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Jul 11

Protecting children from sexuality

Our ancestors didn’t concern themselves with what is the appropriate age to have “the talk” with their children. When homes were small, children grew up with parents who had sex in the same room in which they were sleeping. Our preoccupation with “protecting” our children from sexual knowledge is directly related to the size of our homes. As we have grown wealthier we have managed to prolong our children’s ignorance regarding human sexuality, and as a result open dialogue around sexuality has become taboo.
Marina Adshade via http://bigthink.com/ideas/39156

Filed under  //  parenting   society  

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Dec 24

5 forces of global disruption

5 forces of global disruption
  1. the rise and fall of nations
  2. the rise and fall of generations
  3. global urbanization
  4. the spread of social media technology
  5. planetary biostress through overpopulation and warming
Filed under  //  economy   society   technology  

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Dec 16

Greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation

the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day.

In eight of the nine questions below, Fox News placed first in the percentage of those who were misinformed (they placed second in the question on TARP). That’s a pretty high batting average for journalistic fraud.

via http://www.alternet.org/story/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid

Filed under  //  journalism   media   politics   society  

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Dec 15

American opposition to social safety and civil rights

Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed.

...

The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” the National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938.

After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of “naked judicial power” that would sow “chaos and confusion” and diminish American greatness. A decade later, The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.”

This year’s health care overhaul has now joined the list.

via http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/business/economy/15leonhardt.html

Filed under  //  change   politics   reform   society  

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Aug 29

Filming police actions in plain view should be protected, not prosecuted

I don't think you can have a free country in which public officials are able to criminally prosecute people who film what they are doing," David Rocah, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Maryland who is representing Graber, said. . . .

The encounter happened on a public street and, according to Rocah, police officers - public officials tasked with protecting the public interest - should not be able to hide behind such rules to avoid scrutiny.

"The value of documenting what is happening cannot be over-stated," he said.

via http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/08/201082214554232983.html

Filed under  //  society  

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Aug 22

The creativity of the digital world is vastly different from the analog environment

The creativity of the digital world is vastly different from the analog environment. There, creative is typically a static commercial art piece (or a "portfolio" of these). Creativity represented by great copy, an idea that makes a twist on a popular culture or "captures the zeitgeist," or as a piece-of-art logo and print ad, may indeed belong to the same era as those media that defined it.

In the digital world, that approach doesn't cut it. The best creative is the creation of relationships, connections and interactions. It connects tools with behaviors, locations, and objects. It creates networks or systems. To be creative there, you need to be strategic: you need to figure out who connects to whom, when and why and to what result. Simply, you need to plan for a chain reaction. These networks then give way to a collective creativity that becomes visible to all to use it, build upon it, change it, and add to it.

via http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=145448

Ooohh... I like this!

Filed under  //  learning   society   teaching   technology   workforce  

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Jun 20

Another bad idea from Arizona

The 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” It could not be clearer.

The Constitution apparently does not matter to these politicians. They also do not seem to care that Arizona is earning a national reputation for intolerance and racism

via http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/opinion/20sun2.html

Filed under  //  law   policy   society  

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May 28

The development sector uses dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and, eventually, donations

The truth is that the development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive. Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public. I found it outrageous that such an incomplete and often inaccurate story was being so widely perpetuated by the organizations on the ground – the very ones with the ability and the responsibility to communicate the realities of rural Africa accurately.

This is not to say that people do not struggle, far from it, but the photos I was seeing only told part of the story. I thought that these images were robbing people of their dignity, and I felt that the rest of the story should be told as well. Out of this came the idea for a photography project, which I am tentatively calling “Perspectives of Poverty”. I am taking two photos of the same person; one photo with the typical symbols of poverty (dejected look, ripped clothes, etc.), and another of this person looking their very finest, to show how an image can be carefully constructed to present the same person in very different ways. I want to bring to light some of the different assumptions we make about a person, especially when we see an image of “poverty” from rural Africa.

via http://www.culture-making.com/post/ok_and_now_can_we_get_one_with_the_torn_shirt_thanks/

Filed under  //  charity   society  

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Apr 3

How we respond to technology

We are human beings; our first responses to anything are dominated not by calculations but by feelings.
Stephen Fry via http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1976935,00.html

Filed under  //  society   technology  

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Apr 2

Cory Doctorow calls Rupert Murdoch's bluff

The reason people have stopped paying for a lot of "content" isn't just that they can get it for free, though: it's that they can get lots of competing stuff for free, too. The open platform has allowed for an explosion of new material, some of it rough-hewn, some of it slick as the pros, most of it targetted more narrowly than the old media ever managed. Rupert Murdoch can rattle his saber all he likes about taking his content out of Google, but I say do it, Rupert. We'll miss your fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the Web so little that we'll hardly notice it, and we'll have no trouble finding material to fill the void.
Cory Doctorow via http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either.html

Yes, this is another quote from the same post that I just bookmarked!

Filed under  //  journalism   society   technology  

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Apr 2

Who are "consumers?"

The model of interaction with the iPad is to be a "consumer," what William Gibson memorably described as "something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth... no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote.
Cory Doctorow (and William Gibson) via http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either.html

Filed under  //  society   technology  

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Sep 22

Big drop in heart attacks after smoking bans

two large studies suggest that communities that pass laws to curb secondhand smoke get a big payoff -- a drop in heart attacks.

Overall, American, Canadian, and European cities that have implemented smoking bans had an average of 17 percent fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities who had not taken such measures.

Then, each year after implementing smoking bans (at least for the first three years, the longest period studied), smoke-free communities have an average 26 percent decline in heart attacks, compared with those areas that still allow smokers to light up in public places.

via cnn.com

This is a no-brainer. Every state should pass a smoking ban in public places.

Filed under  //  society  

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