January 2012
this ain't livin': Gold Definitely Doesn't... →
The wake left behind can be brutal. Gold guts indigenous communities, who may be displaced by mines or by their toxic runoff. Tailings ponds overflow and spew harsh chemicals into the environment, destroying farmland and ruining habitat. Workers at gold mines receive a pittance for their labour and work in unsafe conditions, with few protections from the dangers all around them. The volume of...
Dana Farrington at NPR News: Women's Car-Shopping... →
Rebecca Lindland, a senior automotive analyst with IHS Automotive, tells Sonari she’s often ignored or talked down to while car shopping.
“We know that people expect us to fail, to some extent. That people think that we’re not going to know what we’re talking about. So we overprepare, we overcompensate,” she says. “We don’t go into a dealership to...
Edward Rothstein at New York Times: Life, Liberty... →
These projects are difficult and ambitious, not just for Monticello but also for the African-American museum, which is scheduled to open in 2015. Lonnie G. Bunch III, the museum’s director, emphasized in a conversation that the Washington show is part of the institution’s attempt to explore how slavery might ultimately be presented.
Could any example pose a greater challenge? Jefferson didn’t...
Irish Independent: Cocaine sacks accidentally... →
TWO sacks of cocaine were accidentally delivered to the UN’s New York headquarters after apparently getting lost in the post.
The drugs, worth around $2 million (€1.5m), were hidden in hollowed-out books inside of bags that carried the global body’s famous blue emblem.
Police said the sacks were shipped from Mexico but that when parcel sorters in Ohio were unable to find an address...
Michael Muskal at Los Angeles Times: Gang violence... →
Gang homicides are less likely to be drug-related than many people think — and more likely to be the result of factors such as retaliation to ongoing gang violence, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The report is from the first such study based on the agency’s National Violent Death Reporting System.
Using data from 2003 through 2008, the analysis...
this ain't livin': Tools: Not Just For Boys →
Just once, I’d like to see a tool advertisement featuring a woman in exactly the same role as a man. Excitedly opening a package wrapped in neutral paper to uncover a nifty looking tool that isn’t pink or sparkly, but comes in your default sober, basic colors, and being excited. Turning to thank the person next to her; maybe that person is a son or daughter, or a romantic partner. That woman is...
Zoe Chace at NPR News: No, Hedge Funds Can't... →
The stakes are huge. If they resolve this amicably, then business might be able to continue as usual in Europe: countries borrowing money, people showing up to lend it to them.
But if they don’t, Greece will have a hard, chaotic default. The kind of default that could mean a halt to business all across Europe.
Greece only has enough money to make it until March 20. It needs the next...
Greg Hanscom at Grist: This old house: Why fixing... →
A study released Tuesday finds that in almost every instance, remodeling an old building is greener than building a new one. Beyond that, it shows that reusing old buildings provides immediate results in the fight against climate change, while a relatively energy efficient new building won’t pay climate dividends for decades.
Taken to the scale of the city, the study has some fascinating...
Eric Stokstad at Science: NOAA Says It's Getting... →
NOAA began its surveys of sport fishing in 1981, combining dockside interviews with telephone surveys. These data have been included in assessments of the health of regional fish stocks. When those assessments led to a decision to restrict fishing, however, the fishing community would criticize the data as unreliable. “It would be a lightning rod,” says fisheries biologist Gordon...
Akiba Solomon at Colorlines: Bad and Good News on... →
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation launched its 21st annual roundup of abortion-related laws late last week. The results are staggering: In 2011, states enacted 69* pieces of anti-choice legislation—the second highest number since the organization began tracking these laws in 1995.
Because Roe v. Wade prevents them from outlawing abortion outright, ultraconservative mostly male, white and...
Tiger Beatdown: This Is Terrorism: Anti-Abortion... →
Instead, the vile tactics of the anti-abortion movement have been tolerated for an extended period of time, and this has given members of the movement a considerable degree of boldness and bravery. Dr. Tiller was shot in broad daylight in church. This is terrorism. And it’s time for everyone, not just the reproductive justice movement, to start talking about it like it is. This is terrorism....
xoJane: A Woman Is Not An Incubator →
Steven, my friend, I cannot even begin to convey the level of wrong here!
Because, here is the thing: Throughout “Doctor Who,” you have completely reduced women to mothers, whether it’s Amy Pond being an incubation vessel or the Christmas Special with the alien tree people that needed a human host body to escape their forest but needed someone “strong,” as in, a mother.
You’ve had,...
this ain't livin': A Civil Crime: Disability... →
Because it’s a civil crime, which means that the victims of the violation are the ones tasked with enforcing it. And unless a case is large or complex, organisations that promote civil rights can’t take it on, because they need to use their resources as efficiently as possible. Fighting for one worker who needs an extra break to maintain good blood sugar levels isn’t worth it on the grand scale,...
Mark Follman at Mother Jones: Gabby Giffords and... →
Just hours before Giffords made her way into the nation’s Capitol, an unknown provocateur was stalking the halls of the Missouri Capitol, tagging the doors of lawmakers—most of them Democratic women—with images of rifle crosshairs. From the Columbia Daily Tribune:
Orange stickers with an image of rifle crosshairs were found Tuesday on the office doors of several Democratic state...
Philip Yam at Scientific American: Are Some... →
In this particular session, “You Got Your Politics in My Science,” attendees related their experiences and their approaches to dealing with perceived advocacy and reactive attacks. Everyone realizes that both scientists and journalists strive for impartiality. Yet certain hot-button topics invite scrutiny. Heather Goldstone, who reports for a public-radio affiliate and hosts Climatetide.org,...
Ali Winston at East Bay Express: Will OPD End Up... →
The aftermath of the Riders police corruption scandal in Oakland, which broke more than a decade ago, has lasted through four police chiefs, three mayors, and four city administrators. A federal consent decree imposed by US District Court Judge Thelton Henderson on OPD in 2003 was originally set to end in 2008. Henderson extended the deadline until 2014, but this month, the judge may begin the...
Christina Jewett at California Watch: Disbanding... →
However, Jeannine Graves, who was president of the nursing board just before it folded, said she voted against an interagency agreement that granted the Department of Consumer Affairs authority over board functions late last year.
She said it creates a “legal fiction” and does not provide protection to the public or due process to nurses guaranteed by the appointed board of five nurses and four...
“Kwate’s study aims to address two unanswered questions confronting biomedical...”
– Health News - Rutgers Researcher Exploring Effects of Racism on Immune System
I don’t want to quote the entire article but it is well worth the read. An excerpt:
The summer of 2010 found Kwate and her team biking through central Harlem in Manhattan and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, shooting...
this ain't livin': Public Employees Are Not the... →
Public workers are not the enemy, any more than private employees working in unions. People working in solidarity with each other can support their movements for better working conditions and pay; joining public sector workers in strikes to support their demands, for example, lays the groundwork for support in the future to demand better wages for private employees who don’t have the protection...
Isabelle Roughol at Good: A 375-Year-Old French... →
Granted, it’s a small slate. The 3,500 clients who benefitted from the bank’s largesse had debts of 150 euros or less (about $190) with the Crédit Municipal de Paris, also known as the “Mont-de-piété,” the bank of the poor, which has for centuries allowed the needy to get loans against their valuables—a kind of ethical pawnshop, or the original microlender. The small kindness...
Amy Schatz, Geoffrey A. Fowler, and Erica Orden at... →
“There is no question that the influence of the Internet community is at its apex,” says Leslie Harris, chief executive of the Washington-based nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, which is backed in part by tech companies including Google and Facebook Inc.
“I believe that something profound happened,” she says of last week’s revolt against bills in the...
Peter Walker at The Guardian: Rick Santorum 'would... →
Rick Santorum would encourage one of his daughters to see a pregnancy created through rape as “a gift of human life” and urge her to not consider an abortion, the socially ultra-conservative Republican presidential candidate has explained.
In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan show, the former Pennsylvania senator was asked at length about his hardline views on abortion,...
Sara Miller Llana at Christian Science Monitor:... →
The march in Guatemala is one of several actions organized by human rights defenders in recent years. We reported about a creative effort in Suchito, a colonial town outside of San Salvador, where centuries-old whitewashed homes were adorned with permanent wording that read: “In this house we want a life without violence towards women.”
The stencils, including a bird and flower, are the work of...
NPR News: Dog-Gone Genetics: A Few Genes Control... →
But man’s best friend is a different story. New research shows that almost every physical trait in dogs — from a dachshund’s stumpy legs to a shar-pei’s wrinkles — is controlled by just a few genes.
Writer Evan Ratliff has been looking into dog genetics for National Geographic Magazine. He tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that that quirk makes it extremely...
If your dog is outside your thoroughly fenced and...
It needs to be on a leash. That you are holding. In your hand. With the ability to rapidly take control.
Yes, even if your dog is ‘friendly.’
xoJane: The Lottery: Your 1% Dream →
The lottery is the 1% dream, the thing that appeases the bootstrappers as they become disillusioned. It’s that one in a million (actually, one in 175,711,536 million) odds that you might be able to short-circuit this whole system, throw your bootstraps away, and live the high life. The thing that keeps you on the path you’re on so you don’t rebel.
When you start to realize that the...
this ain't livin': Laying Some History On You:... →
Nisei units went on to conduct themselves with distinction, participating in a number of key military events. They were there for the liberation of concentration camps, for beating back German troops from important landmarks. They fought, ferociously, even as their friends and family members were incarcerated in internment camps in the United States. Even as they were segregated from other US...
Jessica Marshall at Scientific American: Online... →
The online game Foldit, developed by teams led by Zoran Popovic, director of the Center for Game Science, and biochemist David Baker, both at the University of Washington in Seattle, allows players to fiddle at foldingproteins on their home computers in search of the best-scoring (lowest-energy) configurations.
The researchers have previously reported successes by Foldit players in folding...
Lynn Neary at NPR News: Publishers And Booksellers... →
Publishers have a problem when it comes to discussing Amazon: They may fear its power, but they are also dependent on it, because like it or not, Amazon sells a lot of books. But lately, the grumbling about Amazon has been growing louder, with some in the book industry openly describing Amazon’s tactics as “predatory.”
Publishers have long complained about Amazon’s...
Shaun Heasley at Disability Scoop: Doctor Perks... →
Consumer advocates say the disclosure may encourage doctors to make better decisions regarding patient care. Previous analyses by media and other organizations have indicated that doctors who accept money from drug makers are more likely to prescribe medications for unapproved uses.
If approved, the changes could have big implications for those with developmental disabilities. Antipsychotic...
Jeremy Laurance at The Independent: Regulate... →
Plastic surgeons today demand a complete ban on advertising for cosmetic surgery, annual checks on practitioners and tighter controls on the use of implants and injectables to curb the “wild west” industry.
Increasing numbers of medical and non-medical practitioners have entered the market over the past decade, they say, in the modern equivalent of a gold rush founded on human...
BBC News: Treblinka: Revealing the hidden graves... →
When the Nazis left Treblinka in 1943 they thought they had destroyed it. They had knocked down the buildings and levelled the earth. They had built a farmhouse and installed a Ukrainian “farmer”. They had planted trees, and - contemporary reports suggest - lupins.
But if they thought they had removed all evidence of their crime, they hadn’t. For a forensic archaeologist,...
Erica Perez at Californiawatch: Stanford doctor in... →
A watchdog group is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to throw out a joint committee’s vote in support of a controversial oral contraceptive because four members of the committee – including a Stanford University professor of obstetrics and gynecology – had ties to the maker of the birth control pill that were not disclosed to the public during the meeting.
Two FDA committees...
this ain't livin': Network Fears Lead to Diluted... →
Copycatting seemed to be the order of the day on a lot of networks this season, as they looked to prior successes and tried to make their own versions, but these versions were more restrained, less expansive, and ultimately, much less bold. They failed, or teetered on the edge, precisely because the networks weren’t willing to go out on a limb and viewers sensed it. If the network didn’t want to...