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Math disability affects 6 percent

A math learning disability similar to dyslexia affects 6 percent of people, although it gets little attention.

“Dyscalculia” is discussed in Discover Magazine as excerpted below:

“Steph Zech graduated from high school this spring with an admirable academic record. She especially loved chemistry, writing and literature — though she has some reservations about Dante. A bright and diligent student, she took two Advanced Placement classes her senior year, sailing through both.images

“But when it comes to math, Steph has struggled mightily. At age 17, she still counts on her fingers to add 3 and 5. She doesn’t know her multiplication tables. She can’t understand fractions, process concepts of time such as “quarter after” or read dice without counting the dots. She did recently figure out that if something costs 75 cents, the change from a dollar should be 25 cents. But when asked what the change would be if the price were 70 cents, she considers at length before venturing, “15 cents?” Continue reading “Math disability affects 6 percent”

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Asian American segregation

Asians, the fastest-growing, highest-earning and best-educated race in the U.S., are almost as segregated from the nation’s white majority as they were two decades ago, according to a study released today, reports today’s Bloomberg Newsimages-1

“Specific Asian ancestries — including two of the largest, Chinese and Indians — are as isolated from the white population as Hispanics, according to the study by two Brown University sociologists. At the same time, Asians generally live in neighborhoods that are comparable — and in some ways “markedly better” — than those of whites, the study said.

“The Asian pattern is separate but equal (or even more than equal), raising questions about the prospect or value of their residential assimilation in the future,” wrote John Logan, who co-authored the report.

“The number of Asians in the U.S. surged 43.3 percent during the last decade, about four times faster than white population growth, to more than 17 million. Their ranks have more than doubled since 1990. Median household income has risen 2.3 percent to $70,815 for Asians since 2000 while white Americans have suffered a 1.1 percent drop.

“When viewed as a single race, Asians are less segregated than Hispanics or blacks. When Asians are divided into major ancestries, “they’re more segregated than we thought they were,” Logan wrote. Cultural values and the fact that a majority of Asians are immigrants are the likeliest reasons for their segregation, he said. While most immigrant groups assimilate over time, Logan said Japanese are the only Asian ancestral group that isn’t as segregated as the broader racial category. “There may be no motivation for spatial assimilation of these immigrant groups, that the current residential enclaves fully meet their needs in a way that could become self-reinforcing,” the authors wrote.

“The bulk of the nation’s Asian population consists of six ancestries with 1 million or more people each: Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Filipino and Vietnamese. All except Japanese are made up of a majority of immigrants. While Asians are the nation’s third-largest minority group, they’re concentrated heavily in three states. California accounts for 5.6 million of them, almost one-third of the nation’s Asian population. New York has 1.6 million, and Texas claims 1.1 million. Among U.S. metropolitan areas, New York and Los Angeles have the greatest numbers of Asians. New York’s Asian population consists primarily of Chinese and Indians; Los Angeles has a larger percentage of Filipinos, Japanese and Koreans. Texas leads the nation in its share of Vietnamese.”

 

More at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-26/asians-in-thriving-enclaves-keep-distance-from-whites.html

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Universities begin petition for diversity

Thirty-seven college associations on Sunday issued a joint statement on the importance of diversity in American higher education, report’s todays Inside Higher ed.images-2

“A diverse student body enables all students to have the transformational experience of interacting with their peers who have varied perspectives and come from different backgrounds. These experiences, which are highly valued by employers because of their importance in the workplace, also prepare students with the skills they need to live in an interconnected world and to be more engaged citizens. Our economic future, democracy, and global standing will suffer if the next generation is not ready to engage and work with people whose backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are different from their own,” says the statement, published as an advertisement Sunday in The New York Times.

“We remain dedicated to the mission of discovering and disseminating knowledge gained through direct experiences with diverse colleagues — a resource for achieving a stronger democracy and nation,” the statement added. Continue reading “Universities begin petition for diversity”

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On worrying about Don

It’s no secret, Don has a lot of people worried.

Always the good guy (sort of), the ad man really hit the skids this year. Leave it to Entertainment Weekly to ponder this matter fully, as excerpted below:

“Since the very beginning of Mad Men, Don Draper has seemed doomed. images-1From the show’s opening-credit sequence, with a silhouetted suit falling helplessly from the Madison Avenue skyline, to this year’s season premiere, which featured Don delving into a copy of Dante’sInferno, the future always seemed bleak for our dapper anti-hero.

“Oblivious to the fact that he’s always on the wrong side of history, Don began to wither. What seemed cool about him in the beginning — his afternoon drinks and serial womanizing — has devolved to pathetic.

“So where will it end? And more importantly, when? Will the year be 1969 when Mad Menreturns for its seventh and final season? Or 1970? 1973…? Or might Matthew Weiner throw a curve and leap into the future — say 1980 — before flashing-back to the beginning of the previous decade.

“Let’s discuss…

“When we first met Don Draper in season 1, it was March 1960, perhaps the high-water mark of the American Dream after World War II and nearly a decade of Eisenhower prosperity,  with the youthful optimism of Kennedy’s Camelot on the horizon. The center was holding. There was order. Life made sense (at least for upper middle-class white men). The story of Don Draper — and to a lesser extent Roger Sterling and the other men at the ad agency — has been the breakdown in society during one of the country’s most turbulent decades: racial strife, feminism, Vietnam, political assassinations, etc.

“Weiner has only once jumped more than a year between Mad Men seasons — season 2 began in February 1962, 15 months after season 1 left off — and the average time-jump is about nine months. So it’s a safe bet that the final season will pick up sometime in 1969 after season 6 left us in front of Don’s childhood abode around Thanksgiving 1968. That makes some logical and symmetrical sense, too, since it wraps up the story of the decade quite neatly.

“But up until last week’s season finale, I thought Weiner, Don, and Mad Men were steering towards a very different end. Don’s downward spiral accelerated every episode, and to me, it all pointed towards Watergate — the ultimate figurative and literal corruption of the country’s soul. There was even a recent episode where a drunken and depressed Don watched a bland Nixon-for-President commercial, and I wondered if the light would go on in Don’s head saying “Hey, I can carve a better winning message for my pal, Dick, than this amateurish crap!”

 

More at: http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/06/28/mad-men-will-it-really-end-in-1969/

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Invisibility cloaks

Clothing to make you invisible to to digital snoops?images

The term “stealth wear” sounded cool, if a bit extreme, when I first heard it early this year, reports today’s New York Times .”It’s a catchy description for clothing and accessories designed to protect the wearer from detection and surveillance. I was amused. It seemed like an updated version of a tinfoil hat, albeit a stylish one.

“Fast-forward a few months. Flying surveillance cameras, also known as drones, are increasingly in the news. So are advances in facial-recognition technology. And wearable devices like Google Glass — which can be used to take photographs and videos and upload them to the Internet within seconds — are adding to the fervor. Then there are the disclosures of Edward Snowden, the fugitive former government contractor, about clandestine government surveillance.

“It’s enough to make countersurveillance fashion as timely and pertinent as any seasonal trend, like midriff tops or wedge sneakers. Adam Harvey, an artist and design professor at the School of Visual Arts and an early creator of stealth wear, acknowledges that countersurveillance clothing sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel.

“The science-fiction part has become a reality,” he said, “and there’s a growing need for products that offer privacy.”Mr. Harvey exhibited a number of his stealth-wear designs and prototypes in an art show this year in London. His work includes a series of hoodies and cloaks that use reflective, metallic fabric — like the kind used in protective gear for firefighters — that he has repurposed to  reducea person’s thermal footprint. In theory, this limits one’s visibility to aerial surveillance vehicles employing heat-imaging cameras to track people on the ground.

“He also developed a purse with extra-bright LEDs that can be activated when someone is taking unwanted pictures; the effect is to reduce an intrusive photograph to a washed-out blur. In addition, he created a guide for hairstyling and makeup application that might keep a camera from recognizing the person beneath the elaborate get-up. The technique is called CV Dazzle — a riff on “computer vision” and “dazzle,” a type of camouflage used during World War II to make it hard to detect the size and shape of warships.”

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/technology/stealth-wear-aims-to-make-a-tech-statement.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

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It’s still the economy…

Economic issues dominate Americans’ concerns about the nation’s future, according to the latest Gallup Poll. ” Americans say the economy (17%) is their greatest worry or concern for the future of the United States, followed by the federal debt (11%). Five percent or more also mention jobs and international wars and conflicts.

These findings, collected June 20-24, indicate that Americans think economic issues will be the biggest concern for the future, even as the economy shows some positive signs of recovery.

Americans’ concerns for the nation’s future are generally similar to their current worries. In a separate Gallup poll conducted June 1-4, Americans said the economy is the most important problem facing the country today, followed by jobs or unemployment.

After economic issues, Americans frequently mention war and conflicts in other countries as their top worry, with 5% saying so. Americans’ involvement in the civil war in Syria and recent escalating tension with North Koreaare likely driving this concern.

Healthcare or cost of healthcare and losing freedom or civil liberties also rank toward the top of the list of Americans’ concerns for the nation’s future, likely reflecting Americans’ worries about the impact of theAffordable Care Act and disapproval of the federal government’s surveillance of Internet and telephone communication. Fewer mention terrorism — which the federal government cites as the reason for its surveillance of communications — with 1% saying it is their greatest concern.

Republicans and Republican leaners are as likely as Democrats and Democratic leaners to mention the economy as their biggest worry for the future. However, Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say the federal debt is their top concern, 15% vs. 6%. Slightly more Democrats than Republicans mention jobs and wars as their greatest worry.

 

More at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163298/americans-say-economy-top-worry-nation-future.aspx?utm_source=tagrss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication

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The age of discipline

Discipline means different thing to different people.images

But for the sake of this discussion, let’s say it has to do with control – or self-control. At least that is how it was discussed in the piece excerpted below appearing in today’s The Guardian: “We have reached the end game of have-it-all culture.

“Because I’m Worth It has had its day, and discipline is the new decadence. The Nike Fuel Band, which tracks your calorie expenditure and praises you for an active lifestyle, has more smug-factor than a Rolex right now. The dominant meme of annoying Facebook behaviour has segued from the posting of party photos to “inspirational” quotes (American men – Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson – are especially hot right now). Meanwhile, the narrative of reality TV has changed: bad behaviour in the hot tub, à la early Big Brother, has been replaced, from The Voice to The Apprentice, by Saturday-night preaching of the age-old Sunday-morning mantras that hard work will be rewarded, that mentors must be respected and listened to. Even family life has taken on a new set of values. With every issue of Goop, the cosy, cupcake-baking ideal of motherhood cedes territory to the Tiger Mothers (whose children will be more successful than yours) and the Gwyneth Paltrow-esque mothers (whose children will be slimmer and healthier, ergo more successful, than yours.) Continue reading “The age of discipline”

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The price of knowledge

The Education Department has updated its annual list of the country’s most expensive colleges (by net price and by list price), and, as always, this year’s list contains familiar names. The below story excerpt comes from today’s Inside Higher ed about the report:

“Columbia University narrowly edged out Sarah Lawrence College — a perpetual contender on the list, and one that has defended its high tuition — for the most expensive tuition list price, at $45,290 in the 2011-12 academic year. Among four-year public colleges, the University of Pittsburgh surpassed Pennsylvania State University for the most expensive list price, at $16,132. And the most expensive net price (based on what students actually pay after financial aid) was the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, at $42,882, on a list dominated by colleges specializing in music and visual arts. These figures do not include room and board, books, or various fees, which at the most expensive private colleges can push a full year’s sticker price above $60,000.

“The lists, posted on the Education Department’s College Affordability and Transparency Center, are a sort of “hall of shame” intended to force colleges to be more transparent about both their list prices and the prices students pay after financial aid. The center offers nine lists in all, breaking colleges down by sector and differentiating between net price (the price students pay after grants) and sticker price.

“They debuted in 2011, required by the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. In the past, they’ve been greeted with some fanfare: press conferences from the Education Department touting increased transparency and objections from the named colleges about the lists’ flaws. Last year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan seized on the release of the list as an opportunity to criticize states for yanking support to higher education.

“Colleges have criticized the lists, arguing that they oversimplify — many factors are driving tuition increases, including shrinking state budgets at public institutions.

“But the lists’ power appears to be fading, released with less fanfare and greeted with less media coverage than in the past. A Columbia University spokesman said the institution had received few media requests about their position on the list.

“In response to the lists, Columbia pointed to its generous financial aid policies. ”A conversation about college costs must also include a conversation about financial aid and net price,” Robert Hornsby, assistant vice president for media relations, said in a statement. “As a result of our full-need financial aid program, Columbia has continued to attract among the most socioeconomically diverse student bodies among peer institutions. The university takes pride in its continued commitment to ensuring that students can attend Columbia regardless of their family’s financial circumstances.”

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/28/education-department-releases-annual-tuition-pricing-lists#ixzz2XaGGGwCR
Inside Higher Ed

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PTSD explained

The light went on in my head during a debate over PTSD nomenclature last year.imgres

Then-president of the American Psychiatric Association, John Oldham, was chairing a session entitled Combat-Related PTSD: Injury or Disorder? Today’s Time Magazine carries a no-nonsense article about what PTSD is, exactly.

“A stellar panel of trauma experts — retired generals, senior researchers and key framers of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — debated whether the term, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) should be changed to post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI).

“Supporters of the change to “injury” argued that it might help overcome the stigma that many military members and veterans associate with seeking treatment for PTSD. Service members aren’t happy to report “a disorder” but might be willing to admit an injury. Those in opposition argued that “injury” is too imprecise a term for psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. As I sat through the heated session, it struck me that they were also implying that the term, disorder, is somehow “more scientific” and, therefore, “more psychiatric.” Continue reading “PTSD explained”

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China’s pledge on pollution

China has promised major steps to improve air quality as smog and greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, reports today’s Asia Times. “On June 14, the State Council released a package of 10 anti-pollution measures to ease the emissions crisis, state media said.images Topping the list is a pledge to cut pollution from six smog-producing industries by at least 30% per unit of output by 2017, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

“The government has already targeted producers of thermal power, iron and steel, petrochemicals, cement, non-ferrous metals and chemicals with rules to make them gradually comply with international standards in 47 cities.

“The 2017 target is seen as speeding up the process in the six dirtiest industries that account for over 70% of emissions, according to Chai Fahe, vice president of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, cited by the official China Daily. Despite a series of efforts, the government has made only limited progress in cleaning up the big six emitters. The same group was cited as the source for 70% of power consumption and sulfur dioxide releases as far back as 2007. But there are signs that the new government is serious about making faster progress on environmental issues after rising public anger over urban smog. “It has proven that environmental crises can stir controversy and greatly undermine social stability,” Xinhua said in a separate commentary.  Continue reading “China’s pledge on pollution”

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Privatizing the public university

In a unanimous vote last month, the Regents of the University of California created a corporate entity that, if spread to all UC campuses as some regents envision, promises to further privatize scientific research produced by taxpayer-funded laboratories, reports the EastBayExpress.

“The entity, named Newco for the time being, also would block a substantial amount of UC research from being accessible to the public, and could reap big profits for corporations and investors that have ties to the well-connected businesspeople who will manage it.images-3

“Despite the sweeping changes the program portends for UC, the regents’ vote received virtually no press coverage. UC plans to first implement Newco at UCLA and its medical centers, but some regents, along with influential business leaders across the state, want similar entities installed at Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, and other campuses. UC Regents Chairwoman Sherry Lansing called Newco at UCLA a “pilot program” for the entire UC system.

“The purpose of Newco is to completely revamp how scientific discoveries made in UC laboratories — from new treatments for cancer to apps for smartphones — come to be used by the public. Traditionally, UC campuses have used their own technology transfer offices to make these decisions. But under Newco, decisions about the fate of academic research will be taken away from university employees and faculty, and put in the hands of a powerful board of businesspeople who will be separate from the university. This nonprofit board will decide which UC inventions to patent and how to structure licensing deals with private industry. It also will have control over how to spend public funds on these activities. Continue reading “Privatizing the public university”

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And now, carb addiction

Addicted to sugar? Sure, people joke about it all the time.

But then again, what is addiction? images-1

A story on NPR today takes the topic seriously, as excerpted here: “Fresh research adds weight to the notion that certain foods (think empty carbs like bagels and sweet treats) can lead to more intense hunger and overeating. Fast-digesting carbohydrates can stimulate regions of the brain involved in cravings and addiction, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“Prior studies have shown that highly desirable foods, perhaps a cheesecake or pie, can trigger pleasure centers in the brain. But what’s new about this research is that it shows that even when people are unaware of what they’re eating, the intake of fast-digesting carbs can activate parts of the brain associated with pleasure, reward and addiction.To evaluate this, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity prevention center at Boston Children’s Hospital, and his colleagues conducted brain scans in 12 overweight men after they consumed two different kinds of test milkshakes.Both milkshakes had the same number of calories and similar ingredients, but one contained more fast-digesting carbs and the other was made of slower-digesting carbohydrates. The concept here is that so-called high-glycemic index foods such as sugar and highly processed breads move through the body faster than low-glycemic index foods such as fruit and whole grains.  Continue reading “And now, carb addiction”

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Private prison “gladiator school”

The ACLU reports that “On Wednesday, news broke that Idaho is dumping the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and searching for a new company to run the state’s biggest prison. imgresThe prison is so violent that prisoners call it the “Gladiator School,” and it has been the subject of both an ACLU lawsuit and an Idaho State Police investigation. And earlier this year, CCA admitted that its employees had falsified nearly 4,800 hours of staffing records at the prison over a seven-month period, billing the state for security posts that they actually left unfilled.

“Idaho’s decision to end the Gladiator School contract with CCA will make it the fourth termination of a CCA prison contract that the company has announced this month.

“The week before the Gladiator School announcement, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced that it would be closing down two CCA prisons for budgetary reasons. (One of the two prisons, the Dawson State Jail, was the site of multiple high-profile prisoner deaths, including a baby girl who was allegedly born into a prison toilet after staff ignored her mother’s requests for medical assistance.) The same week, CCA announced that the Mississippi Department of Corrections decided not to renew CCA’s contract to run the state’s Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. Earlier this year, a prisoner was stabbed to death during a prison riot at Wilkinson – which was the second riot in twelve months at Wilkinson and the third uprising at a CCA prison in Mississippi during the same time period. Continue reading “Private prison “gladiator school””

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Insomnaics for drugs

Every now and then everyone has trouble sleeping. And then there are those of us who always have the problem.

No wonder the sleep medication industry now accounts for $1.7-billion in spending each year.

Todays Wall Street Journal discusses “A new sleep drug by Merck & Co. is expected to gain U.S. approval in the coming months, even as its main competitor is coming under growing scrutiny by regulators and doctors for sometimes-dangerous side effects. The new drug, known as suvorexant, will affect a different part of the brain than a generation of older medicines such as zolpidem, known as Ambien, which depresses brain activity. The hope is that suvorexant will cause fewer side effects than its older counterparts.

images

“An estimated 25% or more Americans face a bout of insomnia in a given year, and at least 1 in 10 suffers the chronic form of the disorder, routinely facing sleepless nights, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There’s a need for more drugs,” said Russell Rosenberg, chairman of the National Sleep Foundation. Current drugs don’t work for everyone, and a push to lower doses amid safety concerns has led to patients “coming in and saying it’s not working as well,” said Dr. Rosenberg, a practicing sleep psychologist and director of the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine and Technology.

“New sleep drugs may be facing a higher approval bar, amid rising concern that Ambien and similar drugs cause side effects such as risky bouts of sleepwalking and next-day drowsiness, which can impair driving. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised doctors to reduce doses of Ambien for women, and added new warnings to its labeling earlier this year.”

 

Read full article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324183204578565392659897114.html

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Gender driven global economics

No less an entity than the US State Department today announced a new initiative to approach world economic growth from the perspective of gender.imgres

As the State Department press release reads: “Growth – the most pressing issue on the agenda of every economic policy-maker in the world today. How do we get it? How do we sustain it? How do we make it inclusive? How do we ensure it generates jobs? Infrastructure investment, eliminating trade barriers, investment in education and research, fostering entrepreneurship, better tax policy – there may be no silver bullet, but we should explore all possible means of raising growth and perhaps the solution is right in front of us. Recent studies suggest that if OECD countries saw full convergence of men and women in our labor force, these countries would benefit from an overall increase of 12% in GDP over the next 20 years. Now the question is: how do we get there?

“Gender and its relevance to macroeconomic policy is a relatively new field. And while work has been done on the data and analysis front in recent years, the topic is still in its early days. Tackling gender in the field of human rights and development dates back decades. Good data and analysis led to mainstreaming policy at places like the UN, the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks, the State Department and USAID, as with many donor governments around the world. This provides the IMF with a tremendous opportunity to do the same exercise when it provides economic assessments of countries around the world. The IMF has ramped up in recent years dialogue with member countries on issues like inclusive growth and labor markets, and more and more research is pointing to women as key to economic growth. To the extent that the IMF can “mainstream” gender might prove decisive to getting us there. IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde says:”More women at work means good news for the global economy” – I couldn’t agree more.

“The IMF is pushing forward the gender driven growth agenda in an important economy right now: Japan. Japan’s last Article IV assessment highlighted the need to increase women’s participation in labor markets to stem demographic decline and drive future growth. Christine Lagarde personally advocates on this issue. Full integration of women in the Japanese economy is now gaining attention at the top level of government. Prime Minister Abe, who campaigned on increasing women’s participation in Japan’s economy to drive future growth, has claimed “women are Japan’s most underutilized resource.” Prime Minister Abe has rightfully placed the issue of improving women’s participation in the economy as a growth imperative squarely on top of the policy agenda, the third arrow of “Abenomics”.

 

Full story at: http://www.state.gov/e/oce/rls/2013/211088.htm

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Young and downwardly mobile

Young working-class men and women are trying to figure out what it means to be an adult in a world of disappearing jobs, soaring education costs and shrinking social support networks. Today, only 20 percent of men and women between 18 and 29 are married. They live at home longer, spend more years in college, change jobs more frequently and start families later.

Before reading any further, a spoiler alert: today’s New York Times carries no few than four articles about the poor prospects for young people, the skyrocketing costs of education, the uselessness of a college degree. That said:

“For more affluent young adults, this may look a lot like freedom. But for the hundred-some working-class 20- and 30-somethings I interviewed between 2008 and 2010 in Lowell and Richmond, Va., at gas stations, fast-food chains, community colleges and temp agencies, the view is very different.

“Lowell and Richmond embody many of the structural forces, like deindustrialization and declining blue-collar jobs, that frame working-class young people’s attempts to come of age in America today. The economic hardships of these men and women, both white and black, have been well documented. But often overlooked are what the sociologists Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb in 1972 called their “hidden injuries” — the difficult-to-measure social costs borne by working-class youths as they struggle to forge stable and meaningful adult lives. Continue reading “Young and downwardly mobile”

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Rediscovering the library

When I started teaching, books were easier to find than articles, whose references were buried deep in voluminous, thin-paged indexes. Students took different paths in their research and came up with wildly different sets of texts, states a piece in ths weeks Chronicleof Higher Education:  imgres

“Some checked out the better books early, leaving the others to scrounge for what was left. Sure, there was overlap, but students often ended up with individualized research materials, exercising their critical abilities to integrate what they found into a coherent, cohesive discussion. As periodical-search engines blossomed, students, ever adaptable, started using more articles. While the electronic card catalog remained more or less static, the search engines became increasingly user-friendly. It became so difficult to get students to use books in their research that I started stipulating that they use a minimum number in my assignments.

“Then the development of Google and of electronic journals essentially converged. Why bother with books and the stacks when you can search full-text articles online? The process has become even more alluring with database products like Discover (which our libraries enthusiastically characterize as “the scholarly version of Google!”). It searches millions of entries, including all of the library catalog, the most-used journal databases, and local historical collections. Like Google, Discover ranks findings according to relevance. With the aid of our reference librarians, students easily set up their searches to obtain exactly what they think they’ll need, usually in the form of full-text articles.

“Consequently, my students hardly ever consult books. Circulation statistics support this impression. In 2005 our libraries checked out or renewed 86,807 books or other media. That number has been steadily declining. By 2012, the number had dropped to 45,394, down 48 percent in seven years.

Why am I bothered by these developments? Well, partly because modern library design mirrors student preferences. Increasingly, libraries are social spaces—with Wi-Fi, study nooks, coffee shops, chat areas, and movable furniture—and not homes for books, which are relegated to off-site repositories, save for a few recent acquisitions. If a student wants a book, she can requisition it. I cannot imagine students already deterred by the stacks having much patience for the repository.”

 

Full article at: http://chronicle.com/article/Unintentional-Knowledge/139891/

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On asexuality

In 10 years, activist David Jay hopes your kids will be learning about asexuality when they’re getting “the talk.” This week an essay on Huffington Post explores this topic”

“What is ace culture going to look like in a decade? I don’t know,” he said. “Will it look like gay culture? That might happen, but I’m not invested in that. What I am invested in is that as more aces come out, a much larger percentage of the population will have access to the term ‘asexual’ than there is right now. I hope asexuality will be far more visible, with more out aces and asexual characters on TV shows and movies. I hope it becomes a part of the bigger world of sexuality.”imgres

“Mark Carrigan, 27, a PhD student at the University of Warwick who has been studying asexuality for half a decade, concurred. He’s eager to see an increase in asexuality awareness as he believes it will not just benefit the ace community but the world at large.

“More visibility for the asexual community will be very important,” he said. “And that’s not just because it’ll make their lives easier as a stigmatized group, but because there are cultural implications beyond those who are asexual themselves.”Carrigan, who is not himself ace, says he sees many similarities between the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights movement and that of the asexual struggle for broader acceptance, writes todays Huffington Post

“I’d argue that gay pride and the LGBT rights movement was a very civilizing movement,” he said. “It had broader ramifications for the culture we live in, inculcating a greater degree of tolerance and more awareness of sexual difference. Similarly, more awareness for asexuality will likely lead to awareness of a different sort of sexual difference.” Continue reading “On asexuality”

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Blaming the victims

Last week, Carie Charlesworth, a teacher in California and a victim of domestic violence, was fired from her job because her abusive husband invaded the school parking lot and put the school on lockdown, writes a story in ThinkProgress today.images-1“While her abuser was sent to prison, she was also punished for his crime by losing her employment.

“The school’s action -– firing her because she is a victim of domestic abuse –- is sadly legal in most states. Just six, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island,have laws on the books that bar employment discrimination against victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault, according to an up-to-date document tracking these laws from Legal Momentum. State Senators in California introduced a non-discrimination bill in February, which has been referred to committee.

“Illinois and Hawaii, as well as New York City and Westchester County, go further to mandate that employers offer victims reasonable accommodations so that they can stay at work: “things like allowing you to change your work telephone number or changing a shift so someone can’t stalk you and find you,” Michelle Caiola, a senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum, told ThinkProgress. Fourteen states protect victims who need to take time off of work to go to counseling, court, or seek medical attention due to their abuse.

“For their part, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that only about 15 percent of employershave a workplace policy that specifically addresses domestic violence.”

Full story at: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/20/2190691/domestic-violence-employment-discrimination/

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Why the minimum wage matters

Three and a half million people of color would be lifted out of poverty if Congress raised the minimum wage to $10.10, according to a new report from the restaurant workers’ group ROC United. According to a recent post on ThinkProgress:  “This would be the majority of the six million people overall who would be lifted out of poverty. People of color are far more likely to work minimum wage jobs, as they represent 42 percent of those earners even though they make up just 32 percent of the workforce.images

“That big number is in large part thanks to the overrepresentation of people of color in low-wage restaurant industry jobs. Over 500,000 of those lifted out of poverty by a raise in the minimum wage would be restaurant workers, 300,000 of whom would be workers of color.

“Restaurants are the single largest employer of people of color, but they are disproportionately concentrated in the lowest paying positions. As the report notes, “Two of the lowest-paying jobs, dishwashers and fast food preps and cooks, are 59% and 35% people of color, and earn a median wage of $8.78 and $8.85, respectively.” Forty percent of tipped workers — who make an even lower minimum wage of $2.13 — are people of color.

“The people of color who hold these jobs are also more likely to live in poverty. They make up more than half of tipped workers and restaurant workers with incomes below the poverty line.”

 

Read full story at: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/21/2194701/race-minimum-wage/