Tuesday, November 2, 2010

It Gets Better Project | Take the It Gets Better pledge

It Gets Better Project | Take the It Gets Better pledge
Take the pledge and help spread our message of hope. It Gets Better.

THE PLEDGE: Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbors. I'll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work. I'll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and other bullied teens by letting them know that "It Gets Better."

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Rape and other Sex Offenses in Nevada, 1990-2007

How Your Experiences Change Your Sperm and Eggs - Newsweek

How Your Experiences Change Your Sperm and Eggs - Newsweek
One reason that is not so farfetched: transgenerational effects are showing up not only in lab rats but also in people, as if the ghosts of our ancestors haunt our very genes. In 2006 scientists announced the findings of a study in a town in Sweden called Överkalix (chosen because it keeps excellent birth and death records). If a father began smoking before the age of 11, found Marcus Pembrey of the Institute of Child Health in London, his sons had a greater body-mass index, on average, than did sons of men who took up smoking as adults. In this same population, if a man suffered food shortages as an 8- to 12-year-old child, his sons’ sons were more likely to die young; if a woman suffered food shortages as a child, her son’s daughters were. Another study in Överkalix found that if a man overate in childhood, his sons’ children were four times more likely to develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease, found scientists at Sweden’s Umeå University.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Urban Dictionary: School Hierarchy

Urban Dictionary: School Hierarchy
The social order in which any high school runs from top to bottom. 1. Jocks/Preps/Sufer dudes- Made up of the school sports players, cheerleaders, and any Hollister or Abercromie wearing preps. 2. The school clowns- Although they aren't in number ones status they associate with them on a daily basis, and keep the school in constant laughter and fit in with any clique. 3. The Multi-Taskers- These kids run everything from the school paper, to Home coming they're extremely social but run a tight shift. My hats off to them. 4. The Drama crew- These budding Romeos and Juliets spend countless hours acting, singing, dancing and writing allowing contact with other students with similar interest and tend to talk to people with similar interest. 5. The Anime/Goth group- Very closely related to the Drama Crew most still work in that group but after winning their independence they formed they're own group led by Anime loving Gothic kids. 6. Teachers Pets- Almost like the School Multi-Taskers but annoying as hell, and always trying to bring others down. 7. Computer Geeks/Nerds- The imfamous nerds and computer geeks have been at the bottom of the school hierachy since the dawn of time. 8. Newbies- Although at the bottom there is a 90% chance they wont stay there long' if they talk to the right people they could very well climb to the top in no time.

Rankism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rankism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rankism is a term coined by physicist, educator, and citizen diplomat Robert W. Fuller. Fuller has defined rankism as: "abusive, discriminatory, or exploitative behavior towards people because of their rank in a particular hierarchy"[1]. Fuller claims that rankism also describes the abuse of the power inherent in superior rank, with the view that rank-based abuse underlies many other phenomena such as bullying, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Stigmatized Students: Age, Sex, and Ethnicity Effects in the Stigmatization of Obesity

Stigmatized Students: Age, Sex, and Ethnicity
Effects in the Stigmatization of Obesity

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jlatner/downloads/pubs/ORstigma_adult.pdf

The influence of the stigma of obesity on overweight individuals

http://www.yaleruddcenter.org/resources/upload/docs/what/bias/The-Influence-of-the-Stigma-of-Obesity.pdf

The influence of the stigma of obesity on overweight individuals

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the internalization of anti-fat bias among overweight individuals across a variety of attitudes and
stereotypes.
DESIGN: Two studies were conducted using the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a performance-based measure of bias, to
examine beliefs among overweight individuals about ‘fat people’ vs ‘thin people’. Study two also contained explicit measures of
attitudes about obese people.
SUBJECTS: Study 1 participants were 68 overweight patients at a treatment research clinic (60 women, 8 men; mean Body Mass
Index (BMI) of 37.173.9 kg/m2). Study 2 involved 48 overweight participants (33 women, 15 men) with a BMI of 34.574.0 kg/
m2.
RESULTS: Participants exhibited significant anti-fat bias on the IAT across several attributes and stereotypes. They also endorsed
the explicit belief that fat people are lazier than thin people.
CONCLUSION: Unlike other minority group members, overweight individuals do not appear to hold more favorable attitudes
toward ingroup members. This ingroup devaluation has implications for changing the stigma of obesity and for understanding
the psychosocial and even medical impact of obesity on those affected.

Obesity Bias Among Dietitians by Using the Fat People-Thin People Implicit Association Test

Obesity Bias Among Dietitians by Using the Fat People-Thin P... : Topics in Clinical Nutrition
The purpose of this project was to determine whether registered dietitians (RDs) exhibit a negative bias toward obese persons. The participants (n = 175) comprised a convenience sample of RDs from professional listservs, resulting in 128 (73%) completed surveys. The researchers used the Fat People-Thin People Implicit Association Test, found on the Web site: www.implicit.harvard.edu (designed to measure social knowledge). Bivariate associations were tabulated and an F test was performed to find association among variables. Across all categories, RDs (n = 98; 76%) had a strong to moderate preference (P = .05) for thin people in comparison with fat people, which exceeded the Implicit Associations Test results taken from the general population (n = 2.5 million; 52%). Registered dietitians tended to be less tolerant of obesity than those among the general population. Education for RDs on improving tolerance with individuals who are obese is recommended, especially for RDs who counsel overweight patients.

The Influence of One’s Own Body Weight on Implicit and Explicit Anti-fat Bias

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/20061202money1.pdf
The Influence of One’s Own Body Weight on Implicit and Explicit Anti-fat Bias

YouTube - That's So Gay - Wanda Sykes

Anderson Cooper 'shocked' by 'that's so gay' phrase

Anderson Cooper 'shocked' by 'that's so gay' phrase - USATODAY.com
Anderson Cooper 'shocked' by 'that's so gay' phrase

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Working Group on Extreme Inequality » How Unequal Are We?

Working Group on Extreme Inequality » How Unequal Are We?
Inequality Index


· Percentage of U.S. total income in 1976 that went to the top 1% of American households: 8.9.
· Percentage in 2007: 23.5.
· Only other year since 1913 that the top 1 percent’s share was that high: 1928.
· Combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion.
· Combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.
· U.S. minimum wage, per hour: $7.25.
· Hourly pay of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, for an 80-hour week: $27,034.74.
· Average hourly wage in 1972, adjusted for inflation: $20.06.
· In 2008: $18.52.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Wealth - 2004 Detailed Tables

Wealth - 2004 Detailed Tables
Table 1. Median Value of Assets for Households, by Type of Asset Owned and Selected Characteristics: 2004

Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2004 to 2007: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

FRB: 2007 SCF
Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2004 to 2007: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances
Brian K. Bucks, Arthur B. Kennickell, Traci L. Mach and Kevin B. Moore
Federal Reserve Bulletin, vol. 95 (February 2009), pp. A1-A55.
Article (398 KB PDF)
Version for black and white printing Article (395 KB PDF)

Family holdings of nonfinancial assets and of any asset, by selected characteristics of families and type of asset, 2004 and 2007

See Table 9. Family holdings of nonfinancial assets and of any asset, by selected characteristics of families and type of asset, 2004 and
2007 surveys—Continued

http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2009/pdf/scf09.pdf


Gini-coefficient

soclinks: Table H-4. Gini Ratios for Households, by Race and Hispanic Origin of Householder

Table H-4. Gini Ratios for Households, by Race and Hispanic Origin of Householder

Census: Income gap between rich and poor got wider in 2009 - USATODAY.com

Census: Income gap between rich and poor got wider in 2009 - USATODAY.com
A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

EITC Income Limits, Maximum Credit Amounts and Tax Law Updates

EITC Income Limits, Maximum Credit Amounts and Tax Law Updates
2009 Tax Year

New for tax year 2009: The amount of EITC increased for workers with a third qualifying child* and the rules changed for determining who is a qualifying child.

Earned Income and adjusted gross income (AGI) must each be less than:

*
$43,279 ($48,279 married filing jointly) with three or more qualifying children
*
$40,295 ($45,295 married filing jointly) with two qualifying children
*
$35,463 ($40,463 married filing jointly) with one qualifying child
*
$13,440 ($18,440 married filing jointly) with no qualifying children

Tax Year 2009 maximum credit:

*
$5,657 with three or more qualifying children
*
$5,028 with two qualifying children
*
$3,043 with one qualifying child
*
$457 with no qualifying children

Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2008

This article shows that even when you control for occupation, women still earn less than men.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2008.pdf

How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty - U.S Census Bureau

National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior

National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior
About 85% of men report that their partner had an orgasm at the most recent sexual event; this compares to the 64% of women who report having had an orgasm at their most recent sexual event. (A difference that is too large to be accounted for by some of the men having had male partners at their most recent event.)

The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings

Their Own Facts | The American Prospect

Their Own Facts | The American Prospect
The first thing that came to your mind when I raised this issue was probably the ideas held by people whose hatred of Barack Obama burns with such an intensity that nothing can disabuse them of the notion that the president is The Other, alien in birth and creed. According to a recent CNN poll, 41 percent of Republicans said Obama was "probably not" or "definitely not" born in the United States; a recent Pew poll found that 31 percent of Republicans believe that Obama is a Muslim, a figure that has gone up, not down, since he has been in office. When Republican officials are asked about these falsehoods, they often smile knowingly, then offer a half-hearted endorsement of the truth, as Mitch McConnell did recently ("The president says he's a Christian. I take him at his word"), leaving all possibilities open.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Study: Most Americans want wealth distribution similar to Sweden | Raw Story

Study: Most Americans want wealth distribution similar to Sweden | Raw Story
According to research (PDF) carried out by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and flagged by Paul Kedrosky at the Infectious Greed blog, 92 percent of Americans would choose to live in a society with far less income disparity than the US, choosing Sweden's model over that of the US.

Friday, October 8, 2010

EBSCOhost: Fighting the real bullies

EBSCOhost: Fighting the real bullies
The article discusses school bullies. School bullies aren't the sad misfits, loners, and revenge-seeking geeks we thought they were, report UCLA psychologists who recently interviewed 2,000 sixth graders and their teachers at Los Angeles-area middle schools. Most often, they're actually the popular, self-confident "cool" kids. It's a finding that may resonate with your own memories of playground social dynamics. It also suggests why many antibullying programs simply aren't effective, says lead researcher and psychologist Jaana Juvonen, PhD. The reason: They target the wrong kids. What's needed are better ways to stop bullying because victims can suffer a wide range of health problems, including headaches, stomachaches, and sleepless nights. They also tune out at school; as a result, their grades suffer. And they have trouble getting along with classmates. Even bullies themselves are at risk: A US Department of Education survey reveals that 25% of bullies who routinely get physical have a criminal record by age 30.

EBSCOhost: Fighting Boys and Fantasy Play: the construction of masculinity in the earl...

EBSCOhost: Fighting Boys and Fantasy Play: the construction of masculinity in the earl...
Using a past-structural framework, the paper analyses the dynamics of the process by which little boys adopt a definition of masculinity as avoiding whatever is done by girls. It is argued that this is a response to the fact that the 'fighting boys' who resist the school's demands have appropriated the role of hero in the warrior narratives of little boys' fantasy games, casting the 'good boys' who conform to the requirements of the school as despised 'wimps' and 'sissies'. This leads the 'good boys' to adopt an alternative definition of masculinity as 'not female', and in many cases leads also to the scorn and rejection being redirected to girls as a group. It. is suggested that teachers should intervene in this cycle by explicitly discussing the character of the hero in these warrior narratives and showing that it ought not to be equated with the classroom and playground behaviour of the 'fighting boys'.

EBSCOhost: Not Your Child's Playground: Workplace Bullying Among Community College Fac...

EBSCOhost: Not Your Child's Playground: Workplace Bullying Among Community College Fac...
Community colleges have provided an entree into higher education for many women. Yet, women faculty perceive the overall climate of community colleges as “chilly.” To deconstruct the interpersonal dynamics that may lead to perceptions of a chilly climate, this study examines the prevalence of workplace bullying among and between community college faulty. The purpose is to understand the nature of harassment, the ways in which women define and respond to it, and the importance of contextual factors in the prevalence. Workplace bullying is a form of interpersonal aggression that has implications for how individuals perceive the organizational climate, job productivity, and job satisfaction. Findings from this study indicate that workplace bullying among faculty includes many subtle practices characterized by informal and formal use of power, faculty workplace bullying is affected by several enabling structures specific to the context, and victims typically respond with avoidance. This study has implications for harassment policies, faculty involvement in institutional governance, and the gendered nature of interpersonal dynamics.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs - Pew Social & Demographic Trends

Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs - Pew Social & Demographic Trends
By nearly 2-1, women say they and not their husbands control the family pursestrings (45% vs. 23%). But a narrow plurality of men say they, not their wives, are managing the family finances (37% vs. 30%).

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The tea partiers are half right - CNN

The tea partiers are half right - CNN
You may not wonder why the auto dealers won exemptions in Congress from the new financial regulations. But the behind-the-scene deals the White House has made are enough to make you sick.

These include deals with private hospitals to drop the public option in exchange for their support of the health care bill and with the pharmaceutical industry to block Americans from purchasing low-cost drugs from other countries.

Poverty Facts and Stats — Global Issues

Poverty Facts and Stats — Global Issues
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day

Saturday, October 2, 2010

The Way We Live Now - The Charitable-Giving Divide - NYTimes.com

The Way We Live Now - The Charitable-Giving Divide - NYTimes.com
In 2001, Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Employment Status of Women by Marital Status and Presence and Age of Children

The 2010 Statistical Abstract: Labor Force Status
Employment Status of Women by Marital Status and Presence and Age of Children

Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place - New York Times

Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place - New York Times
The number of women staying home with young children has risen recently, according to the Labor Department; the increase has been sharpest among highly educated mothers, who might otherwise be earning high salaries.

Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place - New York Times

Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place - New York Times
Last year, college-educated women between 36 and 45 years old, for example, earned 74.7 cents in hourly pay for every dollar that men in the same group did, according to Labor Department data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute. A decade earlier, the women earned 75.7 cents.

Rutgers student death: Has Digital Age made students callous? - CSMonitor.com

Rutgers student death: Has Digital Age made students callous? - CSMonitor.com
“There have been some studies that suggest that it [new media technology] does dissolve some of the human connections: It objectifies people,” says Maureen Costello [CQ], director of Teaching Tolerance, an education program based at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.

One recent University of Michigan study found that college students’ empathy declined by about 40 percent between 1979 and 2009, with the biggest drop-off occurring after 2000.

Studying Links Between Anatomy and Crime - NYTimes.com

Studying Links Between Anatomy and Crime - NYTimes.com
A small band of economists has been studying how height, weight and beauty affect the likelihood of committing — or being convicted of — a crime. Looking at records from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, they have found evidence that shorter men are 20 to 30 percent more likely to end up in prison than their taller counterparts, and that obesity and physical attractiveness are linked to crime.

Is the 'Bullying Epidemic' a Media Myth? - Newsweek

Is the 'Bullying Epidemic' a Media Myth? - Newsweek
A decade ago a cruel classmate might have simply taunted Clementi for being gay or kissing a man, or perhaps described seeing them together. That could be upsetting enough. But now, a Webcam allowed Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, to post the video live—Clementi's sexual life was instant fodder for potential campuswide mockery. And it was far too easy to gather: Ravi simply turned on his computer remotely, and saw Clementi kissing another man. On Sept. 19, he tweeted "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay." In the new world, even the alleged suicide note became a piece of social media when Clementi wrote on his Facebook page "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."

Is the 'Bullying Epidemic' a Media Myth? - Newsweek

Is the 'Bullying Epidemic' a Media Myth? - Newsweek
It's not that bullying isn't a problem, particularly for kids who are gay, lesbian, or transgender. Research shows it affects one in five American students each year, and nine in 10 LGBT students, according to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. It is also known to increase levels of depression—and, thus, suicide. (Though teen suicide rates are down since 2004, according to the CDC, LGBT kids are four times more likely to commit it.)

2007 National School Climate Survey: Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT Students Harassed

2007 National School Climate Survey: Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT Students Harassed
The survey of 6,209 middle and high school students found that nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school
in the past month because of feeling unsafe.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Clues to the Genetic Roots of ADHD – TIME Healthland

Clues to the Genetic Roots of ADHD – TIME Healthland
Experts at Cardiff University analyzed stretches of DNA from 366 children who had been diagnosed with the disorder. The scientists then compared the genetic samples from the ADHD children with DNA from 1,047 children without the condition. (More on Time.com: ADHD: A Global Epidemic or Just a Bunch of Fidgety Kids?)

That's So Gay - Wanda Sykes



That's So Gay - Wanda Sykes

Monday, September 27, 2010

FOXNews.com - Lawsuit Claims College Ordered Student to Alter Religious Views on Homosexuality, Or Be Dismissed

FOXNews.com - Lawsuit Claims College Ordered Student to Alter Religious Views on Homosexuality, Or Be Dismissed
"[Augusta State University] faculty have promised to expel Miss Keeton from the graduate Counselor Education Program not because of poor academic showing or demonstrated deficiencies in clinical performance, but simply because she has communicated both inside and outside the classroom that she holds to Christian ethical convictions on matters of human sexuality and gender identity," the 43-page lawsuit reads.

News: The New Clash of Rights - Inside Higher Ed

News: The New Clash of Rights - Inside Higher Ed
Now a new issue is emerging that involves a similar set of players and issues: public universities, anti-bias rules, and the rights of gay people and Christian students. On Tuesday, a federal judge upheld the right of a counseling program at Eastern Michigan University to kick out a master's student who declined to counsel gay clients in an affirming way -- as required by the university program and counseling associations. The judge found that the university was enforcing a legitimate curricular requirement -- namely that counseling students learn to work with all kinds of clients in ways that did not judge their values or orientations.

freedomhouse.org: Freedom in the World 2010 Survey Release

freedomhouse.org: Freedom in the World 2010 Survey Release
On January 12, Freedom House released its findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey’s findings, 2009 marked the fourth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline—the longest consecutive period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report. These declines were most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, although they also occurred in most other regions of the world. Furthermore, the erosion in freedom took place during a year marked by intensified repression against human rights defenders and democracy activists by many of the world’s most powerful authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China.

Robert D. Kaplan. “Was Democracy Just a Moment?” Atlantic Monthly, December 1997

Kaplan - 97.12
And that brings us to a sober realization. If democracy, the crowning political achievement of the West, is gradually being transfigured, in part because of technology, then the West will suffer the same fate as earlier civilizations. Just as Rome believed it was giving final expression to the republican ideal of the Greeks, and just as medieval Kings believed they were giving final expression to the Roman ideal, we believe, as the early Christians did, that we are bringing freedom and a better life to the rest of humankind.

Three waves of democracy -- Huntington

The third wave: democratization in ... - Google Books

Chronology of Modern Democracy 2: Huntingdon

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Price of Prejudice

http://www.innovative-analytics.com/docs/ThePriceofPrejudice.pdf

In a second study the team asked another group, this time of students who were about to graduate,
to consider hypothetical job opportunities at consulting firms. The positions varied in starting salary,
location, holiday time and the sex of the potential boss.

When it came to salary, location and holiday, the students’ decisions matched their stated
preferences. However, the boss’s sex turned out to be far more important than they said it was (this
was true whether a student was male or female). In effect, they were willing to pay a 22% tax on
their starting salary to have a male boss.

THE SECOND SHIFT

THE SECOND SHIFT Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. By Arlie
Hochschild with Anne Machung. 309 pp. New York: Viking. $18.95.

She Minds the Child, He Minds the Dog - NYTimes.com

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009 - U.S Census Bureau

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009 - U.S Census Bureau
Income, Poverty and Health Insurance in the United States: 2009

3. The Importance of Contempt : Blink

3. The Importance of Contempt : Blink
Gottman has found, in fact, that the presence of contempt in a marriage can even predict such things as how many colds a husband or a wife gets; in other words, having someone you love express contempt toward you is so stressful that it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system.

Gapminder: Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view. - Gapminder.org

Friday, September 17, 2010

Graphic: How Class Works - New York Times

OES Wages, California LaborMarketInfo

OES Wages, California LaborMarketInfo

Here is the state of California Excel file.

Wage data for all geographical areas have been updated to the
first quarter of 2010 by applying the U. S. Department
of Labor's Employment Cost Index to the 2009 SOC wage database.
The wage data has not been validated by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) and are not official BLS data series, but LMID feels
that the additional information is useful to users of our wage data.
The occupational employment estimates are for May
2009
.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

BBC News - Q&A: France Roma expulsions

BBC News - Q&A: France Roma expulsions
Who are the Roma, and how many Roma are there in France?

The Roma are a nomadic people whose ancestors are thought to have left north-west India at the beginning of the 11th Century and scattered across Europe.

CGS 2009 Enrollment & Degrees report released

CGS 2009 Enrollment & Degrees report released
The enrollment of new students at U.S. graduate schools increased 5.5% in 2009, according to the annual CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees.

Growth in both first-time and total enrollment was higher for men than for women, reversing long-term trends. Additionally, for the first time ever, women earned the majority of doctorates in 2008-09.

Women Earn More Doctorates Than Men - Newsweek

Women Earn More Doctorates Than Men - Newsweek
In 1970–71, for example, only 9 percent of business majors were women; by 1984–85, their proportion was 45 percent. Recent data indicate that women now represent about 58 percent of all undergraduates.

Between 1970 and 2000, the number of women in graduate and professional schools was also rapidly expanding. By the '90s, women were earning the majority of master's degrees, and over the last 10 years, became the majority in both medical and law schools.

Women Earn More Doctorates Than Men - Newsweek

Women Earn More Doctorates Than Men - Newsweek
Things have changed since then. This week a new enrollment study by the Council of Graduate Schools confirmed that American women are now earning more doctoral degrees than men. Based on the most recent graduation data, 28,962 women earned Ph.D.s during the 2008–09 academic year, compared with 28,469 men. The report notes that men continue to dominate in engineering, mathematics, and the physical and computer sciences.

Monday, September 13, 2010

State and national level crime trend estimates

Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime and Justice Data Online
State and national level crime trend estimates
Source: FBI's Uniform Crime Reports
(UCR)

Database: FBI Crime Statistics, 2005-09 | freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Violent crime falls for third straight year: FBI | Reuters

Violent crime falls for third straight year: FBI | Reuters
Violent crime also dropped in states like Arizona, nearly 14 percent, where local officials have complained that illegal immigrants coming across the porous U.S. border with Mexico were contributing to increases in criminal activity.

However, in the Arizona city of Nogales, which is located on the U.S.-Mexican border, the violent crime rate remained unchanged from 2008 though property crime dropped almost 14 percent. In nearby Tucson, violent crime fell 16 percent, but property crime statistics were incomplete.

US crime rate is down: six key reasons - CSMonitor.com

US crime rate is down: six key reasons - CSMonitor.com
US crime rate is down: six key reasons

The crime rate fell last year across America, across all categories. Here, criminologists cite the key factors, which include better policing.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Record number in government anti-poverty programs - USATODAY.com

Record number in government anti-poverty programs - USATODAY.com

 

 

As caseloads for all the programs have soared, so have costs. The federal price tag for Medicaid has jumped 36% in two years, to $273 billion. Jobless benefits have soared from $43 billion to $160 billion. The food stamps program has risen 80%, to $70 billion. Welfare is up 24%, to $22 billion.

 

Report: Men Unfaithful to Women Who Earn More - TIME

Report: Men Unfaithful to Women Who Earn More - TIME

 

The study, which was presented by Christin Munsch, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, examined 18 to 28 year olds who were living together or married more than a year. (The cohort, it turns out, most likely to be outearning men.) It found that men who were completely dependent on their wives' incomes were five times likelier to cheat than those who contributed the same amount to the household finances. (See a story on cheating 2.0: apps that are making adultery easier.)

Munsch believes this is not actually about money, but about men's feelings of sexual identity. "Any identity that's important to you, if you feel it's threatened, you're going to engage in behavior that will reinstate your place in that group," she says. "Being a man is strongly identified with being a breadwinner." Men might engage in "hypermasculine activities" — displaying their sexual virility or sexual competence — as a form of compensatory behavior.

 

Should Turkey's Erdogan Worry the West? - Newsweek

Should Turkey's Erdogan Worry the West? - Newsweek

He has been alarming people ever since the 1990s, when as mayor of Istanbul he denounced Western-style New Year’s celebrations and swimwear, proposed a ban on alcohol, and called himself “a servant of the Sharia.”

Friday, September 10, 2010

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com
But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com
Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of the book “Why Don’t Students Like School?”

Learning Styles — Psychological Science in the Public Interest

Learning Styles — Psychological Science in the Public Interest
Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information. However, we found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles. Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.

Learning Styles — Psychological Science in the Public Interest

Learning Styles — Psychological Science in the Public Interest
Our review of the literature disclosed ample evidence that children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them. There is also plentiful evidence arguing that people differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information. However, we found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles. Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.

Mexico wary as Calif. votes on legalizing marijuana

Mexico wary as Calif. votes on legalizing marijuana
Marijuana smuggling and sales represent a roughly $10 billion business for Mexico's drug mafias, which earn up to 60 percent of their profits from pot, according to U.S. estimates.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Paula Rodriguez Rust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paula Rodriguez Rust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paula Claire Rodriguez Rust (born 1959) is an American sociologist who studies sexual orientation, especially bisexuality.[1] Rust is author of Bisexuality in the United States and Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics: Sex, Loyalty, and Revolution.[2]

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Risk society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Risk society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Risk society" is a term that emerged during the 1990s to describe the manner in which modern society organises in response to risk. The term is closely associated with several key writers on modernity, in particular Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. The term's popularity during the 1990s was both as a consequence of its links to trends in thinking about wider modernity, and also to its links to popular discourse, in particular the growing environmental concerns during the period.[1]

Giddens -- individualization and globalization

http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/1ReithLecturesGlobalisation.pdf

Globalizing processes invades local culture. Forces us to live in a more open, reflexive, and individualized way.
tradition and custom are declining
we create identities (liberating and frightening)
women now choose (e.g., birth rate 1.2)



Salmonella egg recall spurs look into big farms | courierpostonline.com | Courier-Post

Salmonella egg recall spurs look into big farms | courierpostonline.com | Courier-Post
Only by returning to small-scale, local farms (according to the organic and local supporters) or by ending or drastically limiting the use of animals as a food source (several animal rights groups), or both, can Americans protect themselves against such large, food-borne outbreaks.

"There's significantly lower risk for cage-free and free range" than eggs from caged hens, says Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for the Humane Society of the United States, which opposes industrial animal agriculture and encourages Americans to move toward a more vegetarian diet.

Anti-Americanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anti-Americanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Europe in 2002, vandalism of American companies was reported in Athens, Zürich, Tbilisi, and Moscow. In Venice an anti-globalist attacked a Mc Donald's restaurant owned by Italians[75]

How McDonald's conquered France. - By Mike Steinberger - Slate Magazine

How McDonald's conquered France. - By Mike Steinberger - Slate Magazine
As Gravier artfully put it, "The French population uses McDonald's in a very French way; it is fast food, but not that fast." The data the company collected bore this out. Americans visited McDonald's more often than the French, at all hours of the day, frequently alone, and opted for takeout 70 percent of the time. The French spent more money per visit, came in groups more often than Americans, and did 70 percent of their eating during regular lunch and dinner hours. "We have a food culture in France; eating is not a feeding moment, it is a social moment," Gravier said.

Anti-Americanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anti-Americanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Qutb, the leading intellectual of the Muslim Brotherhood, studied in Greeley, Colorado, from 1948–50, and wrote a book, The America I Have Seen
based on his impressions. In it he decried everything in American from
individual freedom and taste in music to Church socials and haircuts.[50]
"They danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was
replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists,
lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was
full of desire..."[51]



Qutb's writings influenced generations of militants and radicals in the
Middle East who viewed America as a cultural temptress bent on
overturning traditional customs and morals, especially with respect to
the relations between the sexes. As Paul Hollander has written: "The
most obvious and clear link between anti-Americanism and modernization
is encountered in Islamic countries and other traditional societies
where modernization clashes head on with entrenched traditional beliefs,
institutions, and patterns of behavior, and where it challenges the
very meaning of life, social relations, and religious verities. What
becomes of the world when women can go to work and show large surfaces
of skin to men they are not related to? In a recent case, the indignant
male members of a Kurdish family in Sweden were 'provoked' by the
transgressing female of their family who had the temerity to have a job
and a boyfriend and dress in Western ways. She was finally killed by her
father."[4]

Scottish independence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scottish independence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scottish independence is a political ambition of political parties, advocacy groups and individuals for Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom and become a sovereign state, separate from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Balkanization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Balkanization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Balkanization, or Balkanisation, is a pejorative[1] geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other.

The Big Sort - Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing - Book Review - New York Times

The Big Sort - Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing - Book Review - New York Times
“We have built a country,” Bishop writes, “where everyone can choose the neighbors (and church and news shows) most compatible with his or her lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this segregation by way of life: pockets of like-minded citizens that have become so ideologically inbred that we don’t know, can’t understand, and can barely conceive of ‘those people’ who live just a few miles away.”

Over the last decade, as 100 million Americans have moved from one place to another, they’ve clustered in increasingly homogeneous communities.

Bishop and Cushing swam around in different sets of data — voting records; I.R.S. income figures; patent filings; poll numbers from advertising firms — to figure out how thoroughly, and in what ways, Americans had sorted themselves.

Their conclusion: “By the turn of the 21st century, it seemed as though the country was separating in every way conceivable.”

YouTube - We Are the World - Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson

Globalization By David Held and Anthony McGrew

The Hyperglobalists

single global economy
weakening of nations (territorially bound, states must accommodate global market forces, private financial institutions are 'authoritative actors' weakening state power and economic sovereignty, e.g., East Asian crisis of 1998)
growing strength of corporations and capital (global markets can escape effective political regulation)
growing influence of multilateral institutions of global economic surveillance (G7,IMF, World Bank and WTO)
end of the welfare state and social democracy

The Sceptics

the intensity of global interdependence is exaggerated
globalization is primarily a phenomenon largely confined to the major OECD states
the world is breaking up into several major economic and political blocs
most powerful states and social forces have consolidated their global dominance

Transformationalist Analysis

the outcome of processes of globalization is not determined (no trajectory)
multidimensional process which is not reducible to an economic logic
existing multilateral institutions of global economic governance have
limited authority because states refuse to cede these institutions substantial
power (global markets may effectively escape political regulation)
developing countries are being re-ordered into clear winners and losers (East Asian tiger economies)
reordering within countries (e.g., London)
multilayered global and regional governance
roles and functions of states are re-articulated, reconstituted and re-embedded (political power is no longer coterminous with a delimited national territory)

Globalization | The Global Transformations Website

Globalization | The Global Transformations Website
Three broad accounts of the nature and meaning of globalization can be identified, referred to here as the hyperglobalist, the sceptical, and the transformationalist views. These define the conceptual space of the current intensive debate about globalization.

KeyText: Three Perspectives on Globalization

KeyText: Three Perspectives on Globalization
Scholars David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton provide an overview of different perspectives on globalization dominant in the 1990s. They describe the general conceptual contours of each perspective and note the limitations of each. The authors identify identify the perspective as:

*
The Hyperglobalist perspective,
*
The Skeptical perspective,
*
The Transformationalist perspective.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Students for Labor Justice

Students for Labor Justice
Sweatfree Clothing

The Worker Rights Consortium

Latvia Weekend Box Office Index for 2010

Weekend Box Office Results for September 3-5, 2010 - Box Office Mojo

tophit.ru: Недельный чарт russia tophit 100

Top 100 Music Hits, Top 100 Music Charts, Top 100 Songs & The Hot 100 | Billboard.com

Radio SWH Plus Latvia

YouTube - [M/V] BIGBANG 2NE1 - Lollipop MV [HQ]

K-Pop Online: Korean Stars Go Global with Social Media - TIME

K-Pop Online: Korean Stars Go Global with Social Media - TIME
Taeyang, who is better known in South Korea as the voice of the Korean boy band Big Bang, released his first solo album, Solar, online last month. It hit No. 2 on iTunes' R&B sales charts in the U.S. and No. 1 in Canada — a first for an Asian artist. "In the beginning, it was hard to believe I had fans buying my album so far away," says Taeyang, whose name means "sun" in Korean. He says he didn't do any promotion in North America for the album, which was recorded in Korean and targeted fans in South Korea and Japan. "The world is smaller now."

Charts All Over the World

Monday, September 6, 2010

Kindergarten dilemma: Hold back to get ahead? - Health - Kids and parenting - msnbc.com

Kindergarten dilemma: Hold back to get ahead? - Health - Kids and parenting - msnbc.com
As with research on the early benefits of redshirting, research on long-term benefits is mixed. One 2006 study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics looked at age at kindergarten entrance in an international sample of children and found the youngest kids in each grade lagged behind in test scores through eighth grade, though the gap shrank over time. The researchers also found that the oldest kids in each grade were about 10-percent more likely to go to a four-year college than younger peers.

Another study, this one published in 2010 in the journal Economics of Education Review, found very different results. In this study of American students, age at kindergarten entry had no effect on wages, employment, homeownership, household income, or marital status as an adult. The researchers also found no evidence for an effect of age on college enrollment.


Study: Money Does Buy Happiness - To a Point - CBS News

Study: Money Does Buy Happiness - To a Point - CBS News
Happiness got better as income rose but the effect leveled out at $75,000, Deaton said. On the other hand, their overall sense of success or well-being continued to rise as their earnings grew beyond that point.

Study: Money Does Buy Happiness - To a Point - CBS News

Study: Money Does Buy Happiness - To a Point - CBS News

Comparing their life-satisfaction results with those of other countries, the researchers said the United States ranked ninth after the Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and New Zealand.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

The War's End | The American Prospect

The War's End | The American Prospect
And it's important to recall the scope of that failure. The war was initially framed primarily in terms of the need to halt an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program that didn't exist. Given that there are no benefits to halting a nonexistent program, any price would be too high. So, naturally, justifications began to shift in a more humanitarian direction -- the invasion was needed to spread freedom.

Orange County Is No Longer Nixon Country - NYTimes.com

Orange County Is No Longer Nixon Country - NYTimes.com
At the end of 2009, nearly 45 percent of the county’s residents spoke a language other than English at home, according to county officials. Whites now make up only 45 percent of the population; this county is teeming with Hispanics, as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. Its percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970, and visits to some of its corners can feel like a trip to a foreign land.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Blog U.: Mashing not Viewing - Technology and Learning - Inside Higher Ed

Blog U.: Mashing not Viewing - Technology and Learning - Inside Higher Ed
A video mashup project is one in which the student uses video editing software (like iMovie) to create a new piece of work by combing (or mashing up), existing video, new video, images, text and voice-over. In some student video projects a portion of the existing video that is utilized in the mashup is the same video that is assigned as part of the curriculum. The idea is to get students to work with the video, to create with the video, as opposed to acting as passive viewers. A video mashup project is an extension of a more traditional writing assignment, where students incorporate the curricular video into their term papers. You can see examples of student mashup projects for a sociology course I co-taught this past summer on the class YouTube channel.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Be who you are and say how you feel because those who mind, don't matter and those who don't mind, matter. Dr.S

Be who you are and say how you feel because those who mind, don't matter and
those who don't mind, matter. Dr.S

Sunday, August 29, 2010

He Says, She Says: Flirting Moves That Work (and Ones That Never, Ever Will) - MSN Relationships - Slideshow

He Says, She Says: Flirting Moves That Work (and Ones That Never, Ever Will) - MSN Relationships - Slideshow
Erin says: The wink can be friendly or cutesy, but if you really want to stop him in his tracks, modify it. Try the slow wink. You close your eyelid and then open it slowly, and at the same time roll your shoulder forward and lift your chin, like you're laughing in slow-motion. But just know that this move is lethal, and it sends a message loud and clear. You might as well give him your room key. I've never used it on a stranger.



Ryan says: The wink is good in theory but difficult in practice. I'm not very good at winking, so I've never pulled this move — and if I saw a girl do it, I'd assume she had a twitch.


Saturday, August 28, 2010

New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign - NYTimes.com

New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign - NYTimes.com
No such estimates exist for the size of the new Net right. However, the largest group appears to be the cumbersomely named Citizens Group That Will Not Forgive Special Privileges for Koreans in Japan, known here by its Japanese abbreviation, the Zaitokukai, which has some 9,000 members.

The Zaitokukai gained notoriety last year when it staged noisy protests at the home and junior high school of a 14-year-old Philippine girl, demanding her deportation after her parents were sent home for overstaying their visas. More recently, the Zaitokukai picketed theaters showing “The Cove,” an American documentary about dolphin hunting here that rightists branded as anti-Japanese.

In interviews, members of the Zaitokukai and other groups blamed foreigners, particularly Koreans and Chinese, for Japan’s growing crime and unemployment, and also for what they called their nation’s lack of respect on the world stage. Many seemed to embrace conspiracy theories taken from the Internet that China or the United States were plotting to undermine Japan.

New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign - NYTimes.com

New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign - NYTimes.com
“These are men who feel disenfranchised in their own society,” said Kensuke Suzuki, a sociology professor at Kwansei Gakuin University. “They are looking for someone to blame, and foreigners are the most obvious target.”

News: Legal Loss for Anti-Gay Student - Inside Higher Ed

News: Legal Loss for Anti-Gay Student - Inside Higher Ed
In his ruling, Judge Hall tried hard to keep the case from becoming a culture wars flash point. "[T]his is not a case pitting Christianity against homosexuality," he wrote. What the case was about, he wrote, was the right of a public university to enforce reasonable academic standards. He wrote that "matters of educational policy should be left to educators and it is not the proper role of federal judges to second guess an educator's professional judgment."

Christian Counselors Claim Discrimination over Gays, Religion Today Persecution News

Christian Counselors Claim Discrimination over Gays, Religion Today Persecution News
Julea Ward, a conservative Christian student at Eastern Michigan University, was a few credits away from finishing her master's degree in counseling in 2009 when she was assigned a student who had previously been counseled about a homosexual relationship.

"She went to her supervisor and said, `I may not be the best person for this particular client," said Jeremy Tedesco, Ward's attorney, who has advised his client not to speak publicly about the case.

Ward was later brought up on disciplinary charges, and eventually dismissed from Eastern Michigan for violating the American Counseling Association's Code of Ethics and demonstrating an unwillingness to change her behavior.

Pat Condell on Ground Zero mosque: "Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?" - Jihad Watch

"A Torch With No Flame"

Friday, August 27, 2010

This Relationship Just Won't Work: Leo DiCaprio Kicks "Wife" to the Curb - E! Online

This Relationship Just Won't Work: Leo DiCaprio Kicks "Wife" to the Curb - E! Online
"[Bistriceanu] maintains a delusional belief that she is my wife and carrying my child, Jesus...and has threatened that we will live together forever..in His Kingdom," says DiCaprio. "I am frightened of Ms. Bistriceanu and feel that my personal safety, and the personal safety of those around me, is in jeopardy."

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Report: Most College Males Admit To Regularly Getting Stoked | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network

In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network

In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network

The Associated Press: Beck rally on anniversary of King's 'Dream' speech

The Associated Press: Beck rally on anniversary of King's 'Dream' speech
The event's website says the "Restoring Honor" rally is to pay tribute to America's military personnel and others "who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honor." It urges citizens to attend and "help us restore the values that founded this great nation."


Beck has called Obama "a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

"I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem," Beck said. "This guy is, I believe, a racist."


Tuesday, August 24, 2010

With Many Still Starving, India Rethinks Its Safety Net - NYTimes.com

With Many Still Starving, India Rethinks Its Safety Net - NYTimes.com
India vanquished food shortages during the 1960s with the Green Revolution, which introduced high-yield grains and fertilizers and expanded irrigation, and the country has had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past decade. But its poverty and hunger indexes remain dismal, with roughly 42 percent of all Indian children under the age of 5 being underweight.

Burqa Bans, Halal Debate: Is French Secularism Anti-Islam? - TIME

Burqa Bans, Halal Debate: Is French Secularism Anti-Islam? - TIME
"The 1905 law establishing secularism describes it as a measure to protect individual citizens' freedom of religion and faith by rendering the state totally neutral to — and disconnected from — religious matters," says Jean Baubérot, a professor emeritus of sociology and expert on secularism at Paris University's École Pratique des Hautes Études. Baubérot notes that secularity was initially meant to reduce the Catholic Church's influence on society by tasking the state with removing religious instruction from public schools as part of a general effort to relegate questions of faith to the private sphere. "Now we frequently see secularists urging the state to intervene in the private religious affairs or practices of people or organizations," Baubérot says. "Increasingly, secularity resembles what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called a 'civil religion': the values and dogma of a state that individual citizens must submit to — or be made to respect."

Monday, August 23, 2010

UCSF study finds racial gaps in child obesity - SFGate

UCSF study finds racial gaps in child obesity - SFGate
For the first time in more than three decades, obesity rates for white and Asian children are falling in California, and they seem to have leveled off for Hispanic kids - all good signs that public health campaigns aimed at keeping young people away from unhealthful sweets and fatty foods are starting to work, according to a UCSF study.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Report: Men Unfaithful to Women Who Earn More - TIME

Report: Men Unfaithful to Women Who Earn More - TIME
The study, which was presented by Christin Munsch, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, examined 18 to 28 year olds who were living together or married more than a year. (The cohort, it turns out, most likely to be outearning men.) It found that men who were completely dependent on their wives' incomes were five times likelier to cheat than those who contributed the same amount to the household finances.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Facebook Firings: Employees' Online Vents, Twitter Postings Can Cost Them Their Jobs - ABC News

Facebook Firings: Employees' Online Vents, Twitter Postings Can Cost Them Their Jobs - ABC News
Gloria Gadsden, a sociology professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, says she was suspended last week after updating her Facebook status with complaints about work that alluded to violence.

In January, she wrote: "Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman? Yes, it's been that kind of day…" Then in February: "had a good day today. DIDN'T want to kill even one student. :-). Now Friday was a different story."

Gadsden says she posted the comments in jest, on a profile she thought could only be seen by friends and family. She says officials were notified of the posts by a student -- even though she says she had no students in her "friend" list.

Facebook Firing: Teacher Loses Job After Commenting About Students, Parents on Facebook - ABC News

Facebook Firing: Teacher Loses Job After Commenting About Students, Parents on Facebook - ABC News
Massachusetts high school teacher June Talvitie-Siple learned the hard way that a Facebook wall is probably not the best place to spout off about the students and parents in her community.

Talvitie-Siple, a supervisor of the high school math and science program in Cohasset, Mass., was forced to resign this week after parents spotted Facebook comments she wrote describing students as "germ bags" and parents as "snobby" and "arrogant."

Two parents in the community alerted the school superintendent after noticing the posts on her Facebook wall, Talvitie-Siple said. The superintendent, who was on vacation overseas, sent an e-mailing asking her to resign.

"She did what was probably the most appropriate thing to do," Talvitie-Siple told ABCNews.com. "I embarrassed her, I embarrassed the school district and, you know, if I were her, I probably would have done the same thing. It was not a surprise."

The 54-year-old teacher said she thought her posts would only be visible to her friends and didn't realize that her Facebook settings made the comments visible to others on the Internet.

Franklin Graham Says President Obama was 'Born a Muslim.' As Pew Poll Shows, More Americans Confused About President's Religion. - ABC News

Franklin Graham Says President Obama was 'Born a Muslim.' As Pew Poll Shows, More Americans Confused About President's Religion. - ABC News
"I think the reality is that false beliefs spread like gossip more than actual information," said Andrew Perrin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Perrin's research has shown that a false perception can spread quickly if people's friends and neighbors also have heard or believe a similar idea.

"False beliefs propagate when people think others believe them, and when they have a supportive source that wants them to hold it," Perrin said.

Perrin has found that even direct denials of the false information do not always solve the problem.

"In my own research, when [people] get reliable information that discounts these beliefs, they tend to cling to those beliefs more," Perrin said.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Beloit College Mindset List

Beloit College Mindset List

The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the
Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a
handful, have always been the norm. Since "digital" has always been in
the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive and with cell phones
to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry
(who’s that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they
have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits;
Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China
has always posed an economic threat.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Seoul Reforms Marriage-Agency Rules After Bride - Flash Player Installation

Seoul Reforms Marriage-Agency Rules After Bride - Flash Player Installation
Asia's private international-marriage agencies typically take men to meet their prospective brides on a seven- to 10-day trip in the bride's country of origin, according to a report by Danièle Bélanger, a sociology professor at the University of Western Ontario in the Population & Societies journal. Some marriage agencies, however, advertise three-day itineraries that have men finding their wife on the day they arrive. The women are presented to the men, and the process of choosing a wife often takes less than an hour. In many cases, the woman can decline a proposal, but Bruce says it's normal for these women to be held captive until they consent, giving them little real choice but to accept. The whole trip, which includes a full wedding, costs the groom between $5,000 and $10,000, while the local Vietnamese brokers that recruit the brides have started charging women between $1,000 and $3,000 to be matched with a prospective husband.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Study Links Gene Variant in Men to Marital Discord - washingtonpost.com

Study Links Gene Variant in Men to Marital Discord - washingtonpost.com
Men are more likely to be devoted and loyal husbands when they lack a particular variant of a gene that influences brain activity, researchers announced yesterday -- the first time that science has shown a direct link between a man's genes and his aptitude for monogamy.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Dispelling “Anchor Baby” Myths - Swampland - TIME.com

Dispelling “Anchor Baby” Myths - Swampland - TIME.com
The next question is more political. Is kicking up dust about the 14th Amendment really about stemming the tide of illegal immigrants, as Lindsay Graham and Rep. John Boehner suggest? Or does it have more to do with what's reflected in a CNN poll out today showing that 49% of Americans support revoking the automatic citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment?

With Many Still Starving, India Rethinks Its Safety Net - NYTimes.com

With Many Still Starving, India Rethinks Its Safety Net - NYTimes.com
India vanquished food shortages during the 1960s with the Green Revolution, which introduced high-yield grains and fertilizers and expanded irrigation, and the country has had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past decade. But its poverty and hunger indexes remain dismal, with roughly 42 percent of all Indian children under the age of 5 being underweight.

Op-Ed Contributor - Congregations Gone Wild - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - Congregations Gone Wild - NYTimes.com
The trend toward consumer-driven religion has been gaining momentum for half a century. Consider that in 1955 only 15 percent of Americans said they no longer adhered to the faith of their childhood, according to a Gallup poll. By 2008, 44 percent had switched their religious affiliation at least once, or dropped it altogether, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found. Americans now sample, dabble and move on when a religious leader fails to satisfy for any reason.

In this transformation, clergy have seen their job descriptions rewritten. They’re no longer expected to offer moral counsel in pastoral care sessions or to deliver sermons that make the comfortable uneasy. Church leaders who continue such ministerial traditions pay dearly. A few years ago, thousands of parishioners quit Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., and Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Ariz., when their respective preachers refused to bless the congregations’ preferred political agendas and consumerist lifestyles.

How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks - Bucks Blog - NYTimes.com

How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks - Bucks Blog - NYTimes.com
That’s especially important now because there are an increasing number of ways to save on books if you buy or rent them online. This Times article from last year provides a lot of helpful information. But we also spoke with Nicole Allen, textbook advocate at the Student Public Interest Research Groups, for some more tips:

Study Looks at Babies Born to Illegal Immigrants - NYTimes.com

Study Looks at Babies Born to Illegal Immigrants - NYTimes.com
A nationwide survey in June by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a group affiliated with the Hispanic Center, found that 56 percent of those polled opposed changing the 14th Amendment, while 41 percent supported it.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

FOXNews.com - Anne Rice Quits Christianity -- 10 Thoughts On Jesus and the Church

FOXNews.com - Anne Rice Quits Christianity -- 10 Thoughts On Jesus and the Church
In a posting on her Facebook page, she said, “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or being a part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Friday, August 6, 2010

Decoupling corporate profits from jobs - SFGate

Decoupling corporate profits from jobs - SFGate
Bottom line: Higher corporate profits no longer lead to higher employment. We're witnessing a great decoupling of company profits from jobs.

The next supply-side economist who tells you companies need more incentive (i.e., lower taxes) before they'll hire is living on another planet.

Violent Crime Is Down in Arizona, Up in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s County « The Washington Independent

Violent Crime Is Down in Arizona, Up in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s County « The Washington Independent
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s claims about illegal immigrants and violent crime have been pretty thoroughly debunked, but pro-reform non-profit America’s Voice takes it one step further, circulating a graph today indicating that Arizona’s SB 1070 could actually increase crime in the state. The graph shows rates of violent crime in Arizona jurisdictions from 2002 to 2009. Violent crime rates are all down — statewide numbers included — except for in Maricopa County, the jurisdiction of pro-enforcement Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Crime in Arpaio’s county has gone up 58 percent since 2002, according to America’s Voice data.

Arizona Immigration Law Author: Failure to Enforce Law Impeachable Offense

Arizona Immigration Law Author: Failure to Enforce Law Impeachable Offense
“During the debate over 1070, a good friend of mine was murdered — right after [Janet] Napolitano, your Homeland Security director, said the border is more secure than ever. Simply not true.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Perry v. Schwarzenegger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perry v. Schwarzenegger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kristin M. Perry v. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a federal lawsuit decided by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that challenged the federal constitutional validity of California's Proposition 8. The court found that Proposition 8 violated the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, respectively, effectively rendering it unconstitutional on August 4, 2010.

YouTube - After Calif. Same-Sex Marriage Ruling, What's Ahead Legally for Both Sides?

Monday, August 2, 2010

How Technology Has Changed the Way We Break Up - Newsweek

How Technology Has Changed the Way We Break Up - Newsweek
Around the time that movie was being made, Ilana Gershon, an assistant professor of communication and culture at Indiana University, began to notice a curious phenomenon among her students. She was teaching a class on linguistic anthropology—the study of how language influences culture—and she tried a new exercise to get her students to think about their shared expectations for behavior. “I asked them what makes a bad breakup,” Gershon says. “I was expecting people to have really dramatic stories, ‘I caught them in bed together,’ something like that.” Instead, they all responded with tales of outrage about the medium rather than the message, complaining that they got the bad news by text or by Facebook rather than in person.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Study finds childhood obesity may be declining | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/28/2010

Study finds childhood obesity may be declining | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/28/2010
Several recent studies reported that rates of overweight and obese children plateaued after rising rapidly since 1980. But this is the first major study to detect a decline - of 4 percent - and it was in a national sample dominated by low-income blacks and Hispanics, the groups at highest risk.

Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love

Doctor Love | Page 3 | Fast Company
Yet six weeks later, when Zak shares the results with me, my blood tells a more dramatic story. In those 10 minutes between blood batches one and two, my oxytocin levels spiked 13.2%. That's equivalent to the hormonal spike experienced by the groom at the wedding Zak attended. Meanwhile, stress hormones cortisol and ACTH went down 10.8% and 14.9%, respectively. Zak explains that the results are linked, that the release of oxytocin I experienced while tweeting reduced my stress hormones. If that's the case, says Zak, social networking might reduce cardiovascular risks, like heart attack and stroke, associated with lack of social support. But there's even more to our findings. "Your brain interpreted tweeting as if you were directly interacting with people you cared about or had empathy for," Zak says. "E-connection is processed in the brain like an in-person connection."

Errors in census interviews misinterpret racial, ethnic identity - CNN.com

Errors in census interviews misinterpret racial, ethnic identity - CNN.com
According to a recent report by the U.S. Commerce Department Office of the Inspector General, 71 out of 480 observed census workers failed to follow procedures when conducting face-to-face census gathering. The Census Bureau hired more than 600,000 temporary employees to visit homes and conduct in-person interviews of individuals who did not mail their census forms.

High court strikes down Chicago handgun ban - CNN.com

High court strikes down Chicago handgun ban - CNN.com
In another dramatic victory for firearm owners, the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional Chicago, Illinois', 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons.

The Associated Press: Court: Christian group can't bar gays, get funding

The Associated Press: Court: Christian group can't bar gays, get funding
The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group's First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college's nondiscrimination policy.

"In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court's liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. "CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy."

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a strong dissent for the court's conservatives, saying the opinion was "a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country."

"Our proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate,'" Alito said, quoting a previous court decision. "Today's decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country's institutions of higher learning."

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Bros Like This Site

Bro Culture: Icing on the Social-Marketing Cake? - TIME

Bro Culture: Icing on the Social-Marketing Cake? - TIME
The bro is nothing new, of course — just a term to describe raunchy young men. Bros, by any other name, have been around for decades. They predate Animal House and continue to show up in pop culture in MTV series like Jackass and Bromance and in movies like I Love You, Man and The Hangover. The probable etymology of bro: inner-city guys called each other "brother," which was appropriated by Hawaiian dudes as "brah." Some frat boy picked it up in the islands and brought it home as "bro." The term really took off, however, in 2007 when a University of Florida student begged a stun-gun-wielding campus cop, "Don't tase me, bro."

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Congress.org - News : How a minority passed Prohibition

Congress.org - News : How a minority passed Prohibition
How a minority passed Prohibition
The Anti-Saloon League pioneered tactics activists can use today.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Is Immigration Responsible for the Crime Drop? An Assessment of the Influence of Immigration on Changes in Violent Crime Between 1990 and 2000*. Tim Wadsworth. 2010; Social Science Quarterly - Wiley InterScience

Is Immigration Responsible for the Crime Drop? An Assessment of the Influence of Immigration on Changes in Violent Crime Between 1990 and 2000*. Tim Wadsworth. 2010; Social Science Quarterly - Wiley InterScience
Results. In the ordinary least squares models, immigration is associated with higher levels of homicide and robbery. However, the pooled cross-sectional time-series models suggest that cities with the largest increases in immigration between 1990 and 2000 experienced the largest decreases in homicide and robbery during the same time period.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Devolve This! | The Nation

Devolve This! | The Nation
In American politics, who controls the states controls the nation. The right understands this, and for a generation has waged an unrelenting war to take over state government in America. It has substantially succeeded, in large part because it hasn't faced any serious progressive countereffort. Despite the visibility of the right's advance, and the decades of devolution and economic decentralization that have made states hugely important sites of politics, progressives haven't made one.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Juliet Schor » Economics & Society

Juliet Schor » Economics & Society
I'm back from my west coast book tour, where I spoke to a variety of audiences. In Seattle I did a talk at Town Hall, and Todd Boyle producer a great video of it. Todd is an example of a Plenitude creator. Todd emailed me before the talk and asked if he could film, edit and upload this high quality video. He does this, gratis, for people and subjects he finds interesting, as a way of contributing to the community conversation. Thanks to Todd. It's the full monty for the book, with the slideshow and full Q&A. I hope you like it. Here's the video:

Friday, May 28, 2010

College students may be lacking in empathy, study finds | Booster Shots | Los Angeles Times

College students may be lacking in empathy, study finds | Booster Shots | Los Angeles Times
To what do the researchers attribute these changes? A number of social and cultural changes, including an increasing emphasis on the self; an overactive media that bombards people with violent, horrific images and gradually desensitizes them; and the growth of social media. On that, the authors wrote, "With so much time spent interacting with others online and not in reality, interpersonal dynamics like empathy might certainly be altered. For example, perhaps it is easier to establish friends and relationships online, but these skills might not translate into smooth social relations in real life...."

The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Every Hug, Every Fuss - Scientists Record Families’ Daily Lives - NYTimes.com

Every Hug, Every Fuss - Scientists Record Families’ Daily Lives - NYTimes.com
Mothers still do most of the housework, spending 27 percent of their time on it, on average, compared with 18 percent for fathers and 3 percent for children (giving an allowance made no difference).

Saturday, May 15, 2010

China becoming socialist in the tradition of FDR, LBJ, and BHO?

China’s School Killings and Social Despair - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com
A Chinese adage, which refers to the people as “water” and the ruler as a “boat,” puts it: “while water can carry a boat, it can also overturn it.” The Chinese leadership, mindful of this dynamic, is in a process of rolling out a series of social welfare programs — minimum living standard safety net, old-age support and health care — which aim to cover a larger and disadvantaged population.

Xueguang
Zhou
, professor of sociology and a senior fellow at
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford
University. He is currently in Beijing teaching at the
Stanford-in-Beijing program.