gay-panic-defense-4722191.php

August 16, 2013August 16, 2013

The science of Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is into its final few episodes, with fans already speculating how the story of a teacher-turned-drug-producing-criminal-mastermind will reach its denouement. Now a BBC story asks, “How many of the frequent science scenes reflect reality, asks chemist and physicist Dr Jonathan Hare.

Walt is a brilliant research chemist who has to leave his work and take up a career teaching high school chemistry. After discovering he has terminal cancer, he turns his skills to methamphetamine production in collaboration with former pupil Jesse Pinkman.

“With his background as a chemistry teacher, there are times when Walt instructs Jesse as if he is still back in the classroom. Jesse was a very poor science student at school, but while “cooking” meth with Walt, he starts to pick up and respect the chemistry that’s so essential for a good product. Continue reading

August 16, 2013

Transgender soldiers

New studies show that transgender civilians enlist in the military at twice the rate of the non-transgender population, but that transgender veterans are 20 times more likely to commit suicide. These findings are discussed in today’s Mother Jones, excerpted below:

“Transgender soldiers and sailors largely fly under the radar, but they are hardly uncommon.In a recent surveyby the Harvard Kennedy School’s LGBTQ Policy Journal, 20 percent of transgender people contacted said they had served in the military—that’s twice the rate of the general population. A 2011 study estimates there are nearly 700,000 transgender individuals (about three people per thousand) living in the United States. Meanwhile, theAmerican Journal of Public Health (AJPH) is scheduled to release a report today, which drawsfrom Department of Veterans Affairs data, showing that the number of veterans accepting treatment for transgender health issues has doubled in the past decade. (While viewing the full report requires a subscription, an abstract should be available online as of today.)

“These two new peer-reviewed studies indicate that, beyond being discriminatory, the military’s current policy starves the armed services of some of their likeliest recruits, and puts transgender people who serve at greater risk of discrimination, homelessness, and assault than those who don’t. Continue reading “Transgender soldiers”

August 15, 2013

Gains and losses for transgender rights

This past week the national media featured many stories about California’s newly adopted Assembly Bill 1266 recognizing the rights of transgender students in K-12 schools. While a few other states have put in place similar provisions, California is the first state to address the issue with a statewide law. It’s an encouraging accomplishment.

Meanwhile, things seem to be going in the opposite direction in Florida, as Huffington Post reported today:

“In Miami-Dade, it’s still legal to fire, deny housing, refuse services, or just plain discriminate against an individual for being transgender. That’s because a proposed amendment to protected transgendered people under Miami-Dade County’s anti-discrimination law failed this week — and advocates are blaming “chief obstructionist” Commissioner Lynda Bell in particular. In May, the county’s largest gay rights group, SAVE Dade, introduced a”TransEquality” campaign “to pass a trans-inclusive countywide Human Rights Ordinance” that would amend Miami-Dade’s 1998 anti-discrimination law. The law protects gays and lesbians, but doesn’t include language for transgender rights.

“The proposal seemed on track when, sponsored by Commissioners Bruno Barreiro and Audrey Edmonson, it passed on its first reading with an 11-1 vote — with Bell casting the lone vote against it, according to the Miami Herald. The amendment then went to the Health and Social Services Committee, of which Bell is a member. But before the committee hearing, the Christian Family Coalition of Miami-Dade County — an “ally” of Bell that has previously endorsed her — sent an illustrated emailurging members to show up to a public discussion. It referred to the proposal as “a dangerous law,” warning that it would “force all places to open bathrooms and dressing rooms to ‘transsexuals.'” A second flyer warned the proposal was “another excuse to discriminate against Christians” and could lead to lawsuits against religious schools.”

More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/miami-dade-transgender-rights_n_3755340.html

August 15, 2013August 15, 2013

Lurking anti-Asian bias

White Californians seem to favor meritocratic university admissions – but not for everyone

“Critics of affirmative action generally argue that the country would be better off with a meritocracy, typically defined as an admissions system where high school grades and standardized test scores are the key factors, applied in the same way to applicants of all races and ethnicities, reports InsideHigherEd.

“But what if they think they favor meritocracy but at some level actually have a flexible definition, depending on which groups would be helped by certain policies? Frank L. Samson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Miami, thinks his new research findings suggest that the definition of meritocracy used by white people is far more fluid than many would admit, and that this fluidity results in white people favoring certain policies (and groups) over others.

“Specifically, he found, in a survey of white California adults, they generally favor admissions policies that place a high priority on high school grade-point averages and standardized test scores. But when these white people are focused on the success of Asian-American students, their views change. The white adults in the survey were also divided into two groups. Half were simply asked to assign the importance they thought various criteria should have in the admissions system of the University of California. The other half received a different prompt, one that noted that Asian Americans make up more than twice as many undergraduates proportionally in the UC system as they do in the population of the state. When informed of that fact, the white adults favor a reduced role for grade and test scores in admissions — apparently based on high achievement levels by Asian-American applicants. (Nationally, Asian average total scores on the three parts of the SAT best white average scores by 1,641 to 1,578 this year.) When asked about leadership as an admissions criterion, white ranking of the measure went up in importance when respondents were informed of the Asian success in University of California admissions.

“Sociologists have found that whites refer to ‘qualifications’ and a meritocratic distribution of opportunities and rewards, and the purported failure of blacks to live up to this meritocratic standard, to bolster the belief that racial inequality in the United States has some legitimacy,” Samson writes in the paper. “However, the results here suggest that the importance of meritocratic criteria for whites varies depending upon certain circumstances. To wit, white Californians do not hold a principled commitment to a fixed standard of merit.”Samson raises the idea that white perception of “group threat” from Asians influences ideas about admissions criteria — suggesting that they are something other than pure in their embrace of meritocratic approaches.”

August 14, 2013

Allan Sekula

For those of us coming of age as photographers in the 1980s, Allan Sekula was a beacon of light. Brilliantly compassionate, Sekula eloquently spoke truth to power well before many of us were aware of what we were up against. In this he was an artist, scholar, and teacher in the most noble sense of these terms, whether this meant reading photography against the grain, analyzing the invisible adaptability of capital, or noting that school can be a factory. He changed my view of the world and his passing is a great loss to all of us. – David Trend

Brian Boucher’s thoughtful obituary appearing in Art in America follows: “Artist and critic Allan Sekula, known for his politically pointed photographic projects, died Aug. 10 in Los Angeles from gastric-esophageal cancer. He was 62, and he taught at the California Institute of the Arts for nearly three decades.

“As a writer, Allan described with great clarity and passion what photography can, and must do: document the facts of social relations while opening a more metaphoric space to allow viewers the idea that things could be different,” said school of art dean Thomas Lawson in a statement. “And as a photographer he set out to do just that. He laid bare the ugliness of exploitation, but showed us the beauty of the ordinary; of ordinary, working people in ordinary, unremarkable places doing ordinary, everyday things.”

“Born Jan. 15, 1951 in Erie, Penn., Sekula grew up in San Pedro, Calif., and earned a bachelor’s degree in art at UC San Diego. He earned an MFA in 1974 at the same school. After teaching briefly at New York University, he was on the faculty at Ohio State University’s department of photography and cinema for five years before, in 1985, going to CalArts. Continue reading “Allan Sekula”

August 13, 2013August 13, 2013

Calif debating sperm donor rights

California’s state Legislature is preparing to battle over a bill that could redefine the family unit and the parental rights of sperm donors – a move that has split gay and lesbian advocates and has some women’s rights groups up in arms, reports today’s San Francisco Chronicle

“On Tuesday, the Assembly Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear the debate kicked off by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo.

“State law now holds that, unless parties make an agreement in advance, a sperm donor is “treated as if he were not the natural father” and the mother is the sole legal parent.

“But under Hill’s proposed SB115, a sperm donor who “receives the child into his home and openly holds the child out as his natural child” could be declared a legal parent. Hill said his bill would better protect children – but critics suggest it could reshape thousands of families by opening the door for sperm donors to claim parental rights.

“The proposed legislation has set off a round of celebrity-fueled coverage because it showcases the case of actor Jason Patric, 47, the star of the film “Lost Boys,” who is in a legal battle with former girlfriend Danielle Schreiber over custody of their 3-year-old child, Gus. Continue reading “Calif debating sperm donor rights”

August 12, 2013August 12, 2013

Transphobia on Fox

Fox News attacked a bill in California to allow transgender students equal access to school facilities and programs, inappropriately calling the measure a “bathroom bill” and interviewing a notorious anti-LGBT activist to suggest that students will use the law to take advantage of members of the opposite sex, reports MediaMatters

“During the August 9 edition of Happening Now, Fox News reporter Adam Housley discussed a California bill that would require public schools to allow transgender students to choose which school teams they wish to join based on their gender identity. The bill would also allow transgender students to use restrooms and facilities that match their gender identity.

‘Throughout the segment, Fox’s chyron inaccurately identified the measure as a “bathroom bill,” while Housley echoed right-wing fears that the measure might lead to inappropriate behavior between students: The segment also featured a statement from Brad Dacus – the president of the notoriously anti-LGBT Pacific Justice Institute – who warned that the bill “grotesquely violates the privacy rights and security interests and needs of students.”

“Fox’s framing of the measure as a “bathroom bill” is a shameless attempt to prop up the right-wing myth that transgender protections will be exploited by sex offenders who want to infiltrate opposite sex bathrooms. In reality, the measure would merely affirm current law which prohibits California public schools from discriminating against transgender students. Allowing access to appropriate facilities and participation on school teams is an important step to deal with the high rates of bullying and harassment faced by transgender students. As a recent decision by the Colorado Rights Division stated, refusing this kind of access to transgender students “creates an environment that is objectively and subjectively hostile, intimidating, or offensive.” Continue reading “Transphobia on Fox”

August 12, 2013

Cigarette taxes reduce drinking

Higher cigarette taxes help reduce drinking among certain groups of people, reports WebMD..

“To assess the impact that increases in cigarette taxes between 2001-02 and 2004-05 had on drinking behavior, researchers analyzed data from more than 21,000 drinkers who took part in a survey from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The cigarette tax increases were associated with modest to moderate reductions in drinking among “vulnerable groups,” according to the study, which was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

“Results suggest that increases in cigarette taxes were associated with reductions in alcohol consumption over time among male smokers,” corresponding author Sherry McKee, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, said in a journal news release. “The protective effects were most pronounced among subgroups who are most at risk for adverse alcohol-related consequences, including male heavy drinkers, young adults and those with the lowest income.”

“Smoking and heavy drinking occur together at very high rates, McKee said, noting that tobacco can enhance the subjective effects of alcohol and has been shown to increase the risk for heavy and problematic drinking. Cigarette taxes, meanwhile, have been recognized as one of the most significant policy instruments to reduce smoking, McKee said. “By increasing the price of cigarettes, taxes are thought to encourage smokers to reduce their use of cigarettes or quit altogether, and discourage non-smokers from starting to smoke,” she said. Continue reading “Cigarette taxes reduce drinking”

August 11, 2013

Gender and autism

A study has claimed that autism affects different parts of the brain depending on gender, reports The Metro

“Scientists looked at 120 brains of both sexes, including those without the disability, concluding that not ‘everything found in males with autism applies to females’.

“Using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans, the research revealed how ‘females with autism show neuroanatomical “masculinisation”,’ said Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, senior author of the paper.

“Shedding light on a previously under-researched area – women with autism – the scientists, from the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, found that the anatomy of the brain of someone with autism varied between men and women. Baron-Cohen said that the ‘masculinisation’ of a female brain with autism may ‘implicate physiological mechanisms that drive sexual dimorphism, such as prenatal sex hormones and sex-linked genetic mechanisms’. While autism affects one per cent of the general population, it is more prevalent in men. Because of this, most studies have concentrated on male-dominant samples leading to a gender bias in the understanding of autism-related neuroscience.

‘”This is one of the largest brain imaging studies of sex/gender differences yet conducted in autism. Females with autism have long been under-recognized and probably misunderstood,’ said Dr Meng-Chuan Lai, the research project leader. ‘The findings suggest that we should not blindly assume that everything found in males with autism applies to females.’ The paper, entitled ‘Biological sex affects the neurobiology of autism’, appears in the journal Brain.”

More at: http://metro.co.uk/2013/08/10/autism-affects-brains-of-females-differently-to-males-study-says-3918961/

August 11, 2013August 11, 2013

The “Ownership Society” downside

More than four years ago, President Obama assumed office promising dramatic reform to the housing market.

After all, it was the housing market that triggered the financial crisis, and the vast proliferation of low-quality loans that had fueled the housing bubble, state a piece in today’s The Atlantic.

“But politics delayed those reforms, and now the president is reopening the issue with a call to wind down the two main federal mortgage agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “For too long, these companies were allowed to make big profits buying mortgages, knowing that if their bets went bad, taxpayers would be left holding the bag,” the president said this week. “It was ‘heads we win, tails you lose.'”

“Well, not entirely. The U.S. government and taxpayers did rescue these agencies in 2009 (to the tune of nearly $200 billion), and, after injecting them with capital and essentially nationalizing them, these companies started to turn a profit as the housing market slowly recovered. This month, they contributed more than $15 billion to the U.S. Treasury, and have been one factor in sharply reducing government deficits.

“Even more, Obama’s targeting of Fannie and Freddie is part of a larger narrative — on both the left and the right — that banks and government colluded to produce the financial crisis and the continuing drag on the United States. To be fair, Obama in the same speech this week acknowledged that much of the housing crisis was the product of “banks and the government…[making] everyone feel like they had to own a home, even if they weren’t ready and didn’t have the payment.” But that chord is a decidedly minor one in a general atmosphere of blame. Continue reading “The “Ownership Society” downside”

August 10, 2013August 10, 2013

Assailing the victims

Heightened awareness of students’ rights and colleges’ obligations under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination, has led to a wave of protests.With increasing frequency, women are filing federal complaints against colleges accused of failing to address sexual assault.

Now, InsideHigher Ed reports that “two men who left two different colleges after being accused of sexual assault have filed their own lawsuits alleging that administrators violated their due process by mishandling the investigations and campus judicial proceedings that led to their expulsion and withdrawal. It’s an unusual (but not unprecedented) legal approach, utilizing a federal statute designed to protect the people who historically have been victimized by institutional discrimination. To make a successful case under Title IX, the men must demonstrate that they were discriminated against based on their status as males.

“Lawyers and Title IX experts say that’s unlikely.

“Title IX protects the victim because it was put in place to do that – because there aren’t other sorts of protection,” said Erin Buzuvis, a professor at Western New England School of Law and founder of the Title IX Blog. “Neither of these students have prevailed in demonstrating what happened to them was sex discrimination.”

“However, they might have cases for violation of due process – just not necessarily under Title IX. Separately, the students are also arguing negligence and breach of contract, saying campus officials conducted cursory investigations, allowed the accuser special treatment at disciplinary hearings, and ignored evidence, including Facebook messages exchanged after the alleged assault.

“Most of the women who have filed Title IX complaints against a handful of colleges over the past couple of years have said they were raped by fellow students, and administrators did not effectively respond to their complaints. Campuses including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Occidental College, Swarthmore College and theUniversity of Southern California are all under federal investigation stemming from complaints students filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. In April 2011, OCR laid out its expectations for how colleges should prevent sexual assault and respond to complaints, including having effective policies for investigations and judicial proceedings. The women who file those complaints are often said to have been “re-victimized” by inadequate administrative response. In contrast, the men who filed complaints last month against Saint Joseph’s University and Vassar College are alleged perpetrators who are in effect claiming they were victimized by a system set up against them.”

August 10, 2013

“Know Your IX” campaign

After months of discussion of sexual assault in higher education and after the Department of Education has begun investigating several schools for how they handle sexual assault, a group of student activists and assault survivors have launched a “Know Your IX” campaign, reports a recent item in MS Magazine “It’s designed to help students learn their rights under Title IX and other gender equality laws, according to the group’s website, which went live on Tuesday:

Know Your IX is a campaign that aims to educate all college students in the U.S. about their rights under Title IX. Armed with information, sexual violence survivors will be able to advocate for themselves during their schools’ grievance proceedings and, if Title IX guarantees are not respected, file a complaint against their colleges with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

“The website primarily focuses on helping students effectively combat sexual assault on college campuses and has five main sections: how to report assault and harassment, how to use legal and activist strategies to change colleges, how to help survivors, how to spread information about the campaign and advice for survivors and advocates. The website says,

Based on our own experiences we know that students’ knowledge of their rights to educations free from violence is an essential tool for ensuring justice both for individuals and on a systemic level. Survivor-activists who “know their IX” can advocate for themselves when reporting violence, demand that their schools live up to their legal responsibilities, and push for campus-wide change if students’ rights are not respected.

“The advice section of the website covers everything from how to find a lawyer to dealing with retaliation from a school to basic self-care tips. “Know Your IX” is simple to navigate, and the language used is clear. As a caveat, though, the leaders of “Know Your IX” remind readers that that

We are not lawyers …We cannot provide legal advice, and urge you to consult with an actual, real, trained lawyer before taking action.

“While they can’t provide legal counsel, “Know Your IX” can provide almost everything else that a survivor or activist needs to know.”

More at: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/08/get-to-know-know-your-ix/

August 9, 2013

Transparent = visibility

In a surprising new trend among non-traditional television outlets, transgender characters are gaining not only increasing visibility in programming, but prominence within show plot-lines, reports Huffington Post

“Most recently, writer Jill Soloway announced that she is creating a new pilot for Amazon titled “Transparent,” which is set to cast “Arrested Development” star Jeffrey Tambor in the leading role.

“The show, which will begin filming in September, reportedly centers around a “middle-aged parent who sits his three adult children down for a revealing, personal conversation. Mort has been secretly living a double-life as a woman, and is eager to introduce the family to their new, authentic parent.”

“Tambor recently starred in Netflix’s non-network revival of the popular television comedy “Arrested Development,” as well as played the head of a news network in another Amazon pilot for Onion News Empire, which has not yet been green-lighted for production. The actor also filmed four episodes of an NBC series titled “Next Caller” alongside Dane Cook, though the network cancelled the show before the season finished filming.

“In the past, trans visibility on network television has proven to be fairly problematic, with representation of the trans community usually presented in an extremely narrow, limited understanding of the vast plethora of identities encompassed by this signifier. Last year, GLAAD published a study that examined ten years of transgender representation on television and found that “more then half [of the portrayals] were negative or defamatory.”

More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/08/jeffrey-tambor-transparent_n_3726212.html

August 9, 2013August 9, 2013

Suggesting dieting may backfire

Urging a partner to diet may seem like a supportive thing to do, but a new study finds it can trigger unhealthy habits such as fasting and taking diet pills — measures that can then lead to severe eating disorders, reports MedMD

“Both women and men tended to react negatively to their partners’ well-meaning encouragement, said researcher Marla Eisenberg, an associate professor of adolescent health and medicine at the University of Minnesota.

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“Romantic partners provide important feedback about each other’s weight,” Eisenberg said. “Encouraging a loved one to diet, however, may do more harm than good.” In 2008 and 2009, she surveyed nearly 1,300 young adults in Minnesota, ages 20 to 31 and in relationships. More than 40 percent of those surveyed had used extreme dieting behaviors in the past year, she found. Binge eating nearly doubled among women whose partners encouraged dieting ”very much” compared to ”not at all.” While about 14 percent of women who were not urged to diet engaged in binge eating, more than 25 percent of those urged to diet ”very much” did so.

“While about 4 percent of men who were not urged to diet by their partner engaged in binge eating, 14 percent of those who experienced constant urging to diet engaged in the behavior, the investigators found. The study is published in the July/August issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. About half of the men and women said their significant other encouraged them to diet either a little, somewhat, or very much. More than 56 percent said their partner dieted to lose weight. About half of the men and women were normal weight or underweight, 27 percent were overweight and 22 percent were obese, according to the report.Eisenberg didn’t ask the men and women why they resorted to unhealthy behaviors if they were urged to diet, but she has an idea. Continue reading “Suggesting dieting may backfire”

August 8, 2013

Gender inequality in movie acting

While it’s not surprising that women in the entertainment industry earn less than their male counterparts, the extent of that gender pay gap is extraordinary given that the combined earnings of this year’s top actors is up more than 15% since 2009, and at its highest level in five years.

This year’s Forbes’ list of Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Actors banked a collective $465 million, almost two and a half times more than what the top-paid actresses brought in. As Forbes reports: “With an estimated $75 million in earnings, Robert Downey, Jr. landed the #1 spot with a paycheck $10 million larger than the combined earnings of the five women who rounded out the top Actress’ list. By comparison, the two actors who rounded out the Actors list, Denzel Washington and Liam Neeson, each collected $33 million – the same figure that propelled Angelina Jolie to the top spot for actresses.

“Forbes’ list of Hollywood’s Highest-Paid Actresses is led by Angelina Jolie earning an astounding $33 million — and the #1 spot — thanks in large part to her upcoming role in Disney’s“Maleficent,” set to be released next summer. Big-budget films also helped to land starlets Jennifer Lawrence ($24 million) and Kristen Stewart ($22 million) into the top three, with Hollywood royalty such as Jennifer Aniston ($20 million), Sandra Bullock ($14 million), Charlize Theron ($15 million), and Julia Roberts ($11 million) all making the top 10.

“This type of earnings difference may not be unique to Hollywood, but comparing Tinseltown’s top-paid talent underscores just how acute and pervasive gender inequities are in show business. What are the driving forces behind this pay gap? First and foremost, roles for women continue to remain scare, particularly in an industry where far too often talent remains defined by youthful good looks rather than acting ability. The majority of gigs are limited to secondary parts or indie films versus the big blockbusters or franchises that generate the kinds of exorbitant paychecks that landed many of this year’s leading men into the top 10. Continue reading “Gender inequality in movie acting”

August 8, 2013

Blood sugar and dementia

Last week it was dental plaque, now it is blood glucose. It seems we are in the midst of an all-out boomer dementia panic. WebMD has the latest:

“Elevated blood sugar levels, even among people who don’t have diabetes, are associated with an increased risk for dementia, a new study shows.

“The effect was very subtle, however, suggesting that higher blood sugar levels may be more of a nudge toward memory loss than a shove.”If I had diabetes and I read this study, my reaction would be relief,” said Dr. Richard O’Brien, chair of neurology at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, who was not involved in the research. “The effect was small.”

“The risk increases tied to rising blood sugar (or blood glucose) levels ranged from 10 percent to 40 percent. O’Brien pointed out that other risks appear to have much greater impacts. Having a parent with dementia, for example, roughly doubles or triples a person’s risk for developing the disease. O’Brien recently conducted a different study that looked at a similar, but slightly different question: whether or not blood glucose levels were linked to brain changes of Alzheimer’s disease. That study, published online July 29 in JAMA Neurology, concluded there was no connection. But O’Brien’s study had fewer participants than the current investigation, which means it may not have been large enough to detect the slight differences between people who did and did not have signs of Alzheimer’s. And because his study was solely focused on Alzheimer’s disease, it couldn’t rule out the possibility that higher blood sugar levels might be contributing to other kinds of dementia, particularly when it’s caused by damage to the small blood vessels of the brain. Continue reading “Blood sugar and dementia”

August 7, 2013

World income declines

Personal income in the world went down in the last year, as reported today from Gallup.

“Twenty-six percent of the world’s adult population was employed full time for an employer in 2012, down slightly from 27% a year ago. This decline reverses the upward trend in Gallup’s Payroll to Population (P2P) measure since the height of the global recession in 2009.

“Gallup’s P2P metric estimates the percentage of the adult population aged 15 and older — not just those currently in the workforce — who are employed full time for an employer for at least 30 hours per week. Gallup does not seasonally adjust its P2P metric. Gallup does not count adults who are self-employed, working part time, unemployed, or out of the workforce as payroll-employed in the P2P metric.

“The percentage of people working full time for themselves was 18% in 2012, a slight decline over 2011 (19%). Thirty-eight percent were out of the workforce (38%), up slightly over 37% in 2011.

“On a regional basis, Northern America, made up of the U.S. and Canada, has the highest P2P rate (42%) of all regions in 2012, followed the group of European countries and areas not in the European Union (40%), which includes Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and North Cyprus. In both regions, 5% of the population is self-employed, while approximately one-third is not actively participating in the workforce.”

More at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163841/global-payroll-population-rate-drops-2012.aspx?utm_source=feedly

August 7, 2013

Smoking after church

Smoking in the U.S. is highly correlated with religiosity, with those who never attend church almost three times as likely to smoke as those who attend weekly.

This relationship holds even when controlling for demographic characteristics associated with smoking and church attendance, reports Gallup.

“These data are based on 353,571 interviews conducted throughout 2012 with American adults aged 18 and older as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

“Smoking as measured by the question “Do you smoke?” increases in a linear fashion as church attendance decreases, ranging from a low of 12% among those who report attending church at least once a week, to 30% among those who never attend church.

“Both smoking and religious service attendance are related to a number of demographic characteristics within the population, including:

Age — smoking decreases with age, while religious service attendance increases
Gender — men are more likely to smoke but are less likely to attend church
Marital status — smoking is lower among married Americans, while church attendance is higher Continue reading “Smoking after church”

August 6, 2013August 6, 2013

Those boring lenses and frames

Certainly, the lens and the frame are useful as metaphors, but as used, they are also quite limited. As an experiment, the next time you see one used, replace “frame” or “lens” with “context,” adjust the necessary conjunctions, and see if any meaning is lost. If in a given piece of writing, “seen through a queer lens” could just as easily be “seen in a queer context,” then the optical device isn’t living up to its potential as metaphor.

The chief ways in which optical metaphors can be improved in our writing are through diversity and specificity. These go hand-in-hand: the more diverse our optical metaphors become, the more specific they are able to be. Lenses, for example, can be convex-convex (the usual “lenticular” shape, which incidentally I suspect of being where lentils got their name, though I’ve done no research on this), but they can also be flat or concave on one or both sides. So, some lenses are plano-convex, others are convex-concave. These lenses behave differently and have different applications, and so could be employed in a diverse range of metaphorical applications.

“Lens” and “frame” get used a lot in theory writing. A recent post on Bad-at-Sports i getting cranky about this:

“The difference between a lens of any type and a frame is that we are directly aware of the ways in which lenses alter the image we are seeing. A biconvex lens held at the right distance from the eye will magnify the image. (At this distance, the image is not inverted; held out further, the image inverts, but the reason why is beyond my ability to explain from memory, so go Google a diagram.) This is the classic magnifying glass. Other types of lenses, such as eyeglasses, subtly alter the focal distance of our eyes (or rather, adjust the image to account for a flawed focal distance). Multiple-lens apparatuses like binoculars and microscopes magnify and can be focused. The point is that we are immediately aware of this alteration of the image we are seeing, because it is inherent to the function of the lens-based device. Continue reading “Those boring lenses and frames”