Friday, October 31, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Plumber From Ohio Is Thrust Into Spotlight - NYTimes.com
“His answer actually scared me even more,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said. “He said he wants to distribute wealth. And I mean, I’m not trying to make statements here, but, I mean, that’s kind of a socialist viewpoint. You know, I work for that. You know, it’s my discretion who I want to give my money to; it’s not for the government decide that I make a little too much and so I need to share it with other people. That’s not the American Dream.”
Real Deal on ‘Joe the Plumber’ Reveals New Slant - NYTimes.com
Real Deal on ‘Joe the Plumber’ Reveals New Slant - NYTimes.com
That encounter wound up on YouTube and led to appearances on the Fox News Channel, interviews with conservative bloggers and a New York Post editorial, all of whom seized on a small part of Mr. Obama’s long reply. “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Mr. Obama had said.
Understanding Students Who Were 'Born Digital' :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
Understanding Students Who Were ‘Born Digital’
Kids these days! If the technologies students use — and sometimes abuse — add up to an overwhelming jumble for some professors who teach them, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser have written a book that they hope will bridge the generation gap, at least when it comes to an understanding of the different habits, learning styles and ideas about privacy attributed to so-called “digital natives.” Their book, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (Basic Books, 2008), covers a lot of the territory mined at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where Palfrey is a faculty director, and is part of its ongoing Digital Natives project. Palfrey, a professor and vice dean at Harvard Law School and Gasser, a professor of law at the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, and a Berkman fellow, answered questions via e-mail on whether professors should ban Internet from the classroom, the ongoing evolution of libraries, and whether students are learning differently thanks to new technologies.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Green v. County School Board of New Kent County - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Circuit Judge John J. Parker led many in the South in interpreting Brown as a charge not to segregate, but not an order to integrate. In 1963 the Court ruled in McNeese v. Board of Education and Goss v. Board of Education in favor of integration, and showed impatience with efforts to end segregation.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Mandatory diversity training may do more harm than good | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com
Mandatory diversity training may do more harm than good | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com
By Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
© October 5, 2008
For hospital employees of Sentara Healthcare, it starts with a required one-hour online class each year. The goal: “to deliver respectful care to people with diverse backgrounds,” said Pat Evans, director of recruitment and workforce planning.
BYU research finds less pot use by religious kids - Salt Lake Tribune
BYU research finds less pot use by religious kids - Salt Lake Tribune
BYU research finds less pot use by religious kids
A correlation is also found for tobacco and alcohol, but not for the use of harder drugs
By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Launched: 10/02/2008 11:18:34 AM MDT
Brigham Young University sociologists analyzing survey data about drug use found that teens who are religiously active are half as likely to smoke marijuana or cigarettes or drink alcohol.
The findings, to be published this month in the "Journal of Drug Issues," suggest that kids' participation in religion counteracts the powerful pressure to smoke pot when their friends are getting high.
"After we accounted for family and peer characteristics, and regardless of denomination, there was an independent effect that those who were religious were less likely to do drugs, even when their friends were users," said co-author Stephen Bahr, a professor in BYU's sociology department. "The power of peers is less among youths who are religious, meaning if you are religious, the pressure from peers to use drugs will not have as much effect."
The researchers based their findings on an analysis of two data sets - a national longitudinal study that has tracked more than 13,000 students since the 1990s, and a survey of about 5,000 Utah teens Bahr conducted about a decade ago.
While most sociologists agree that peer pressure is a major determinant in the choices teens make, there has been widespread disagreement about whether religion plays a role in teens' choice not to use drugs. The Bahr study affirms the argument that faith plays a role not just in marijuana use, but also for alcohol and tobacco -
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even when kids' friends are puffing and drinking.
"We found it with heavy drinking, smoking tobacco - across the board, religiosity had a dampening effect both in Utah data, which is what you would expect, but we also found it nationally," said co-author John Hoffman, also a professor of sociology.
But the authors added a few cautionary notes. First, the study does not conclusively draw a causal link between religion and kids' drug choices. Moreover, the religion correlation was weak for heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other hard drugs.
"We tried to look at more illicit drugs, but we didn't find a statistically significant effect, although it pointed in the same direction," Hoffman said. "It could be that once kids get involved in these types of drugs, religiosity doesn't do much for them."
The researchers also found that religious fervor within the community has little effect on teens' drug behavior.
"Previously, it was thought that if someone grew up in a religious community and went to church, then the community's religious strength would make a difference," Bahr said. "We basically found that this was not the case. Individual religiosity is what makes the difference."
bmaffly@sltrib.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
OES Wages, California LaborMarketInfo
OES Employment and Wages by Occupation
Wage data for all geographical areas have been updated to the first quarter of 2008 by applying the U. S. Department of Labor's Employment Cost Index to the 2006 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 2007.
The 2008 Statistical Abstract : Income, Expenditures, Poverty, & Wealth
Income, Expenditures, Poverty, & Wealth
This section presents data on gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), national and personal income, saving and investment, money income, poverty, and national and personal wealth.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Wiley InterScience :: JOURNALS :: Sociology Compass
The Shift from Dating to Hooking up in College: What Scholars Have Missed
Kathleen A. Bogle 1*
1 La Salle University
Copyright © 2007 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
ABSTRACT
In recent years, research has been building that suggests dating has been replaced by hooking up as the dominant way for heterosexual students to get together on college campuses. Although recent studies have documented the phenomenon of hooking up, there is evidence that this behavior was likely in place long before it was recognized in the literature. Yet, for the past several decades, scholars have continued to examine 'dating' among college students. This calls into question whether scholars missed a fundamental shift in how heterosexual men and women form sexual and romantic relationships on campus. In this paper, I will (i) review the major findings on hooking up, (ii) explain the differences between traditional dating and hooking up, (iii) explore when traditional dating declined and hooking up emerged on the college campus, and (iv) discuss the effect of this shift on the literature.
The Sociology of 'Hooking Up' :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
Many researchers rely on college undergraduates as subjects for studies of human behavior. For Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at LaSalle University who trained her scholarly lens on the students themselves, focusing on that cross-section was part of the design.
When people talk about “hooking up,” they’re referring to a subculture with a complex set of rules and expectations. Not surprisingly, most of what they know about student “hookup” culture comes from alarmist news reports of “risky sex” and the American Pie movies, not serious scholarship. In her new book, Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus (New York University Press, 2008), Bogle wields the tools of the sociologist, employing in-depth interviews with students and graduates from two unnamed universities — one a large East Coast public university, the other a smaller Roman Catholic institution in the Northeast — and placing the culture of hooking up in a historical context. She answered questions via e-mail, shedding light on what she calls the “center of college social life.”
Political Pulse | The Associated Press-Yahoo! News Poll on Yahoo! News
Poll shows gap between blacks and whites over racial discrimination
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the nation's birth, Americans have discussed race and avoided it, organized neighborhoods and political movements around it, and used it to divide and hurt people even as relations have improved dramatically since the days of slavery, Reconstruction and legal segregation.
Political Pulse | The Associated Press-Yahoo! News Poll on Yahoo! News
Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Youth suicide rate is still high - Los Angeles Times
Youth suicide rate is still high - Los Angeles Times
Youth suicide rate is still high
Note: Example of unintended consequences. Fear of a linkage between anti-depressants and suicide creates a stronger connection.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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