Sure, Facebook has 300 million members worldwide, but as any historian will tell you, civilizations are temporary. What feels permanent today will one day be the stuff of legend, like this alleged bygone civilization known as "Friendster." Check out this report from The Onion News Network:
When I heard about the foiled Christmas Day terrorist attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, I immediately thought, "Oh no, what crazy new rule will the TSA come up with this time?" Because really, there's no easy way to stop someone who's hidden a sachet of explosive powder in his underwear, short of full strip searches for every passenger. But the TSA will surely be pressured to come up with some sort of new procedure to make people feel safe -- "security theater," as it's come to be called. Already, plans for more full-body scanners at airports have been announced in the US and overseas, and Air Canada is forcing passengers to basically cease all activity and remain seated for the last hour of international flights.
Meanwhile, the actual likelihood of an airborne terrorist attack remains infinitesimally small. According to FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver, "the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000." See Gizmodo's illustration of Silver's full statistical breakdown by enlarging the image on the right.
Security expert Bruce Schneier thinks all our concerns about security amount to the terrorists winning.
Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them.
So keep those odds in mind the next time you're planning a trip to the airport - even if the TSA doesn't appear to know them.
Earlier this month, a well-known community blogger in Chicago quit his paid post as an online news writer for local NBC station WMAQ after executives from both the Chicago Tribune and WMAQ itself interceded to block the posting of verified news stories. The scribe in question, Steve Rhodes, editor and publisher of popular Windy City local blog the Beachwood Reporter, writes that twice in December, fully cited news stories based on verified sources and including previously reported facts were blocked from publication by the news station.
According to Rhodes, WMAQ management told him the first story, reporting embarrassing details about incoming Chicago Tribune chairman Randy Michaels (see a cache of the story here), was pulled off the live site at the request of Tribune management who feared the story would create bad press for the newspaper. (How bad? One verified fact in Rhodes original story was Michaels' penchant for walking around the offices of a previous employer with a rubber penis hanging around his neck.) A second story examining the recent death of Chicago Board of Education chair Michael Scott never even reached the public--Rhodes was told an executive at WMAQ unhappy with press coverage of former friend Scott had the story quashed before publication.
When word of the controversy hit the online news sphere in Chicago, it prompted several local bloggers to ask the question at the top of this post: Why, exactly, would a local TV station let a third-party print publication determine the acceptability--and reportability--of news content? The question is troubling for anyone who supports a free and unfettered news media. So is the fact that neither WMAQ nor the Tribune have denied Rhodes' report, which generated intense coverage from major Chicago online media outlets such as Chicagoist, the Chicago Reader, Vocalo, and Windy Citizen.
Besides wondering why any news outlet would remove or block a news story based on the personal concerns of internal managers--much less the business concerns of competing newspapers--news watchers should also be wondering how often this has happened before in Chicago or other major U.S. news markets. When the FCC first established limits on media ownership in local markets, it was to block seemingly collusive actions of the kind reported by Rhodes and ensure that major media companies would be unable to dominate and determine news content in a given city. Of course, FCC limits go out the window when independent news outlets let informal winks and handshakes determine appropriately controversy-free news content.
Most amazing, though, is that in this highly interactive day and age executives exist at NBC5 Chicago and the Chicago Tribune who still think it's possible for major media to block a story and the public to be none the wiser. That's a lot harder to do when many of the folks being hired to write online news content are major local bloggers with built-in online brands and audiences. Rhodes was far from the only self-branded blogger reporting online news for a major outlet--in Chicago or anywhere else. That WMAQ and the Tribune couldn't parse the ramifications of hiring and then censoring someone with his or her own major public soapbox speaks volumes about major media's understanding of the realities of life on the Interwebs. And not in a good way, either.
[Image source: Beachwood Reporter.]
The poor are hit hardest by an adverse economic climate. And to make matters worse, around the country charities that serve poorer populations are facing donation shortages. In 2008 -- the height of The Great Recession -- foundation assets fell by an estimated 22 percent. This year, the Foundation Center estimates that charities will experience declines of more than 10 percent. Unfortunately, there is no relief in the immediate horizon. Charities have had to think strategically. "We're aggressive, but we have to be," Russ Russell, chief development officer for Forgotten Harvest, told The Detroit News. Various charities are also stressing the fact that this is the last chance to get donations in in time for 2009 tax deductions (not the most altruistic appeal, but effective). "Some charities receive up to 60 percent of their charitable giving on Dec. 30 and 31," notes TheDenverChannel.
Enter: Philanthropy 2.0, or e-Philanthropy. The Salvation Army, for instance, which met its holiday fundraising goals, now embraces social networking. From The Detroit News:
Along with volunteer bell-ringers stationed at grocery stores and shopping malls, at least 165 people in Metro Detroit have downloaded Red Kettle widgets to their Facebook pages. They've helped to collect more than $32,000 from their network of family, friends and acquaintances. That's $10,000 more than was collected last year by the same date, when volunteers sought donations via e-mails, said John Hale, development director for the Salvation Army eastern Michigan division.
Since Tammie Jones, 29, downloaded a kettle to her Facebook page a month ago, she has collected $1,500. Donations have come in from family as far away as Virginia and Texas.
"Part of it is the city of Detroit is getting a lot more national attention than ever before," said Jones, a public policy fellow at the Skillman Foundation.
The other part, she says, is the ability to tap her 448 Facebook friends and nearly 700 Twitter followers.
DoSomething.org, another worthy e-Philanthropy social networking site, is another of a growing number of sites harnessing the resources and particular interests of netizens to raise awareness and build online communities. The power of the Internet may not be enough to take us back in time to before the economy tanked, but at least it's keeping some charities afloat this year.
[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
What to call the last 10 years? The Aughts? The The Naughts? The Naughty Aughties? Or, simply, the Naughties?
However you identify the first decade of the new millennium, one thing is indisputable: It's been a hell of an era. Or should I say an era from hell? In retrospect, the specter of Y2K seems like a prescient hint of the years to come, foretelling a decade of some very bad things. But in retrospect, it also seems rather quaint.
If there's one thing the end of a decade inspires, it's lists. The Top 10 Worst Events of the Naughty Aughties, in my view, would have to include, in no particular order: the election of George W. Bush, Hurricane Katrina, the first recession, 9/11, the second recession, the re-election of George W. Bush, and entering into a war whose "focus" seems to constantly be shifting. That's just seven, but hey, I'm tired of thinking about bad stuff.
One good thing about all of the turmoil, though, is that it provided fertile ground for recovery and growth. If it hadn't been for the disasters created by Bush and his henchmen, Barack Obama may have never been elected. And contrary to what the polls indicate, I am still convinced that Obama is doing a great job, and that he will be be remembered by historians as a transformative president. Recessions are always followed by periods of prosperity. Wars do end, eventually, and sometimes they even end well.
So even though we've been through a lot these past ten years, things are looking up. That being said, what might a Top 10 Best Events of the Naughty Aughties look like?
[Image: Spynotebook.org]
As people around the world prepare for tonight's NYE celebrations, we must put down the champagne flutes and the party blowers for a minute to plan our New Year's resolutions. (No easy task, I know, but tonight's the last night to do it!) Benjamin Franklin had some thoughts on this, and he was a pretty smart guy so they're probably worth our attention. He said,
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better [hu]man.
As the editor of the AWEARNESS Blog, one of my (and the whole team of bloggers here) resolutions for 2010 is to continue to bring you relevant and insightful information on our cultural and political landscape. This is a space where we can all -- readers, writers, photographers, and editors alike -- communicate with and reach out to one another on the issues that we know to be important. Whatever the next year has in store for us, good or bad, we at AWEARNESS Blog will be here to continue the discussion (let's hope it's mostly good). Together we can follow the sage advice of Mr. Franklin and strive to be better human beings, one blog post at a time.
So Happy New Year from AWEARNESS Blog! Now that you've read our resolution, do you have any of your own to share?
[Image: Wikimedia]
Leaders from around the world jetted in to the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Summit, but far too little was said there about Africa. South Africa's environment minister Buyelwa Sonjica, according to the AP, called Copenhagen's outcome, "not acceptable. It's definitely not acceptable. It's disappointing." Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, leader of the African delegation to the Copenhagen talks was equally disappointed.
The poorest continent bears a disproportionate amount of the brunt of global warming. Vector-borne diseases like malaria, for example, are on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. Places like Kenya are already experiencing longer droughts. Water availability was a major factor in the Darfur war. The competition for limited resources is bound to increase as the global temperature rises. In 2010 the billionth person will be born on the continent of Africa. By 2050, the continent's population is projected to almost double, to 1.9 billion. There is only a short window of opportunity regarding global warming before tomorrow's preventable problems become foregone, intractable conclusions.
Like most people under 40, I grew up watching Sesame Street. It was always a weird show, if you think about it: Its cast of misfits included a crotchety green creature that lived in the trash, a pathetic lump of dumbness that was always getting manipulated by a gigantic bird, and a vaguely homo-erotic pair of roommates who seemed forever stuck in their codependent, dysfunctional relationship.
So maybe it's always been cynical, but it was always cute, too. Now, if this clip starring Ricky Gervais is any indication, it's gotten a little bit cruel. What does it mean when Sesame Street shows an adult terrorizing its most childlike (i.e. innocent, cute, giggly) character and then walking out of the room? Maybe it's for the best (especially since Elmo pokes a little fun at Gervais as well). After all, life can be cruel, and the sooner we can laugh at our foes, the better we'll be for it. Gervais teaches us grown-ups that in his movies, TV shows, and stand-up. Why not let our kids, and puppets, in on the joke, too?
I am a sucker for holiday news stories that pull at your heart. Last week when I was at my dad's house for Christmas a news story zipped by on the TV that made me go "huh?" Luckily it was in the morning paper! "Moses Mathis, who for 19 years has repaired bicycles and then given them away at Christmas, set a record this year by fixing more than 1,100 bikes."
Isn't that awesome? To see video of an interview with Mathis about his bicycle outreach, visit The Fayetteville Observer's website (the video was un-embeddable here, unfortunately).
If you want to help Mathis give away even more bicycles in 2010, head on over to his website!
[Image: WRAL.com]
The streets of Tehran, Iran's capital city, were the site of protests on Sunday, when as many as 300 people were arrested and at least four were killed, including the nephew of the country's opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who many believe was cheated out of his bid for the presidency last summer. Riots accompanied the election's outcome last June, as well. This video depicts several baseej, a paramilitary police force, pinned against a wall by protesters. Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic posted translations his blog.
Did Vic Chesnutt ever really "make it"? Your answer most likely depends on whether or not you know who Vic Chesnutt was. If you do, you'd probably say yes, because he was an iconic figure in the world of indie folk-rock, where more recent acts like Iron and Wine, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Kimya Dawson have made a rather lucrative home. If you don't, it may go without saying that you'd say no. If he'd made it, you'd have heard of him.
So when Vic Chesnutt died Christmas day from an apparent overdose of muscle relaxants, the news either shocked or bounced right off of those who read about it. I was one of those that it shocked, in part because I've been a fan of Chesnutt's sonorous, low-fi, but often whimsical songs since I was in high school.
Paralyzed from a car accident when he was 18, Chesnutt spent his whole adult life in a wheelchair, writing songs about such random topics as the creepiness of new suburban towns, lost love, and the late "mother of modern dance," Isadora Duncan. His hospital bills, of course, were enormous, and he initially had no insurance to cover them. In this way, he exemplified the plight of American artists, a plight now shared by somewhere between 30 million and 50 million nationwide (the number is hotly contested), artists and non-artists alike.
Chesnutt's middling fame came largely from the support of a fellow musician from Athens, Georgia: Michael Stipe of REM. Having seen Chesnutt around town at cafes and small venues, Stipe lifted him from total to relative obscurity. The paraplegic musician got another boost in the mid-1990s, when a group of big name artists released a tribute album featuring Chesnutt's songs, titled "Sweet Relief: Gravity of the Situation," to raise awareness about musicians without health insurance. Sweet Relief lives on as a non-profit musicians' fund.
Some are speculating that Chesnutt committed suicide because he was being sued for $35,000 by his hospital. "And the rub is that I have health insurance," Chesnutt told Spinner.com earlier this year. His medical debts totaled about $50,000.
With Obama's recently approved health care reform bill, which will ostensibly ensure coverage for 94% of Americans, that tribute album could become a real collector's item, a reminder of three distinct things now-passed: musical albums, uninsured musicians, and of course, Mr. Chesnutt himself. Rest in peace, troubadour of hard luck.
[Image: NewsJunkiePost.com]
Here we are already, the end of 2009. It's been a tumultuous year, but then again, so is every year. 2010 is liable to be just as hectic, and in this short video, Greg Sargent of the Plum Line blog on WhoRunsGov.com offers his opinion of the top five stories of the past 12 months.
Perhaps the biggest story, though, which Sargent's list is testament to, is that bloggers like himself, and not members of the corporate media, are largely responsible for bringing us those stories. As he says here, bloggers proved this year that they could make the transition from covering a campaign to covering policy, and even breaking stories. Journalism isn't dead. To the contrary, it's more alive than ever.
Warning: This involves a bit of a spoiler of the movie "Brothers"
Jim Sheridan's latest film "Brothers" gives post-traumatic stress disorder a higher profile this holiday season with an amazing performance by Tobey Maguire. The movie depicts Maguire as a Marine who is shot down in Afghanistan, held prisoner, and then returns home after being declared dead. Maguire's character returns to a home where his wife and daughters have tried to move on -- with the help of his brother. Suspicion runs high, fueled by his PTSD and guilt, that his wife and brother are now lovers. The movie ends in an emotional crescendo that is worthy of all the actors and rather than leave us totally depressed over the situation, gives us a bit of hope.
I clung to that hope at the end of the film a bit fiercely, perhaps because it seems that while PTSD gets a lot of attention in the media, we still read stories of veterans becoming homeless and/or addicted to drugs due to their inability to find help recovering/dealing with PTSD.
Yet as we are bringing PTSD out of the shadows for veterans, we are still behind on how to deal with PTSD when it comes to women.
In the January 2010 issue of Marie Claire Jennifer Crane tells her PTSD story to Lynn Harris. In it she describes the nightmares and the drugs, but what really struck me was how the VA hospital she went to for help kicked her out saying "the treatment wasn't really helping [her] - although [she] disagreed - that as one of only two women in the group, [she] was distracting to the male patients, who apparently found [her] attractive." Jennifer begged to stay to no avail and with nowhere else to turn, found herself at her drug dealer's home. There is a happy ending... Jennifer was able to kick her habit and now has a small child. Still, the happy ending in no way justifies the unjust treatment Jennifer received because of her gender and physical appearance.
Considering that women currently make up 15% of the military and 1 in 10 of our troops in Iraq, the amount of PTSD we will see in women coming home will only increase. Yes, including women in the military will create new issues, as we are seeing with pregnancy, but let's address the issues, not blame women. Women are a vital and important part of our military, and we cannot send them home without proper treatment.
In November of 2006, a married couple in Minneapolis made a doubly ambitious move: to start a new magazine with a focus on humanitarian deeds (a tough sell in any market), and to start a new magazine period. It was far enough into the new millennium for anyone in the media business to see the writing on the wall, or rather, the pixels on the screen. Magazines were dying, and anyone who had the audacity to start a new one must have been naive, crazy, or just plain idealistic.
It's the latter of those adjectives that best describes NEED Magazine, whose tagline is "We are not out the save the world, but to tell the stories of those who are." Sadly, idealism doesn't pay the princely sums necessary to keep a magazine afloat, and NEED will close its doors for good at the end of January, unless it can accumulate enough donations from its readers to stave off the inevitable for a little while longer.
Not that NEED isn't contemporary: it has a slick Website, its content is compelling and relevant, and the organization is involved with many vital non-profits. The probability that NEED will close down next month reflects something that everyone in media seems to be powerless against: dismal survival odds for the independent outlet.
Billed as the "only independent magazine dedicated solely to global and domestic humanitarian issues," NEED is among countless organizations that strive to counter-balance the corporate media giants. And since those giants are facing formidable odds themselves -- Gourmet anyone? Mademoiselle? The Rocky Mountain Times? -- it only makes unfortunate sense that outfits like NEED are rapidly dying off.
Not only does this portend a grim future or independent journalism, despite claims to the contrary (see David Carr's recent article for the New York Times, "The Fall and Rise of Media"), it also poses a threat to our democracy itself. Without independent media, who's to say where our information is coming from, and whose interests it may be supporting?
My introduction to professional journalism was through an internship at the
This was almost a decade before NEED published its first issue, and I'm sure that NEED and Utne have developed close ties since 2006. I hope that Utne holds on -- even in the 90s, financial problems dominated staff meetings -- not just for its sake, or the sake of independent media, but also for the sake of young people who are considering a career in journalism outside the mainstream.
As I said during an interview at Civilization magazine, also a dinosaur now, when I was asked how I liked being at the Utne Reader: "It was wonderful. There's so much great writing out there."
Let's hope, for future generations, that this continues to be true.
[Image: NEED Magazine]
If it's family night and the TV is on, chances are that a sports game is on the screen or we're wriggling as we watch Adam on "Man v. Food" try to shove one more forkful of food into his mouth. It's perfect for my six-year-old daughter's current "gross stage." She loves watching and predicting if she thinks if Adam, the host with the unusual appetite, will prevail or not. She laughs out loud when he eats something super spicy and sometimes comments, "My grandpa can eat that!" It's a good old time... (If you haven't seen the show, check out this video below of Adam eating a 72 oz. steak and you'll get an idea of I'm talking about:)
That said, I chastise my daughter about saying "I'm starving" when she's hungry. She sees homeless people sleeping on the street, in the parks and in doorways on her way to school every morning. She knows something is wrong with the world. I feel bad when I make too much pasta for dinner. So what are we telling her that we happily watch a man pigging out as entertainment?
I honestly don't know.
Someone on Twitter had remarked that "This is why we are hated" after seeing MVF for the first time. I understand what she means. Here we are taking enjoyment out of watching someone eat more food in one sitting than many people get to eat in one day in the USA and around the world. What kind of message does that send the world? That we're gluttonous pigs? Perhaps.
Do we even try to make amends? Do we buy good food for food pantries (no creamed corn in our donations!)? Do we send extra money to organizations who work to eliminate poverty?
Honestly I don't think there is a way to make amends for loving such a gluttonous show like "MVF." But I also don't believe I can totally separate it from life either. Do I chalk it up to a guilty-pleasure, or should I turn off the TV? How do you feel about this type of entertainment?
In an era when American military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to generate controversy at home and abroad, the annual NORAD Tracks Santa program provides a surprising--and surprisingly long-term--dose of goodwill from Uncle Sam. This week Cnet reported on the heartwarming history of the program.
It all began due to a cold-war typo that could have started World War III. According to Cnet, in 1955 a Sears store in NORAD's Colorado Springs headquarters location published a holiday ad
with a phone number for kids to call Santa Claus. The number was a misprint--instead of Santa, the number actually led to the "red phone" at NORAD reserved for signaling a Soviet missile attack.
Luckily, NORAD staff figured out why a a stream of children were calling the number asking for St. Nick, and eventually began playing along. Ever since, NORAD has provided a phone number for kids--and adults--around the world to call to learn Santa's status on Christmas Eve. The hotline became a website in 1998.
This year, Christmas Eve visitors to the NORAD Tracks Santa site can enjoy real-time Google Earth tracking and Youtube video flybys of the jolly old elf, and can also follow along via a new Santa-tracker Facebook page and Twitter account.
Is a holiday website to track Santa an appropriate use of U.S. tax dollars? (Even if, as Cnet notes, the project includes a heavy volunteer effort?) Looking at the alternative military uses for the money Americans have been looking at all year, who would be Grinch-y enough to say no?
Earlier this month I visited the Ports 1961 boutique in the Meatpacking District in NYC for a benefit on behalf of the Vivekananda Public School in Orissa, India. The event was organized by a friend of mine, Mr. Mickey of Paper magazine, who
The school has served over 300 students so far, the majority of whom are from families who rely on subsistence farming and fall well below the official Indian poverty line. A school bus has recently been acquired to provide safe transportation for girls, who, because of the area's social constraints, are often left at home and ultimately left behind. No longer. The goal of the school, which was founded in collaboration of the Michael A. Daube Charitable Trust, is to provide equal opportunities for both the sexes. From the home page:
A person who is educated has a certain aura around him, of dignity and wisdom. If you are educated, you don't need to abide by the facts that the book recites, or follow Aristotle's philosophy. An educated person builds on the facts the book says and has his own philosophy. We at Vivekanand Public school try to inculcate and ingrain such qualities in our children.
A portion of the sales of Ports 1961's ready-to-wear collection during the month of December is going to build a library at Vivekananda. Citta -- which is derived from the Sanskrit word for "mind" -- handles the donations. I cannot for the life of me think of a better charity in which to donate if you are looking for one this holiday season.
[Image: Citta]
In the 1960 documentary Chronicle of a Summer, two French anthropologists ambled through the streets of Paris asking a simple question: Are you happy? The answers, they found, were not quite as simple, or as succinct.
This was still at the height of French existentialist thought, when Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre could be seen in dingy cafes on the Left Bank, hashing out the meaning of life without God over Galois cigarettes and cheap red wine. It was soon enough after World War II for many Europeans to still be putting their lives back together, including one of the film's main subjects, a pretty woman in her mid-30s who survived a concentration camp.
Add to this the dreary Parisian weather, the economic turmoil of that period, and the sudden influx of immigrants looking for a better life, overwhelming the city and saturating the job market more people than there were jobs.
Sound familiar? If you live in New York City in 2009, I'll bet it does. Which is perhaps why New York -- the whole state! -- finished dead last in a recent study by two economists on the United States' most content populations. Since Washington D.C. was treated as its own entity, that puts New York at 51 out of 51. Connecticut and New Jersey came in at 50 and 49, respectively.
What gives? People around the world are clamoring to be in New York. Its population is estimated at 8.4 million, and that doesn't even include the whole tri-state area. It has the Finger Lakes, the Catskills, the Adirondacks, and the Berkshires. But, the study's authors found, New York also has a lot of complainers.
To determine their list, the researchers conducted a survey of 1.3 million people and asked them subjective questions about their lives, very much like the "Are you happy?" question posed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin back in 1960. Then they combined those responses with non-variable criteria, such as cost of living, climate, and commute times, and found that, objectively speaking, New Yorkers should be miserable.
But climate isn't everything. California also fared badly, landing at number 46, while Louisiana, whose climate will likely forever be associated with a pretty name that starts with "K," received top billing at number 10. It must be the traffic, the economy, or the sense of nihilism that Thomas Pynchon captured in his modern classic about postmodern malaise around Los Angeles, The Crying of Lot 49.
Clyde Halberman, in his article about the study for the New York Times, invokes the 1949 film The Third Man to make a point about so-called "miserable" places: the protagonist (Orson Welles) says, "In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
"In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Or, as my dad used to say of my parents' decision, before I was born, to move away from San Diego to western Illinois: "I wanted my kids to know that if they stood still for too long they'd freeze to death."
In other words, happiness ain't everything.
[Image: Walker Evans, 1938, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art]
My home country Uganda's anti-gay laws are, quite frankly, an embarrassment. At present, gays in the relatively peaceful east African country can be jailed for 14 years for engaging in homosexual acts. There is now legislation in the pipeline that would make being HIV positive and having gay sex - even with a condom - punishable by death. Even evangelical Southern Baptist mega-church pastor Rick Warren, no friend of gays, has spoken out against the draconian, intrusive nature of this proposed legislation. In my experience, homophobia is unfortunately alive and well in much of east Africa, particularly among the older generations. From ABC News:
But while American evangelicals are being examined for their role in the origins of the bill in Uganda, East Africa, and for that matter Africa as a whole, is decidedly, virulently against homosexuality. Nigeria's Northern States and Sudan have tabled laws where being gay can lead to a death sentence . Burundi recently passed a law making homosexuality a criminal offense, Rwanda is also reportedly considering passing a similar law.
Homosexuality is even illegal in Kenya, which is a fairly liberal African country. While the laws against homosexuals are rarely enforced, the idea of striking them or even adding laws to protect their rights gets a resounding no from lawmakers.
Though influenced initially by Western evangelicals, the building momentum towards this anti-gay legislation appears impervious now to those same voices doubling back in moderation. The World Council of Churches has followed suit in opposing the legislation. The proposed law, however, moves forward even while its content is thoroughly backward.
During the afternoon of Sunday, December 20th, a Washington, D.C. detective pulled a gun on a crowd of citizens having a snowball fight at a major intersection in that city. As told by progressive media relations consultant Sarah Massey (who was at the event) on her blog, Own the Press, several dozen local residents responded to a Facebook call for a holiday snowball fight at the central-D.C. intersection of 14th and U Streets.
The so-called D.C. Snowpocalypse 2009 was a friendly one until an errant snowball apparently hit a Hummer driven by a 25-year D.C. police department veteran so far identified to the pubic only as "Detective Baylor". That's when Baylor got out of his car, approached the crowd, and drew his gun on them, prompting participants to begin chanting, "You don't bring a gun to a snowball fight!"
According to another eyewitness participant, Lacey MacAuley, Baylor began yelling and screaming at the crowd and pushed at least one bystander, all the while brandishing his gun. MacAuley reports Baylor kept it up until a second D.C. cop arrived to calm him down. Baylor allegedly justified brandishing his gun to MacAuley by saying, "That snowball could have damaged my car."
Overreactions by local police to ad hoc mass events like this are nothing new. (For example, the negative reaction New York City's mass cycling event, Critical Mass, still gets from the NYPD.) However, a cop pulling a gun on a crowd of citizens because his car got hit by a snowball wouldn't seem to satisfy anyone's standard of reasonableness.
The Washington Post confirms the events first reported by MacAuley and Massey--and notes that Baylor is now on desk duty, pending an investigation. Surely to the embarrassment of the D.C. police, the story has gone national, too. The story earned coverage from CNN, and Massey was quoted in the New York Daily News, saying, "This is not the kind of person I want serving me and my community. He threatened and scared people and acted in a dangerous manner."
The question is, did the detective in question actually draw his gun--and if he did, were his actions justified? D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department will probably be aided in its investigation by this citizen video in which Baylor admits to pulling his gun on the crowd. You can decide for yourself if defense of Hummer was a good reason for doing so.
[Photo credit: Sarah Massey.]
Veronica told us last week about some awesome women & media organizations that could use your help this season. Since she already covered one topic that is near and dear to my heart, I'll share another with you here. Why not help our animal friends during the holidays this year? Not convinced that animal welfare is a worthy cause? Take a look at this video and see if it doesn't change your mind:
Cute, right? So if you're still scrambling for a last-minute good deed to ensure that Santa doesn't give you a lump of coal on Friday morning, consider donating money or time to your local animal shelter, or The Humane Society. Or, check out Kenneth Cole Presents VolunteerMatch for more animal-related volunteer opportunities. If you have the resources, you might even want to adopt a pet this year. Before you do, however, make sure it's the right choice for you: Impulse pet purchases can lead to more animals in shelters down the road.
If you're like me and can't afford to bring a pet into your life at the moment, think about a virtual adoption instead. Your contribution can help a wild animal survive until next Christmas, and it's not everyone who can say they have a pet dolphin or their very own elephant.
So heed the call of our furry friends and do one thing for animals this season. Big or small, we can all make a difference.
Thanks to MoveOn.org for this whimsical take on a serious, and real, situation: health care reform and Joe Lieberman's willingness to join a GOP filibuster to prevent a public option from ever being passed in Congress. Now, some are accusing the Democratic senator from Connecticut of pandering to the interests of Big Pharma, long one of Lieberman's deepest wells of financial support.
Yeesh. First he supported George W. Bush in starting the war in Iraq, then he endorsed Senator John McCain and Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention, and now he's outwardly opposing his own party's efforts to help millions of Americans afford health care. What's next, Joe?
There sure has been a lot of talk about climate change, sustainability, green this and green that lately. But how much of the talk will lead to action? Not much, suggests one new study, unless it sends people on a good old-fashioned guilt trip.
The research, a joint-effort by two behavioral psychologists, found that people are less likely to feel responsible for mass disasters, like the polar ice caps melting or a scorched Earth in a few decades, than they are for less cataclysmic, more local potential effects of global warming. Such a counter-intuitive reaction could provide a clue into how to best motivate people to change their behavior now to stem such disasters later.
What does this mean? Like other alarmist campaigns -- anti-drug and smoking ads, or the war on obesity ads depicting soft drinks that morph into gelatinous fat -- the new onslaught of scare tactics about global warming may do nothing to change the way we operate.
But, tell your friend that failing to recycle that used milk carton could give his grandkids typhus, and he just might do it. One step at a time, right?
[Image: Weegee]
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's controversial Nov.16 budget proposal to merge three historically African-American colleges to save $35 million in this Great Recession is facing some push back. Under Haley Barbour's plan, Alcorn State -- the nation's first historically black land grant college -- Mississippi Valley State and Jackson State universities are slated to become part of a single entity. "[Barbour's] proposed budget cuts will change the face of higher education in Mississippi for decades," Jackson State Univeristy President Ronald Mason said in a statement. This summer the Mississippi governor gingerly placed a tentative toe in the 2012 pool.
Governor Barbour's argument is that Mississippi is facing a $715 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2011 and another $500 million shortage in fiscal year 2012. According to ThinkHBCU.org, "Over half of all African American professionals are graduates of HBCUs" (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). People of color, we cannot fail to note, are not the only university students that will fare badly in the Governor's new budget. Barbour also took the axe to a women-only institution, proposing the merging of Mississippi University for Women with Mississippi State University.
The move, targeted at students at colleges specifically focusing on minorities, has provoked a lot of angry commentary online. The Field Negro is 144 comments deep on the subject. Most of the comments are thoughtful. One Anonymous commenter wrote, bittersweetly: "It's hard to buy into any rationale that claims this is anything but a political choice ... He knows his voting bloc is neither black nor female and he also knows his supporters don't empathize but rather often resent anything that could possibly help blacks and women gain equal footing with white males."
So what do you think of Barbour's actions? Does he really just have Mississippi's financial best interests at heart?
[Image: Wikimedia.Commons]
Not long after news about Brittany Murphy's death at age 32 broke Sunday, one of my oldest friends, a recovering alcoholic, posted this update to his Facebook page: "I got sober at 32. She died at 32. And the reason those story lines aren't reversed is: chance."
The final word on what caused the young actress's untimely end may not be known for several weeks. Some are blaming the copious supply of prescription drugs that was found in her home, while preliminary reports suggest that she died of "natural causes." Murphy had reportedly been "very ill," exhibiting flu-like symptoms for days leading up to her death, and when she was found on Sunday, there was vomit throughout her bedroom.
There is speculation that she died from a combination of of type-2 diabetes, a thyroid condition, and asthma. Despite this host of ailments, the actress recently claimed that she never took drugs, and couldn't even handle Sudafed without her heart exploding. Caffeine, she said, was her only vice.
Murphy's acting career was full of promise, and her nascent roles show a rapid evolution in her ability to embody radically different characters. It's because of that talent that the media are so consumed by her passing, as it was with Michael Jackson's, Heath Ledger's, and the countless other stars who have fallen to addiction and early death.
It may have been that host of illnesses that killed Murphy, it may have been drugs, or it may have been a fluke. Maybe, like Ryan Shay, the elite American runner who dropped dead at mile 5 of the Olympic Trials Marathon in 2007, her heart just stopped beating. Whatever the cause, Murphy's death gives us pause, for now, to think about our own lives, and the choices we make. I'm sure that my friend would tell you that such a pause is what helps him choose, every day, not to drink.
[Image: Esquire.com]
For years, I've been advocating a stuff-free holiday season. And each year, I wind up with a bunch of junk I don't want or need.
Back in 2000, I suggested to my parents that we dispense with the gift-giving ritual altogether, and simply use the day to catch up and do something active, like take a hike in the woods (one of my dad's favorite yuletide traditions) and eat good food (my mom's).
My suggestion fell on deaf ears. I received a number of sweaters and shirts that I never wore, a photo book about France that I glanced through exactly once (the moment I got it), and a lot of other stuff. I don't know what that stuff was, because, frankly, most of it probably wound up in the back of my closet until I ended up donating it all to the Salvation Army during one of my closet-cleaning frenzies.
But surely, you say, the stuff brought some cheer on December 25th, when we gathered with our coffee around the tree and amassed our our Christmas bounties. Sorry to disappoint you, but even that was tense. And not just in 2000, but pretty much every year since I was old enough to not be given the kid's menu at family restaurants.
Thanksgiving, on the other hand, has always been my favorite holiday. This is a day for relaxing, and enjoying the company of friends old and new, family, or a combination. People come together for our species' oldest and most universal custom: to share a meal, and with it, conversation and fellowship.
I always leave Thanksgiving dinner, wherever it may be, with a feeling of warmth and contentment that I have never associated with Christmas.
So why must it be thus? That's simple: It mustn't. As Bill McKibben of Grist.org puts it, most Americans secretly hate Christmas for many of the reasons I describe above, and he suggests we make it better with these simple, stuff-free ideas.
This year, I'll be traveling once again to my brother's, where we'll eat and talk and drink wine, but we will not open any presents. He and his wife have asked my parents and me to instead donate to a charity of our choice. (Sure it was my idea first, but better late than never.) I've chosen the Brooklyn Community Foundation, which this holiday season is asking for donations for its "Caring Neighbors Kits," educational books, toys, and other resources for homeless children in Brooklyn meant to ease their stress and that of their parents. The kids will receive their gifts Tuesday evening at the Flatbush Reformed Church in Brooklyn, and though I won't be there to see their joy, the mere thought of the them tearing into their new possessions brings a Thanksgiving warmth to my heart.
And thank the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future: Not only will someone who actually needs something benefit from this new family tradition, but I'll have a much easier time traveling back to New York without a sleigh full of next year's trash.
[Image: Fayobserver.com]
Last week, while many of us were out buying overpriced Christmas trees and stepping over each other for the last Zhu Zhu doll at the local toy store, Jon Bon Jovi was out there making the world a better place. He was present, along with Newark Mayor Cory Booker and HELP USA Chairperson Maria Cuomo Cole to help open the doors on 51 new affordable housing units in Newark, New Jersey. The facility is the first in the state to provide permanent housing along with fully integrated services for post-acute care AIDS patients. Not only that, but the building is environmentally friendly and even the plumbing can accommodate solar panels. That's 51 families and individuals whose dignity has been restored, whose holidays will be brighter this year, whose lives have newfound hope.
Chalk one up for the good guys. If only everyone could be one of them.
You've read it in this space before and it continues to be true: Affordable housing is one of the biggest issues facing our society today. That's right, one of the biggest. Housing issues directly affect quality of life, demographics, crime rates, and much more.
What happened in Newark is but a small step toward what needs to be a revolution nationwide. It's time to fight back. The Housing Wars must be fought and must be won. But first, know thy enemy.
Systematically, politicians and developers have conspired against an unwitting public to allow housing laws (such as Mitchell-Lama) to expire; they've reversed zoning laws by 'bribing' local residents with cash and household appliances (dishwashers, refrigerators, etc) to testify on their behalf at City Board Hearings; they've worked to remove stabilized units from the market, going so far as to cherry pick the paperwork of the aged and disabled to find errors that would make them eligible for eviction, and they've provided tax abatement to developers to continue to carve up New York City (and other cities) for the wealthy and over-privileged.
Little by little the truth presents itself, and those who understand the value of affordable housing and are willing to fight for it compile victory after victory.
One such victory came in the form of a New York State Supreme Court ruling last month. Tishman-Speyer, a property management organization, was ruled to have illegally taken tax abatement money from the city, while at the same time destabilizing apartment units in Stuveysant Town. The court ruled the units were to remain stabilized, and that Tishman-Speyer was to return the money to the tenants, whom they had illegally overcharged for years while the case was fought in court (a practice commonly known as stealing).
In a public statement that was both appalling and at the same time revealing about whose side the City of New York is on in this battle, the City said that they "would have to find a way to assist Tishman-Speyer" in repaying the money they illegally took from tenants. Yet, in all the years that tenants in Stuy-Town (and many other buildings in NYC as well) were evicted or forced to move from their homes, while still others saw their rents raised by four and five times, the city never once said that THEY should be assisted in any way. Hmmm. Call it collusion, call it corruption, call it coincidence. Call it what you want. I'll just call it the facts and let you decide for yourself.
It's interesting to note that the very people who work to protect our beloved city - police, firefighters, EMS workers - can't afford to live here. If left to the city and the Speyers of the world, affordable housing would cease to exist. They supposedly subscribe to the "let the market do what the market does" philosophy (of course, they themselves manipulate the market by overturning and breaking laws). The people who were living in affordable housing units and have lost their homes aren't the criminals, they are the victims - victims of the greed and political motivations of the rich and powerful.
The city constantly points to some mythical increase in affordable housing over the last few years. This is a manipulation of the facts. Don't believe me? Just ask them where those units have been added. For all the affordable housing units that have been lost in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the last few years, how many have been replaced in those boroughs? The answer is zero. And if they really wanted to preserve affordable housing why didn't the city or the state do anything to prevent Mitchell Llama Laws from expiring, back when they had a chance? The answer is simple: They wanted their developer cronies to benefit from the de-regulation. Prime real estate units in Manhattan and Brooklyn were warehoused, by any means necessary, for years, so that those units could rent for exorbitant rates once the protection of stabilization laws had ended.
A few weeks ago, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was lit. Tishman-Speyer Chairman, CEO, and Tax Abatement Thief Jerry Speyer (Tishman-Speyer owns Rockefeller Center too) was there and helped to pull the lever that illuminated the Norway Spruce. How ironic that this man would be chosen to kick off the holiday season in New York. Thanks to him, and his friends in government, if Jesus returned to the city nowadays, no doubt he'd be turned away again, unable to find an affordable apartment in NYC. Certainly not on a carpenter's salary, anyway.
HIV/AIDS work is the only real job I've had in my life. I grew up mostly in Texas, the son of a military family. So when I moved to New York nearly 20 years ago, I wasn't very prepared for what I would find there. As a gay man, I had read about this new disease and how it was affecting the gay community, but I had no idea just how devastating its affect until I stepped into the epicenter - New York City - all those years ago.
My first apartment was in the Chelsea neighborhood, which wasn't the gay neighborhood it is today. It was much rougher around the edges. My first job in the city was at the old Tower Records store in the East Village. I studied music in college so I was easily able to get a job in the classical section at Tower.
One night, quite late, Larry Kramer came into the store in search of some obscure opera recording. I knew who he was immediately as I had seen his play "The Normal Heart" when I was still living in Texas and had been deeply moved by it. So I wandered over to offer my assistance and after a minute or two couldn't help but express how much I admired his work. Larry took one look at me and asked what I was doing about it. It was a question that hit me hard and one I understood the implications of immediately.
Larry was on the forefront of the AIDS activist movement having founded both the Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACT UP - the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. His question to me that night was more of a recruiting call than an inquisition.
The following Monday night I attended my first ACT UP meeting at the Gay and Lesbian Community center on West 13th Street in Greenwich Village. It was both moving and inspiring to see so many young people working together - soldiers really - in a war that was seemingly raging all around them. From that point on, I knew I could not be an innocent bystander when so many lives were at stake.
After a few years with ACT UP, I went to work for Bellevue Hospital in NYC in their AIDS program. But it wasn't until I went to work for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, in the fall of 1994, that I felt I was a part of something that could really make a difference. Because the truth is, nothing we do - no single act - has greater potential to end the global AIDS epidemic than supporting AIDS research. The cure for this disease and a vaccine to prevent it won't appear magically one day out of thin air. It will be the result of work done by thousands of scientists over many years.
amfAR's work to support that research effort is what attracted me to the organization, and why I've stayed in the organization nearly 16 years. I try often to remind myself what an extraordinary privilege it is to wake up each day and go to work for an organization that is dedicated to making the world a better place. amfAR's dream of a world without AIDS would surely be just that -- A dream come true.
About 13 years ago, we changed just about everything in our lives. For years we lived in Killeen, Texas, where we raised seven kids. When the last one grew up and left home, we were left with an empty nest. We were working in the financial planning business and one day we looked at other and said, "This isn't what we want to do for the rest of our lives." And then we acted on it.
We gave ourselves a year to close down our business, get rid of all our bills, and turn everything over to the kids. We got rid of the big house, we got rid of the cars, everything. When we left, we were carrying just two backpacks.
We had been reading about Mother Teresa and her story of charity inspired us to do something more. First we went to Mexico where we stayed for three years. We built a medical clinic for the indigenous people living in the mountains outside of Oaxaca. After Mexico, we joined a Catholic lay organization called Maryknoll and they sent us here to Cambodia.
When we first got in Phnom Penh, we started working with adults who had HIV/AIDS. But we realized that children with HIV were falling through the cracks because there was no program for them at that time in Cambodia. We decided that we were going to start a home for the kids with HIV. We felt there was a need -- everybody was scared of these children, they were afraid that if they touched them or kissed them they would get AIDS.
There were no HIV medications available for children in Cambodia at the time, but we realized that we could buy generic antiretrovirals in Thailand and bring them back. It was six years ago that we began to raise money, and we went to Thailand to buy medication for 400 children. It didn't seem right to us that children were dying when medicines were available within a 45-minute plane ride to Thailand. We were the only ones in Cambodia for years who were providing medicines for kids with AIDS.
Initially, the AIDS program for children was supported by Maryknoll, but they weren't able to fund long-term treatment for the increasing numbers of children who needed it, so we decided to raise the money on our own. In July 2006, we started New Hope for Cambodian Children.
The most difficult part in the beginning was that children were dying, and funding was hard to find. We sent out tens of thousands of emails to churches across the U.S. We raised the money for one kid at a time. We didn't believe it was OK for these kids to die. You see a kid dying of AIDS, you get real passionate. This does not have to happen.
Right now, New Hope for Cambodian Children cares for more than 1,000 HIV-positive children through outreach centers, and another 176 orphans live in a children's village we've established. It's amazing to see life come back into these children after they've been under care. About six months ago, a seven-year-old boy came to us named Sochia. Both his parents had died of AIDS. He weighed about 20 pounds and couldn't walk.
When we got little Sochia, we didn't know if he'd make it through the first 24 hours. We started him immediately on tuberculosis treatment. During that time we had to carry him everywhere. When he began improving, we started him on antiretrovirals. Before too long he was able to walk just a little bit without falling down. And then one day, about after about a month and a half, he came running out of his house yelling, "Ma, Papa, can I have a bicycle now?" So we went and bought him a bicycle! Now he's in pre-school.
We don't see suffering here, we see joy. We see love. We see kids getting better. All of our kids were dying when they came to us, and now look at them! There is so much hope and so much life here.
[Image: New Hope for Cambodian Children]
Not anymore, according to new research into the demographics of the social networking juggernaut. Launched in 2004 from the tony quads at Harvard University, Facebook began as an exclusive service for Ivy Leaguers. And like the Ivy League, it was made up of mostly white and Asian students.
As Facebook grew and opened its doors to the general public, the diversity also increased, but gradually. By 2007, Latinos were joining the club, so to speak, in numbers that outpaced the influx of Internet users overall. And by earlier this year, enough blacks had joined Facebook for their representation among Americans on the site to nearly match their share of the U.S. population: 12%.
Of the 100 million Americans on Facebook, roughly 12 million are black and even more are Latino (worldwide the site has 350 million members). This levels the social networking scene and makes it easier to trace connections and build networks with people from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds than was ever conceivable before.
For New Yorkers, it might not seem like a big deal to have Facebook friends with every imaginable skin tone, but I suspect that it might be for Americans in areas where "diversity" means having a Mexican restaurant 12 miles outside of town. Because every Facebook user I know has at least one such "friend" in their cache, the bridges being formed now could herald the end of xenophobia.
OK, yes, that's a bit hopeful, and downright unrealistic. But at least we can say we're on the right track.
[Image: Fady Habib from Wikimedia Commons]
The week of December 7 has been declared National Computer Science Education Week by the US Congress. As I wrote about in October, computer science is a field in need of bodies, especially women, so I was excited to see Congress designating a week to bring some attention to the field. I was doubly excited to see that they chose that particular week (which ironically coincides with the Montreal Massacre, where women engineering students were killed for being women engineering students) because it also celebrates the birth of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper.
Hopper was a pioneer in computer science. The fact that she was a woman in the field was also quite a feat considering she started her career during World War II. But when I spoke to her biographer, Kurt W. Beyer, he said that it was the combination of Hopper and World War II that propelled our world into the computer age.
In Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, Beyer sets out to tell the tale of how the computer age was launched. He begins at Pearl Harbor. As a former member of the Navy and professor at the Naval Academy, Beyer believes that crisis fosters innovation, and the crisis that emerged from Pearl Harbor pushed the USA further than we could imagine. His book profiles the early days of Hopper -- when she wasn't a full-time military woman, but a key figure in molding the future of computer science.
Beyer told me of a woman who believed wholeheartedly that computer science must be accessible to as many people as possible. Her belief in democratizing computer science is why COBOL (a programming language) is, apparently, so easy to learn. I say apparently only because I haven't tried learning it myself, but from the rumbles I hear from bored CS students, it sounds easy. In fact, when Hopper was marketing COBOL as the language to use, she did an experiment. Hopper showed off a young blond woman who looked very much like Marilyn Monroe and claimed that she could teach this 18-year-old woman how to program a computer using COBOL in six weeks. And six weeks later the young woman was indeed programming.
Hopper believed that using a stereotype to break a stereotype was the way to go. She also tried to put herself in positions of influence in the field such as being president of the nomenclature organization (aka the group that named all the computer science stuff). She wanted the field to be accessible to all, men and women.
Today Hopper is remembered every year at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the largest gathering of women in computer science. Her legacy is immense, but her story is rarely heard. Beyer hopes that his biography, written -as Hopper would want it- in an accessible way, will inspire women of all ages to pursue computer science, a field that fulfilled both him and Hopper.
Note from Veronica: I have not read Beyer's book, but had fun interviewing him about a topic that is near and dear to me.
[Image: admiralgracehopper.com]
This image was taken the day we delivered 1,000 textbooks to area boarding schools. All of the schools we work with lack textbooks for core subjects, some have no books at all. Through Jiamini's Text for Tanzania program we were able to deliver locally sourced textbooks to schools in need. Learn about the program and how you can get involved by visiting the Jiamini Scholarship Fund.
Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. Baltimore Ravens' 10-time Pro Bowl linebacker Ray Lewis just admitted that he loves yoga. Lewis has credited yoga with helping him achieve better flexibility after surgeries in 2005 and 2006. ''I would recommend [yoga] to all the linebackers,'' Lewis told The Chicago Sun-Times this week. ''Just because of the mobility of the strength we have in our muscles. You have to keep them flexible.'' Not just linebackers are hearing this: Lewis is exposing thousands of people to yoga who would otherwise not have even entertained the idea of asanas or downward-facing dogs.
One of the few good things that can be said about The Great Recession (if anything good can be said about it at all) is that it seems yoga mats have become ubiquitous. It is almost as if we have cleared the hyper-aggressive materialism of the go-go nineties and the nihilistic aughts and are undergoing, in due course, a restoration of our collective equilibrium. It appears to me that more people are getting in touch with their inner selves, their centers, through yoga than at any other time that I can remember. After thousands of years, yoga is -- for lack of a better word -- chic. And if the NFL wants to join in, then more power yoga to them.
[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
Still trying to figure out what to give the people on your Christmas list? Did you forget to buy someone's Hanukkah present? Can't think of a good Solstice gift? Whatever your reason, there's a lot of gift-giving this time of year and the good ideas run out faster than you'd think! That's why I'm here to give you some out of the box ideas... Ones that might not show up in your mailbox from a direct mail ask. *drumroll*
For the girls in your life:
New Moon Magazine: As I wrote before, New Moon magazine is a great, girl-driven (girls write the stories and serve on the board) magazine that is an antidote to the magazines that drive parents crazy. If you purchase one membership any additional ones are 50% off! So get one for your daughter and her BFF so they can read and discuss.
For the women in your life:
Our Bodies, Ourselves: The folks behind the classic women's health handbook/encyclopedia aren't just churning out books for us to hand to our sisters, they are also blogging and advocating for our health care rights.
For our canine best friends:
Dachshund Rescue of North America: Two and a half years ago I made the mistake of saying "Sure.... let's go meet this dog." As soon as Annie looked up at us I knew she was a part of our family. She was rescued from a pound after her original owner either died or became too old to care for the doxie. Annie spent a few months in a foster home and the adoption fee we paid didn't come close to covering the expense of caring for Annie until she found us.
For the media junkies:
make/shift: This magazine creates and documents contemporary feminist culture and action by publishing journalism, critical analysis, and visual and text art. Made by an editorial collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives, make/shift embraces the multiple and shifting identities of feminist communities. I know, that's a mouthful and it is not an easy reading magazine. This is a gift suitable for that person in your life who you know wants to curl up with a cuppa and get lost in deep thought.
Women In Media & News: I have served on the board of this media organization for quite some time. It's a triple threat - quadruple if you count our executive director, who is writing a book on reality TV - that does media analysis, education and advocacy. WIMN is a small nonprofit that has big plans for 2010.
For the history buffs:
CWLU Herstory Fundraiser: Ever watch those TV shows about child stars grown up? Or reunion shows? Ever wonder what came of all those women's lib protests and demands? The Chicago Women's Liberation Union Herstory Project can tell you. To support their ongoing effort to maintain Chicago's local women's history, you can buy vintage posters, buttons and t-shirts.
There are ton of other places that I could list here for you to give money to or buy an item from. Hopefully if you don't send your cash to these places, they will spark that memory you have. Perhaps instead of make/shift you send your super cool aunt a subscription to Bitch? Or support a local no-kill animal organization?
So why not put some good causes on your holiday list this year? You can donate in the name of someone you'd typically buy a gift for, and everyone wins. No matter where you send your money, know that you'll be supporting some awesome work and for the most part, there will be nothing to wrap in wasteful glossy paper.
The $400 million shortfall in the New York Public Transit Association is another casualty of the great recession, and cuts in subway services are the grim reality. Due to a lack of funds, New York City school kids will lose their discounted and free bus and subway passes within the next two years. Unless the state and city restore the subsidies, many students from families with lower incomes may be forced to attend their zoned schools instead of traveling to the schools they currently attend. By Fall, the passes will be halved; by September 2011 the passes will be phased out altogether.
This is personal to me. I attended Brooklyn Technical High School in Brooklyn. I woke up at half past five each morning and spent two hours on the bus and trains to get an excellent science-based education. One of four children who all attended Brooklyn Tech, my family probably could not have afforded to spend the full subway and bus fares each day. BTHS is a specialized school that offered me a chance at a far better education than was offered at my local zoned school. The fact that generations of kids will lose the opportunity to chose better schools like Stuyvesant and Hunter and Bronx High School of Science because of financial hardship is a tragedy.
God, or whatever you prefer to call the all-powerful creator of the universe, made a special appearance at the Copenhagen climate summit last week. And he/she/it made a promise to increase global warming by 30% over the next two years. All we have to do is -- are you ready? -- nothing! Just keep on living as we are, and it'll be margarita season year-round.
But what if we WANT to do something? Another "Moment of Clarity" from comedian Lee Camp (NSFW):
Using Give Work, a free app from the Apple iTunes App Store, it's now possible to do your part in ending poverty in Africa. Install the app on your iPhone, perform routine Internet tasks in your free time (like judging the sentiment of user Tweets or comparing the value of search engine results), and you'll soon be adding points that can be cashed in by refugees in Kenya to get food and basic necessities, like bananas, potatoes and charcoal for cooking. The app even adds a unique "social" dimension, in which you are (virtually) working alongside Kenyan refugees as you complete your tasks and earning points for them.
Give Work taps into the whole "micro-work" trend popularized by sites like Amazon's Mechanical Turk, in which workers provide simple tasks in bulk for pennies at a time. In the U.S., those pennies don't always amount to much more than extra beer money -- but in Africa, those pennies add up to daily nourishment for people who need it the most. In fact, the company that developed the Give Work app, CrowdFlower, gained its expertise precisely by partnering with companies on outsourcing menial computer tasks to the "crowd" on platforms like Mechanical Turk.
While Give Work is still in its early stages, it's a promising concept that integrates so many important trends of the past 24 months, including crowdsourcing and micro-finance funding. If you've ever loaned money to an aspiring entrepreneur in the developing world via Kiva, this is an iPhone app worth checking out.
[image: Crowdflower's Give Work iPhone app]
Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan held a town hall meeting with students from Wakefield High School -- the same high school where President Obama gave his "Back to School" -- and it was webcast to allow for increased interaction. As I sat there, looking at the young faces of the students and Sect. Duncan talking about how hard he is working to increase access to education around the country, I kept coming back to one question.
Why hasn't he done this at a Fenger High School?
As you may recall, Fenger was the school Derrion Albert attended before he was beaten death earlier this year. After his death, Sect. Duncan and Attorney General Holder were dispatched to Chicago - but instead of speaking at the school or to the students in a town hall, they held private talks. Perhaps it was too close to the tragedy to hold a town hall discussion on violence. But the wounds are fading from the media landscape and well before the community is ready to discuss things, the media will find some new tragedy to focus on.
But I really don't think that the community isn't ready to talk, in fact I think that they are more than ready to talk about what is going on with Sect. Duncan and anyone who will listen. Just weeks after Albert's death, a student wrote a first-person account of what it means to attend Fenger on Salon.com:
Since Derrion passed away, the school has felt like prison. We have no freedom. You have to get monitored when you go to the bathroom. The lady stays there and holds the door. They have people patting us down, on the chest and in between the cleavage when we go into school every day. Last year, when I was there, none of this was happening. We had cellphones. You can't have cellphones anymore. They take them and they return them at the end of the day.
During the town hall discussion, which I hope is posted so we can all watch it, a student from Boston asked why suburban students get to take fashion as an elective and inner city kids get to take ROTC. Sect. Duncan took that opportunity to talk about the imbalance in school funding as he witnessed here in Chicago. I agree with him on that, but the fact of the matter is that ROTC isn't seen as an elective as much as a career route in some parts of Chicago. There are class and racial issues wrapped up in that question that Duncan ducked.
Chicago was recently released from a federal court ruling that forced racial integration earlier this year. What this means is that the few coveted seats in selective enrollment and magnet schools do not have to be doled out with an eye on racial balance. For many parents and activists, there is a fear that the imbalance between Chicago public schools will only increase.
Unfortunately, as we look to the Obama administration and Sect. Duncan for the solutions to our crumbling schools and violence that stalks our children in and out of school, there are few bright spots from their own backyard. Let's hope that the talks at Wakefield High School inspire the leaders of our nation's education system to branch out and consider students from all walks of life.
[Image: Wakefield High School]
The New York City Department of Health unveiled this new ad via -- of all places -- YouTube in an attempt to curb soda consumption among residents. The ad's message? Drinking only one can of soda a day can add up to 10 pounds of weight in a year.
Mayor Bloomberg's administration has taken an active interest on public health. He has already instituted an indoor ban on cigarettes, and has declared war on salt (that admittedly sounds almost Swiftian). But say what you will about this paternalism, Bloomberg puts his money where his mouth is, having donated hundreds of millions of dollars to institutions that promote public health and safety. It is not just theoretical and abstract with him, Bloomberg is a true believer. Not a bad patch of public service for a former Eagle Scout.
The Washington, D.C. Council voted yesterday to legalize same-sex marriage in the District, poising it to become the sixth area of the country to do so, and the first below the Mason-Dixon Line. The only thing standing in marriage equality's way in D.C. is Congress, which has up to 30 days to veto the vote. D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill by the end of the week.
Couples from anywhere in the country would be able to marry in D.C., and same-sex couples residing in the District would enjoy all the same rights as heterosexuals. However, the legislation does not require clergy or religious organizations to provide services, accommodations, or facilities for the services.
In order for the legislation, which was approved overwhelmingly at 11-2, to be overruled, not only does it need to be vetoed by the Democratic-controlled House and Senate, President Obama would have to block the legislation as well, a chance seen as unlikely.
As expected, opponents of marriage equality are gearing up for a fight. One such group, Stand4MarriageDC, is fighting for a measure to go on the ballot that would say that "only marriage between man and woman" should be "valid or recognized" in D.C. Last month, however, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics voted that putting such a measure out to ballot would violate Washington's 1977 Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination. Stand4MarriageDC is suing in Superior Court to have the ruling overturned.
Yesterday's vote was a much-needed victory to the gay community nationwide. The decision comes two weeks after the New York Senate voted down a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in that state. Sponsors of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New Jersey withdrew last week, likely because the bill had little chance of passing. Voters in Maine last month approved a measure that overturned a bill that made same-sex marriage legal in that state. Voters in Washington state, however, chose to support legislation that expanded domestic partnership rights there, giving gay couples all the rights of marriage, without the title.
Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts, and as of next month, New Hampshire.
The fight for marriage equality in D.C. began in May, when the Council voted to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The Council first approved the bill to legalize same-sex marriage on Dec. 1. The second vote yesterday was needed in order to send it to the mayor for approval.
Congratulations to those in D.C. who have worked so hard toward marriage equality for all citizens. Let's hope that the rest of the country follows their example sooner rather than later.
[Image: Getty Images]
Peaceable assembly be damned -- or so it would seem: This morning, around 260 people were arrested for attempting to protest what they see as "false solutions and elitism of the U.N. climate talks," in the words of a spokesperson for the group that organized the march. This just a few days after the last round of mass arrests last Saturday, when more than 900 protesters were detained by Danish police.
Early this morning, 3,000 people convened at two railway stations in Copenhagen to begin their march towards the Bella Center, which was organized by Climate Justice Action, an environmentalist outfit that refers to its subversive contribution to the COP15 summit as the "Reclaim Power Press Conference."
Converging on the Bella Center, where negotiations among world leaders were scheduled as part of the COP15 summit, the protesters were trying to establish a "People's Assembly" to counter and potentially overtake the organized conference inside. Police made sure that didn't happen, though around 300 people inside the Center staged a walkout in protest of the summit.
"Reclaim Power!" became the mantra of the protesters in and around the Bella Center, according to sources at the summit, but the police seem to be unfazed. There may be power in numbers, but sadly, there's even more in tear gas and pepper spray.
[Image: CNN.com]
Don't think home insulation is particularly sexy? Well, there's someone out there who disagrees (hint: It's President Obama):
The president held a press conference Tuesday to talk about a new program he's proposing, which is being dubbed Cash for Caulkers in reference to the Cash for Clunkers program earlier this year. With it, the government hopes to offer incentives to homeowners for making their dwellings more energy efficient. These homeowner incentives would be cash (hence the Cash for Caulkers moniker) but the program could also generate revenue for retailers like the Home Depot in Alexandria, Va. where Obama held the press conference.
So what do you think? Is home insulation as sexy as Obama says it is? If it passes, will you participate in Cash for Caulkers? (Additional note: If you're interested in the wordplay opportunities offered by Cash for Caulkers, check out this semi-NSFW Daily Show montage. But don't say I didn't warn you.)
It only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the whole bushel. And it only takes a few military impostors to cause people to second-guess the crisp uniforms, shiny medals, and impeccably polished officer's shoes on an old friend or classmate.
Thanks to a growing black market of military accoutrements, it isn't too hard for someone to pass him or herself as a member of the military. Since 2006, California has successfully prosecuted five men who have adorned themselves with purchased, not earned, regalia.
One of the convicted, Steven Douglas Burton, began his ill-fated stint as a faux Marine on the night of make-believe itself: Halloween. He claims he liked the way he felt in uniform, and continued to wear his costume, which he bought online, to all sorts of events. When he arrived at his 20-year high school reunion as a man of valor, his classmates were in disbelief. Apparently, Mr. Burton was not voted "most likely to become a war hero."
A former classmate and actual member of the military, a Navy commander, was suspicious and asked for a photo with Burton. He handed the photo over to the FBI, which confirmed that the man beside the commander was no veteran.
Turns out it's illegal to misrepresent yourself as military, and Burton faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. When I was a kid, I used to wear a jacket of my dad's that he'd adorned with old patches from his years as a Navy lieutenant. By the time I was 13, I'd outgrown my fascination with things I hadn't earned. It's a shame some people take a little longer.
The front page of the New York Times on Tuesday offered a news flash, if you've been living under a rock since you came into the world: A recent poll has found that extended unemployment can lead to despair.
Profiling three Americans ranging in age from 29 to 54, the article attempts to approach the problem of the unemployment crisis from a personal angle (the online version features additional subjects). It describes their previous jobs, the details of their layoffs, and their current plight, which often involves borrowing money from friends and family just to survive.
There's no question that we're facing a dire situation. While unemployment is finally down from its high a couple of months ago, hovering just below 10%, a great many people have been out of work for a very long time. Their benefits are running out or gone, and they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, broke, but too depressed and listless to imagine a solution to their problem.
The Times does a good job of reminding us that we're in a crisis, but do we really need a poll to tell us that unemployment leads to depression?
Perhaps, if you've never been out of work for long enough to start seeing life through a narrowing tunnel of darkness, the poll will be enlightening to you. Those of you who have known such misfortune, and escaped, can read the figures with sympathy and perhaps even faith. After all, nothing is forever. Thank goodness.
[Image: Lidia Ilona from Wikimedia Commons]
Fareed Zakaria, the foreign policy realist who narrated the HBO's fascinating documentary "Terror in Mumbai" had some strong words for those paranoid demagogues on the right who would take advantage of our natural fears about domestic terrorism for political gain. "A 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center found Muslims in the U.S. tend to be largely middle class, mostly assimilated and happy with their lives, and rather American in their basic outlook -- not quite the makings of hotbeds of extremism in their communities," Zakaria said this week on "GPS." It is easy to characterize progressives who make such an argument as "naive." Zakaria deserves some credit for taking upon himself the politically thankless task of rebuking the wing nuts on the right.
During her "Christmas at the White House" special Sunday night, Oprah Winfrey asked President Obama what grade he'd give himself for his first year in office, and the newish commander-in-chief promptly said, "A good solid B+."
He defended his grade by citing the intimidating list of challenges his administration inherited last January, and acknowledged that his first year has not been without setbacks. If he'd been able to pass a public option, for example, he says he'd deserve an "A-."
Since not all grades are created equal, how you perceive Obama's self-given mark likely depends on what "B+" means to you. The question is, what might it mean to Obama? At the University of Chicago, where he was a law professor when I was in a Master's program there, a "B+" is not thought of as a very good grade. Students often freak out if they get one, as I did myself.
I remember a professor breaking the grades at Chicago down like this: an "A" means great work; an "A-" says you did well but not flawlessly, and a "B+" means there may be a problem. An "A" is hard to come by, and requires a serious commitment to the task at hand. Anything below a "B" is grounds for rethinking your life. I hope that Mr. Obama's "B+" means something more like the "B+" of my pre-grad schooling: a commendable effort that could become an "A" with just a little bit more work. I know that's how I see his presidency thus far. What grade would you give the president?
With the War on Terror now heading into its ninth year, have you ever wondered if your personal e-mails were being read by the government or your phone calls being recorded? On Tuesday evening, NOVA exposes the hidden world of high-tech, 21st-century eavesdropping carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA) in a special program called The Spy Factory. This one-hour program is a suspenseful and eye-opening report on the threat to privacy, the technology behind wiretapping and the effectiveness of high-tech surveillance in the age of terrorism:"Today, the NSA is the world's largest intelligence agency, three times the size of the CIA and far more secret. Its mission is to eavesdrop on the world -- from cell phones in Europe to pay phones in Afghanistan to email messages from Pakistan to Baghdad. But since 9/11, it also has turned its giant ear inward, listening in without warrant on thousands of American citizens, many of whom are on the government's secret watch list, now more than half-a-million names long."
Watch The Spy Factory at 8:00pm EST on Tuesday, December 15.
[image: Threat Operations Center of the NSA via NOVA]
Tea Party demonstration in Tucson, Arizona
It's easy to talk about the plight of homeless teens and youth around the country. They're somewhere else, far away from where you live. And while the statistics paint a grim picture, statistics are easily forgotten, despite the desperate situation they reflect: On any given day, 800,000 people are homeless in the U.S. and a quarter of them are under 18, according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network [PDF]. At some point throughout the year, 1.3 million kids will be homeless.
In Brooklyn (or as one Website has dubbed it, apropos of the times: Brokelyn), where I live, there are 6,000 homeless youths. A new charity, the Caring Neighbors Campaign, hopes to make a dent in that number this holiday season by matching donations up to $250 dollar-for-dollar. If you can spare $20, that means $40 goes to the cause of getting some of those 6,000 kids off the streets.
I'll be honest: statistics about homeless kids in my own borough strike a deeper chord than reading about the problem nationwide. Chances are, you're the same way. Regardless of where you live, you can find a way to help your neighbors in need. And who needs help more than the children who haven't even had a chance to fail on their own, let alone succeed?
To find out how you can get involved helping homeless youth in your community, visit VolunteerMatch.
[Image: Brooklyn Community Foundation]
Who said raising awareness had to be dull? The staff at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon put together this little number to get people talking about breast cancer. The "Pink Glove Dance" has been bouncing around the Internet since it was released last month, and rumor has it that once it reached a million hits on YouTube, Medline, the medical equipment firm that provided the ubiquitous pink gloves, would make "a huge contribution" to the hospital. It's now at four million, and counting.
Side effects of the video may include smiling, head bobbing, and toe tapping. But don't worry: they're harmless.
As if there weren't enough reasons to love man's best friend already, they can also help us de-stress. The Chapman University student group Active Minds is using puppies to help relieve student anxiety during Cram Week. The "Furry Friends for Finals" event has enlisted the calming aid of Yorkie, Maltese, Pug and Dachshund pups. "You can automatically see on someone's face when something happy comes to them, and little dogs are a cute way of doing that," Jennifer Heinz told The Los Angeles Times. "It's a nice way to step back from reality and just be stress-free for a moment."
For years, I've been arguing that too many people go to college. It's been a great way to start arguments and upset my friends and acquaintances alike. But my position, however unpopular, is based on simple mathematics: As more people get college degrees, the jobs that require them become a lot more competitive. And the surplus of degree-holding people makes it easier for employers of all stripes to demand at least a Bachelor's in order to perform the most rote, mundane tasks. It's a classic catch-22: You need to go to college or you won't even be able to flip burgers, but flipping burgers ain't gonna pay off your student loans.
This leaves a lot of people with an all-too-familiar dilemma: how to pay back all that debt with a job they could have gotten out of high school. Payscale.com provides detailed statistics on the earning potential of college graduates, but read them with a healthy dose of skepticism. The average mid-career salary in aerospace engineering might be $109,000, but how many people with degrees in that field are working in it?
The discrepancy between what we pay for education versus what we earn from it has become an unfortunate fact of modern life, one that is becoming more pronounced with each graduating class. In the past nine years, college tuition has gone up 23%, while the average earnings of people with a college degree has dropped 11%.
One Arizona man decided to fight the trend. After spending over $13,000 for coursework in computer drafting in the 1980s, Francisco Espinosa couldn't find a job in his field and spent the past 20 years as an airport baggage handler. When his employer cut wages, making it impossible for him to keep up with his loan payments -- yes, he's still paying them off -- Espinosa decided that enough was enough.
He took his case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the pricey education he obtained never led to the kind of job it promised. Miraculously, the Court listened. The concern lies with the lender, they surmised, and whether or not there is sufficient evidence that the education being sought will be profitable later on. Since many people who do not qualify for Federal aid apply for loans through private lenders, which are less accountable than government-sponsored programs like Perkins and Stafford, the Espinosa ruling could radically change the entire school loan system.
Such private loans are being compared to sub-prime mortgages, which have been proven in the past few years to prey on those without the means to pay them off. The private lenders are the shady banks, and the for-profit, non-accredited program that caught your eye in the subway is the dump they're trying to sell you.
As Espinosa learned, the hard way: Don't buy it.
[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
As I wrote on Wednesday, a group of conservative "ex-gay" Americans may have been complicit in the legislation to execute gay men that is currently on the table in Uganda. One of those men, Richard Cohen, says that Uganda missed their point -- but so did Rachel Maddow, an openly gay liberal commentator that Cohen has attacked for her position on gay rights.
Here Ms. Maddow takes Cohen to task, but not without Cohen doing the same in return.
I love Funny or Die. They can do things on the web that would be too edgy even for pay cable. In this video, Blair Underwood doesn't beat around the bush -- pun intended -- about African-Americans and the great outdoors. Hiking, or enjoying nature, is often portrayed by the media as a wholly All-American (read: white) activity. Forget the fact that many African-Americans are from less-than-urban places like Africa and the Carribean, or that nature is for everyone to enjoy. Besides, in my experiences camping and visiting national parks -- particularly in the American southwest -- people of color are well represented. You wouldn't know that, though, if you gleaned all your data from television or the movies. That's what makes this video so brilliant.
On a related note, my favorite new blog is "Outdoor Afro," "where black people and nature meet."
What a bunch of whiners we are. How many times a day do you complain about something? How many times do you hear others complaining, often about the same things? You might think it's cultural -- Americans are pretty spoiled, after all -- but think again. From Seattle to Seoul, people like to complain, complain, complain.
It's enough to make you sick. Oops... there's another complaint -- sorry!
But as the saying goes, when life gives you lemons... Two artists from Finland have decided to harness all that negative energy and turn it into something positive. Since 2005, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen have been traveling the world to record makeshift choirs singing their complaints. "Complaints Choirs" have sprouted up in four continents and new ones are constantly forming.
In November, a documentary about the project premiered at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. It will see a wider release in 2010 -- but if the movie doesn't make it to your measly little town, please, don't complain. Unless you're willing to sing about it.
This week 60 Minutes revisited the story of Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO for The Harlem Children's Zone. The zone is a neighborhood where a variety of social, medical and educational services are provided free of charge to the seventeen thousand children that reside within its 97-block radius. The Harlem Children's Zone can only properly be described as a social experiment -- one of the good sort -- focusing on closing the racial achievement gap.
The late Ed Bradley first reported on the zone three and a half years ago, but now the legacy falls upon Anderson Cooper to continue to shine the light on a positive -- one of the few -- development in public education. "So you're trying to level the playing field between kids here in Harlem and middle class kids in a suburb?" Cooper asked. "That's exactly what we think we have to do," Geoffrey Canada replied, himself a product of the South Bronx, Bowdoin College and then the Harvard School of Education.
"You know," said Canada, "if you grow up in a community where your schools are inferior, where the sounds of gunshots are a common thing, where you spend your time and energy not thinking about algebra or geometry, but about how not to get beat up, or not to get shot, or not to get raped, when you grow up like that, you don't have the same opportunity as other children growing up. And we're trying to change those odds."
Gays in New York thought they had it bad when the gay marriage bill was shot down last week. Imagine being sentenced to death for having gay sex.
The Ugandan government is considering life imprisonment as a penalty for violators of its law against homosexual activity, and may institute the death penalty for "repeat offenders." Even bystanders who merely see two men having sex and fail to report it could face up to three years in prison.
But don't roll your eyes at the backward ways of some foreign culture halfway around the world. A few conservative Americans may have actually inspired this draconian measure. Last spring, three right wing anti-gay activists led a march in the capital city of Kampala, as part of the Family Life Network of Uganda, an organization dedicated to the "restoration of family values and morals to Ugandan society." They were there, according to one of the men, to combat "anti-family Western agitators" who "plan to spread sexual anarchy throughout the world under the guise of 'human rights' and 'family planning.'"
The men's presence at the conference, according to several sources, gave momentum to the anti-gay movement in Uganda.
The three Americans represent the growing "ex-gay" movement in the U.S. -- men who once had sexual relations with men but have largely adopted a religion-focused stance against their former lifestyle with the intention of "straightening out" others like them.
But an oppositional force in Uganda has swelled to fight those who would like to see gay men rot or die in prison. Groups and Websites like Gay Rights Uganda and GayUganda are working tirelessly to stop the country's parliament from passing this law.
Let's hope they succeed.
[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
Jane Addams was the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize - the Peace Prize in 1931. Since 2007, Illinois has marked her receiving the Nobel Peace Prize with a statewide holiday (although no school is canceled and people still have to go to work).
I actually like holidays where kids have to be in school, and it's not just because I want to get my daughter out of the house so I can go to work. Rather, I would hope that on Jane Addams Day, students are taught about the many amazing things she did in Chicago that still impact lives across the world.
Addams not only transformed the field of social work, she was also a founder and the first president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and she campaigned against World War I.
Addams didn't do her work alone. Far from it, as she was a resident of Chicago's Hull House:
The residents of Hull-House formed an impressive group, including Jane Addams, Ellen Gates Starr, Florence Kelley, Dr. Alice Hamilton, Julia Lathrop, Sophonisba Breckinridge, and Grace and Edith Abbott. From their experiences in the Hull-House neighborhood, the Hull-House residents and their supporters forged a powerful reform movement. Among the projects that they helped launch were the Immigrants' Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the nation, and a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic (later called the Institute for Juvenile Research). Through their efforts, the Illinois Legislature enacted protective legislation for women and children in 1893. With the creation of the Federal Children's Bureau in 1912 and the passage of a federal child labor law in 1916, the Hull-House reformers saw their efforts expanded to the national level.
Many organizations schedule events to mark the occasion of Jane Addams Day. On Tuesday I attended a portrayal of Addams performed by Annette M. Baldwin. I'm a women's history geek, so I really enjoyed it. Baldwin not only told Addams' story as Addams, but took questions (including one from a man who had met Addams) and showed a biographical slide show - with real slides, old school style. She travels around the country doing her shows, so do catch her if she shows up in your town.
Jane Addams was an amazing woman and continues to be a role model for us all, so whether you live in Illinois or not, take some time out to celebrate her life today. Happy Jane Addams Day!
[Image: Wikipedia]
As a Chicago Cubs fan, I am well versed in curses. So when I read that WWE wrestler, Eki "Eddie" Fatu, had died of a massive heart attack and Yahoo! Sports lumps his death in with many others that have occurred in the wrestling word in the past 10 years, calling the "staggering" deaths a curse, I said heck no! A curse would be if all these men had died in freak accidents worthy of recreation in the next Final Destination franchise. Rather, almost all the men have died of causes that can be traced back to steroid use. That says to me that the WWE has a big drug problem it needs to continue to address rather than a mere curse to break.
I have faith that most of WWE's fans know that it's all entertainment, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily condemn steroid use. They can see that the actors in the ring, jacked up on steroids, are earning a lot of money to make people forget about the worries of life. All the positives of steroid use -- none of the negative side effects.
In males, anabolic steroids can reduce sperm count, shrink the testicles, cause infertility, and enlarge the breasts, among other side effects. In women, they can increase body hair, make skin rough, decrease breast size, enlarge the clitoris, deepen the voice, and cause other biological changes. Are WWE fans thinking of those side effects when they watch their favorite wrestlers in the ring? I doubt it.
I don't know what the answer is for this issue. Suspensions aren't helping and Fatu was kicked out of the WWE for violating their drug policy. But clearly something must be done before the "curse" of steroid use claims more lives.
[Image: Wikipedia]
Last Thursday, I was running to catch a train, and I slipped at the top of an 18-step flight of stairs, causing my feet to fly backwards as my upper body lurched forward, like a cartoon. The next thing I knew, I was sliding and bumping down the stairs, head-first, until I reached the bottom, where I laid in shock for several seconds and tried to determine if I'd cracked my head open or knocked out any teeth. My head and shoulders were on the subway platform, my legs still splayed out on the metal-edged stairs.
Once I'd oriented myself and confirmed that my head was OK, I opened my eyes to an upside-down subway platform with numerous people on it. No one said or did a thing.
Still in shock, I yelled out, "Oh, I'm fine! Thanks everyone for asking!" I must have looked ridiculous, but I know that I did not look drunk or homeless: It was the middle of the afternoon and I was wearing a nice sport coat and carrying a leather briefcase.
But what if I had been drunk or homeless? People would have stepped over and ignored me just as quickly, and that would have been deemed acceptable (if unethical). Depending on the day, I would do the same -- I certainly have in the past -- and I doubt that many of us can say different. Who stops to help every person they see who obviously needs it? The fact that I was neither drunk nor homeless only underscored a sad fact of public life: We're all on our own, even those of us who can't be written off, however unjustly, as social pariahs.
That afternoon, I posted my fall as a Facebook status update and included the bit about no one helping me. Within hours, I'd received several accounts of similar misfortune, met with equal apathy from bystanders. One friend said he did knock out his front teeth in such a subway fall, and no one said a word.
But contrary to what my parents back in Illinois may think, apathy is not a "New York thing." My sister-in-law posted a comment to my update about the time she saw an elderly woman fall across the street, and she was the first person to reach her -- not the closest. That was in a small town in Wisconsin.
Another friend wrote that when she was pregnant with her second child, she accidentally locked her toddler daughter in the car on a busy street in Providence, Rhode Island. "I was hysterical and screaming like a lunatic through the window at her to sit forward and pull up the door lock," she wrote. "At least 15 people passed and didn't help. I was a crazy, hugely pregnant maniac. Oh, by the way, I was parked in front of a church..."
The problem of apathy in America generally focuses on politics and social justice. Many Americans simply don't involve themselves with the issues that threaten to hurt or weaken society, despite being part of that society themselves. People litter, fail to vote, ignore others in need. But something happens when you experience apathy first-hand: you wake up a bit.
The day after my fall, I was walking up the stairs of another subway station when a man beside me tripped and fell forward. I immediately asked if he was OK, which clearly took him by surprise. A few days earlier, I must admit, I can't say I'd have bothered. Fortunately, he was fine.
If you'd like to learn from my lesson and help those less fortunate that yourself (without falling down the stairs first) visit VolunteerMatch, presented by Kenneth Cole.
[Image: Edvard Munch's "The Scream"]
In the shadows of the dramatic rise of world's oldest democracy lies the stunning contrast of the daily struggles involved in working in the world's oldest profession. Many of India's sex workers are sold into prostitution as young girls and are not there by choice. Further, prostitution is illegal in India. Still, India's economic boom needs the influx of migrant workers, and as Frontline reporter Raney Aronson put it, "although men from all classes and lines of work visit prostitutes, these migrant workers are really the bread and butter of the red-light areas."
Journalist Farai Chideya visited Bangalore in India this weekend from the World Young Leaders Forum. "After the World Young Leaders Forum (not really so young; more of an alumni gathering)," Farai Tweeted, "25 of us went on a trip through Southern India." There, Farai met with the folks at Sangini, an innovative and humanitarian banking service set up for sex workers in the red light district of India's financial capital.
Last July, the Washington-based nonprofit Population Services International (PSI) set up Sangini, or "Friend." Pimps, local Indian mafia and moneylenders have exploited these women for years, many of whom have no official work papers and little legal recourse. Now, a daily collector for Sangini receives bank deposits from the women so they have safe access to their earnings. Farai Tweeted:
I wanted to do a story on them but the timing was off. They were amazing women, unable to imagine a life without prostitution but saving $$ ... Once they hit 60, most of them cannot do anything more than be domestics in brothels. So they are encouraged to save while they work ... One thing the Sangini folks said that surprised many was that they said young neighborhood men were more vulnerable than women .. Locally, NGOs and police had formed a coalition to help stop trafficking and child prostitution among young girls .. But the young boys in the nabe, including children of prostitutes, went untutored and went into crime ... Lest I seem too "oh, India has problems"-esque, I have met American prostitutes who get $5 for a blow job to buy crack ...Most of our societies have the same problems, but in different measures and by different means.
Thousands of women have so far deposited over $160,000 with Sangini. Earlier this year, Sangini began issuing one-year loans of up to 15,000 rupees (350 dollars). "Before, I'd save money with someone and they would deny having it or they would run away with it," Simla, a prostitute from Nepal, told SAWFNews. Now that she can save her money, she and other prostitutes in India can hope for a more secure future.
{Image: Commons.Wikimedia]
All of us at AWEARNESS Blog are super excited to announce that we're launching Facebook Connect! Starting today, you'll be able to comment here on the blog using your Facebook account, and you'll be able to more easily share AWEARNESS content on your Facebook page. So easy!
Not only does this newfangled technology make commenting here and sharing information on Facebook easier, but it also means that you can use the same login for the AWEARNESS Blog that you use on Facebook (and if you're like me, the fewer passwords you have to remember the better). It's secure, convenient, and it allows all of us to interact with a larger audience in discussions of social awareness in a dynamic and engaging format.
If you don't have a Facebook account, don't worry - anyone can still comment on AWEARNESS Blog posts. If you do have a Facebook account, connect with us! Just click on the "connect with Facebook" icon to get started. Who ever said technology couldn't be a good thing?
[Image: Gigaom]
When I first discovered I was living with HIV in 1996, the last thing I thought I would ever do was tell the world I was living with the virus.
I lived in fear, isolation and shame. I worried about being stigmatized, ostracized, rejected and fired. I worried that if I told people I was HIV-positive that they would no longer want to be my friend or date me, that they would tease my nephew in school and that they would be rude to my family. I didn't want to bring disgrace to people I cared for--and I didn't want to feel like the underbelly of society.
But during the ten years following my diagnosis, I gradually realized that I hadn't done anything wrong to get HIV. Or, if I had, it was the same thing that millions of people do every day. I decided to have unprotected sex with someone I trusted and cared for. I made the same decision that many people do; the virus just happened to be there when I made the decision. It didn't make me a bad person--just a biologically unlucky one.
I have come to understand that HIV isn't something that happens only to certain kinds of people who engage in certain types of behavior. The truth is, HIV can happen to anyone. And anyone who ever has unprotected sex is at risk for contracting HIV. The myth that HIV is the sole property of gay, black, poor or promiscuous people led to an additional 56,300 new cases of HIV in the United States in 2006 alone. It is one of the things that have led to an estimated 33 million people globally contracting the disease and 25 more million being laid to rest because of it. It is why HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of disease and death among women ages 15-44 worldwide. Nothing else kills more women. Nothing else kills more people needlessly.
Five years after my diagnosis--having survived thanks to the fact that I found out that I was living with HIV soon after contracting the disease and having been fortunate enough to have the support of my family and the wherewithal to access medical care and afford treatment--I wanted to do something to stop AIDS. I was alive. I was lucky. Knowing that the virus was continuing to take the lives of millions of people around the planet, I couldn't just sit quietly by and watch. But I was still too scared to show my face.
Having discovered a magazine called POZ for people living with HIV/AIDS ("POZ" stands for "HIV-positive" and refers to a positive outlook on life), I offered to write anonymously for them. I decided I would tell some people that I had the virus and chronicle my journey of disclosure. Many people were compassionate and kind. Some people ran away--some came back and some never did. But each time the words "I have something to tell you. I have HIV" sprang from my mouth, the telling got easier. I learned that if people were reviled, it was the virus--not me--that repulsed them. And I saw that if I stayed calm and found the strength to explain the facts about the disease that even the most shocked and upset of people could eventually come to a place of understanding about HIV/AIDS. I saw that by telling my story, I could change people's perceptions of the disease--mostly, for the better.
Five years later, I was offered the position of editor-in-chief of POZ and I jumped at the chance. I put my face on the cover of the first issue I produced above the words: "I am no longer afraid to say I have HIV." It was only partially true, then. I thought that if I said it often enough, it would, one day become fact.
During the past four years at POZ, I have spoken around the country and the world about fighting AIDS and its stigma. I have appeared on the radio and TV and told my story over and over hoping to convince people to rethink the way they consider HIV/AIDS and the people living with them. I appeared in a Kenneth Cole fashion campaign, with a "HIV+" tattoo emblazoned on my upper arm. I will never forget the day I stood in Grand Central Station in New York, outside of the Kenneth Cole boutique watching people take in the image of my face combined with the message of that tattoo. There was shock, awe, sadness and disgust. Curiosity, wonder and the occasional blank stare.
In October 2009, I stood in the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York City staring at my new book on the bookshelf. I had been asked to write a memoir about living with HIV and decided that I was ready to share more details of my life with the virus in the hopes that the story would reach a broader audience and that more people would believe that they are at risk for HIV and get tested so they could save their own lives and protect the health of others. As I stared at my book and its title--I Have Something to Tell You--I got completely choked up thinking about how far I'd come from days when I wouldn't dare tell my best friend that I had HIV to the day I could proudly point to my story told publicly--and feel no shame.
People say I have courage. I appreciate that. But the truth is, if I have courage, it is driven by fear. Fear that too many people think AIDS is over and because of this, think that HIV can't enter their bodies. Fear that the myths, misperceptions and stigma around HIV/AIDS will forever make it impossible to prevent an otherwise easily preventable disease. Fear that we can't raise the financial or political capital to better fight this monster because too many people still think that people with HIV deserve to develop AIDS and die. Fear that though the pandemic is wildly spreading the world wants to--as I once did--turn a blind eye to the truth: That your chances of getting, or of having, HIV are statistically higher than ever before.
On the occasion of World AIDS Day, December 1, 2009, I want to suggest that no one else has to get HIV from this point forward and those who already have the virus deserve the same respect, dignity, access to health care and love that we would afford anyone else who falls ill. And I would like all people to consider getting tested for HIV. The simple, painless test could save your life--and do the world a world of good. You don't have to get HIV; if you have it, you don't have to die and you deserve to live a full, happy, long life. That is what I wanted to tell you.
[Image: POZ Blogs]
Thanks again to the folks at Media Matters for their tireless work in combing through the endless gasbaggery of the right wing media to cobble together a condensed, but nevertheless accurate, version of the absurdity they pass around.
Among the topics addressed in last week's "news": the Salahis and the conspiracy between NBC and Bravo, an unfavorable comparison of Obama's speech about sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to the Gettysburg Address, the "failing" stimulus plan, and the "crock" that is global warming.
Any thoughts on the recap? What do you think next week's news has in store for us?
The firestorm of controversy that has raged in American news media since the Secret Service discovered -- adding insult to injury, via Facebook -- that Tareq and Michaele Salahi had gatecrashed President Obama's November 24th state dinner almost made it seem like the the attention-seeking couple were the first interlopers ever to breach White House security.
Not so, according to a report this week in the Washington Post. On Monday, the paper revealed having in its possession a summary of a Secret Service training document listing no fewer than 91 breaches of Presidential security between 1980 and 2003 alone, including a person masquerading as a deliveryman, a woman who was a known security risk, and, incredibly, an entire family in a minivan all being mistakenly allowed onto White House grounds.
The Secret Service says it finds the Salahi incident embarrassing and vows it won't happen again. But if the figures in the Washington Post are correct, between 1980 and 2003 Presidential security was breached, either at the White House or at a remote location, on average once every 90 days.
One could rightly argue that, given so many previous security incursions without harm coming to the President, other Administration members, or the First Family, that the Salahis attempting--and managing--to meet President Obama in order to improve their chances of breaking into reality TV isn't that big a deal.
However, given the Post's eye-opening revelations, the real story is that for a full two weeks major American media assumed that the Salahi incident was an isolated one. Why? That's how the Secret Service and the Administration framed the incident in their collective response to it. And almost without question, that's how the news media portrayed it. I don't know if laying aside journalistic skepticism like that makes the White House Press Corps gullible, lazy, or merely inadvisably agreeable. But maybe they're the ones who should really be embarrassed.
[Image: House Budget Committee.]
If there's one figure who symbolizes the greed and excess of last year's financial crisis, it's Bernie Madoff. Nearly one year to the day since the financial world was rocked by news of the Madoff scandal, FRONTLINE goes behind the scenes in The Madoff Affair to unravel the story behind the world's first truly global Ponzi scheme -- a scheme that even Madoff has admitted was "one big lie." For nearly two decades, Madoff managed to evade regulators, investigators and skeptical investors who wondered how Madoff's investment firm could produce such steady returns in good times and bad.On Tuesday, December 8 at 9:00pm EST find out from FRONTLINE producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria how Madoff managed to prolong a deception that "lasted longer, reached wider and cut deeper than any other business scandal in history."
[image: The Madoff Affair via FRONTLINE]
This picture was taken in Malawi, when I was there with the Netherlands Red Cross back in 2007. It was a trip with Yfke Sturm. She was on her first visit in Malawi as Ambassador for the Netherlands Red Cross.
The citizens of Hopenhagen want you to join them. Don't worry; no immigration paperwork is required to join their ranks, just a willingness to speak out about global climate change.
The Hopenhagen campaign is meant to send a message to world leaders at COP15, the United Nations climate change conference that begins today in Copenhagen (hence the name Hopenhagen). The message? Hope, of course.
The hope that in Copenhagen this December - during the United Nations Climate Change Conference - we can build a better future for our planet and a more sustainable way of life. It is the hope that we can create a global community that will lead our leaders into making the right decisions. The promise that by solving our environmental crisis, we can solve our economic crisis at the same time.
Hopenhagen is change - and that change will be powered by all of us.
To become a citizen of Hopenhagen (there are currently more than 1.7 million and counting) simply sign the petition and let the UN know that you care about sustainable living and prioritizing climate change. Let them know that despite the environmental and economic problems we face, you still have hope. There is even a chance to tell them what gives you hope and why, and to highlight your location on a world map. But don't think on it for too long - there are only two days left to sign the petition. So what are you waiting for?
[Image: Hopenhagen]
Last week, The Center for Public Integrity released their results from a nine-month investigation into sexual assault on college campuses. Though there is plenty of valuable information in their findings, the bottom line is that most incidents of collegiate sexual assault are under reported and when they are reported, the victims (usually women) find themselves facing a number of barriers. Says Kristin Lombardi (a researcher on the project):
Nearly a third of the 33 victims said school administrators discouraged them from pursuing complaints, and about a dozen experienced confidentiality requirements "sometimes followed by threats of punishment if they were to disclose any information about the case.
The lack of justice in assault cases is not the only result from the downfall; we're also losing lives:
In the Center for Public Integrity report, the mother of a rape victim who committed suicide after her complaint to the administration was essentially ignored, says, "No wonder why so many girls don't come forward. They see what happens. They see how they are attacked all over again."
Some readers might react to these findings in a way that hearkens back to the days when there were all-girl dorms with strict curfews, but rather I believe we need to reform the way that survivors are treated on campus, and that means teaching young men AND women on campus that rape and all forms of sexual assault is never OK. Let's read the report, educate ourselves, and act on informed recommendations instead of fear.
[Image: Center for Public Integrity]
After 46 years and 5 million words, Cormac McCarthy has parted ways with his Lettera 32 Olivetti typewriter. It was purchased in 1963 for $11, and produced -- at the hands of a brilliant novelist, of course -- such modern classics as No Country For Old Men and The Road, both recently made into major motion pictures.
Like some of McCarthy's characters, however, it was old and broken down, and it was time to let go. The money it earned at auction, however, will live on, through the Santa Fe Institute, a "transdisciplinary" scientific research organization that aims to help make sense of -- and thereby solve -- some of the most profound problems facing science and society today.
Christie's, which held the auction where McCarthy's old typewriter was sold on Friday, previously estimated that it would go for between $15,000 and $20,000. Instead, it garnered more than 12 times that, selling to the highest bidder for $254,500.
The Santa Fe Institute will use the money to fund its many educational and research programs, which are devoted to such diverse and broad topics as sustainability and human behavior.
Meanwhile, Mr. McCarthy will be clacking away on his new machine: another old Olivetti bought for the 76-year-old author by a friend for $20. Start saving your money now, because that one will probably go for even more in a few decades.
The holiday season -- and the recession -- have led to some interesting stories about philanthropy in this hour of the wolf. In keeping with this trend, Barrons has done a fascinating cover story on the 25 Biggest Givers in the world of philanthropy. Collaborating with Global Philanthropy Group, Barron's focus is on "high impact" givers, or people who use their dollars efectively not just in raw bulk. Even large-scale philanthropists are feeling the global economic pinch, and determining who is actually getting bang for the bucks is a valuable metric of effectiveness. From Barron's:
Who would imagine, for instance, that a targeted effort to alleviate the worst poverty in a single country, Ethiopia, could end up having a greater impact than the massive $34 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its myriad education and health programs worldwide? By our standards, the Ethiopian initiative, launched by Donna and Philip Berber, wins by dint of immediacy.
It could take a decade for some of the Gates Foundation's research into vaccines to translate into an impact on people's lives. By contrast, when the Berber's Glimmer of Hope digs a well and provides clean water to an Ethiopian Community, people's lives are improved immediately and critically.
Of course, if even some of the Gates' long-term initiatives bear fruit, the foundation would tower over all other philanthropic efforts in terms of impact. But for now, we rate it No. 7.
The Omidyar Network, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's brain child, is Barrons pick as the world's most effective philanthropy. Some of the recent projects the Omidyar Network have been involved with are land rights for the poor, a three-year, $30 million commitment to support global entrepreneurship (especially in India and Sub-Saharan Africa) and a $15 million initiative to rebuild war-torn communities in West Africa.
Other noteworthy mentions from the article include: The Meth Project (#4), a large-scale prevention program aimed at reducing first-time Meth use, and The Robin Hood Foundation (#8), which gives directly to programs that help the poor survive or move out of poverty altogether.
Though even the philanthropists among us may be faced with economic hardship this year, it's nice to know that some innovative organizations are figuring out ways to help others despite their financial woes. Check out the full list of the biggest givers here.
[Image: Commons.Wikimedia]
Turning water into wine might have worked for Jesus, but there wasn't a water crisis 2,000 years ago. People settled in locations following a simple rule: where there is water, there is life.
These days, life exists where there is no water. Approximately one in six people lack access to adequate amounts of safe drinking water, which leads to diarrhea, the leading cause of death worldwide. Entire countries face life-threatening drought on a daily basis.
One bartender in Raleigh, North Carolina decided to do his part to change that. After leaving school to travel the world, Doc Hendley saw the water crisis first-hand. He returned to the U.S., finished school, and since 2004 has traveled to Sudan, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Uganda to help those countries improve their water supplies.
Hendley founded Wine to Water to help raise funds through wine tastings, which he runs through the restaurant where he works.
And this, he says, is a lesson we can all heed: "You can be a bartender in Raleigh, North Carolina," he told CNN in an interview. "You can be just a regular anybody. And you really, really can change the world. You can touch thousands of lives. I'm walking truth of that."
Scientists in the Netherlands have landed on a potentially earth-shaking, life-saving discovery: real pig meat cultivated in a lab from a single muscle cell.
The research team, funded by a major sausage maker and the Dutch government, used cells from a live pig to grow pork muscle tissue in a Petri dish. After extracting cells called myoblasts from the muscle of a live pig, the scientists then incubated the myoblasts in a nutrient solution, which allowed the cells to multiply and create muscle.
The scientists point out that if they can perfect the process, this discovery could end world hunger. A single cell of muscle tissue is all you need to produce a virtually unlimited supply of pork. Lab meat also means a potentially radical reduction in methane and other greenhouse gasses, of which animal farms produce billions of tons each year. Even one prominent animal rights group is behind the effort: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has offered a $1 million prize for anyone who manages to produce a competitively priced test tube-spawned meat by 2012.
Scientists involved in the research predict a longer period of development, however, estimating that within five years they will have perfected the product. It's just as well: protocol disallows scientists from eating anything they produce in the lab, so no one knows if the test tube pork tastes anything like pork. The next phase of the project is to perfect its consistency and ensure that when they do have a taste test, it might as well be over a glass of shiraz. Barbecue competitions may be a ways off, but not as far as we think.
[Image: Sphere.com]
It has been a bittersweet week thus far for gay rights. The D.C. Council voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage in the District. Then, on Wednesday New York state lawmakers voted against gay marriage. It was, unfortunately, a larger-than-expected margin: 38 ayes and 24 nays. Right-leaning Democrats joined the entire Republican caucus in killing the bill. With that, New York state became -- surprisingly -- more socially conservative than Iowa.
This blog has followed the fight for the right to marry in New York for some time. Earlier in the year, there was almost a palpable sense of enthusiasm that same-sex marriage was an idea whose time had come. The Governor was an unwavering proponent. In May the New York Assembly passed legislation allowing same-sex marriages. Around that time a Quinnipiac poll showed that participants aged 18-34 back same-sex marriage by a 61-33 margin. The movement had the wind at its back. Alas it was not to be, at least not this year. The fight goes on; Democrats have vowed to introduce the measure again.
Ironically, the vote comes on the same day that Tiger Woods -- that superlative paragon of heterosexual marriage -- was forced to address his own marital issues, publicly. Finally, as Eric Kleefeld brilliantly Tweeted: "(State Senator Hiram) Monserrate votes no on gay marriage, believes spousal abuse should be sacred institution between a man and woman."
[Image: AFP]
Maria Shriver says that the battle of the sexes is over, but I think she's wrong. Not because I think that women and girls are better than those of another gender, but because there are still battles to be fought.
The SAT released their latest findings in gender differences on the standardized test and some want to interpret it as more proof that girls can't do math and science. OK, to explain why there aren't more women in science at least. Same conclusion in my eyes. Of course the flip side of that argument is that there aren't any gender differences. But wait a minute; medical science continues to prove that there are biological differences between men and women, this time in the arena of heart drugs. So what's the real deal with gender differences then?
Dr. Lise Eliot tries to answer that question in a tome of a book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain. What I found in PBBB is simply yes, there are differences between the genders, but how those differences are interpreted is often within our control.
Eliot spends a lot of time in the book looking at gender differences in the womb and in early infancy, where there is minimal influence by meddling parents and the society. As the mother of a girl and two boys, Eliot was just trying to filter out bad media reports and misused scientific reports. She told me that she is a feminist who believes that there is a boys crisis, that classrooms need to be more boy-friendly and that competition is good for girls, too. But she also believes that the way we socialize infants and toddlers plays out in how well they do with caregiving and spatial tasks in the future.
So where does that leave us?
I guess that depends on whether or not you think that girls will be girls or you can raise a boy to be equally adept at math as he is at changing diapers. AND if you think you can have any effect on that outcome. As I said in my review, Pink Brain, Blue Brain, is a lengthy book, but I do think it's a fair book about the issues. As your parents told you about dinner, take small bites and chew slowly. That sage advice applies to exploring gender differences as well.
On Tuesday night, President Obama announced his plan to send more troops to Afghanistan -- as many as 30,000. These men and women, he told Americans and South Asians alike, will help us leave Afghanistan once and for all, and to leave that country standing on its own two feet.
But as some have rightly argued, how is sending more troops part of an exit strategy? It's not, unless those added troops are truly capable of bringing about a swift end to the war in South Asia. Chances are that won't happen, and these new soldiers will merely drive the American foothold deeper into that country, thereby prolonging the war.
Peter Beinart of the Daily Beast suggests that Obama cannot simultaneously send more troops and appease the "doves" in the U.S. by promising an end to the war. The two are mutually exclusive, and he should be frank with us about what these new troops mean for the future of this war, our presence in South Asia, and the prospects of the Afghan people.
In the bygone HBO series "The Wire," a narcotics detective once explained why the "war on drugs" is a misnomer: "Wars end," he said.
Looking at the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq right now, maybe they don't.
[Image: Still from the film "Rethink Afghanistan" from Artthreat.com]
The first rule of journalism should be: Do not attempt to cover a story in the bitter cold while taking photos at the same time. I learned this lesson last night, in Washington Square Park, at the Light for Rights event.
Not to worry, however, as one hardly needed to take notes to capture the spirit of the evening. My fingers were frozen as I jostled my camera and notebook between my rapidly numbing hands, so I decided to simply absorb the energy of the speakers, their passion for bringing an end to the discrimination that people with HIV/AIDS face, and their commitment to ending the pandemic of AIDS around the world.
It's just as well. My fellow writers on this blog did a tremendous job yesterday of addressing what World AIDS Day means, and how you can get involved. Instead of rehashing what they wrote yesterday, I will simply relate the feeling of last night's event. Part vigil, part political rally, part celebration, Light for Rights accomplished exactly what it should have: it humanized an issue.
Kenneth Cole, who described himself in his opening comments as the chairman of amFAR, who in his spare time is a designer, presided over the hour-long event.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, spoke with measured determination about improving the lives of people with HIV/AIDS through efforts like lifting the travel ban on those who are infected. Christine C. Quinn, New York City Council speaker and a longtime supporter of gay rights, emphatically encouraged everyone to call their representatives in Congress -- repeatedly -- to demand same-sex marriage in New York. Susan Sarandon brought some levity with a few jokes in between her appeal to stop AIDS from taking any more lives. Other speakers included Naomi Watts, a UNAIDS goodwill ambassador and Academy Award-nominated actor; Paul DeLay, UNAIDS executive director; and Broadway stars Cheyenne Jackson and Lillian White.
When a middle-aged woman from Zimbabwe took the mic to describe the discrimination she has faced for being a woman with HIV, the crowd took a collective pause to consider the gravity of the situation.
Between 6:15 and 6:20, the lights were dimmed to symbolize the need for greater awareness about HIV/AIDS, which more than 30 million people still live with despite widespread efforts to curb the disease. Mr. DeLay pointed out that yesterday alone, as is the case every day, more than 7,000 people were newly infected. He added that more than 3,000 people receive treatment each day, but the obvious disconnect between those two numbers means there is still much work to be done.
Thanks to events like Light for Rights and the efforts of people around the world committed to the cause of ending HIV and AIDS, we can at least say that we're getting there.
Dear Mr. Carr,
First, I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your book, The Night of the Gun. Your tale of surviving a serious cocaine problem to emerge on the other side a successful writer for the New York Times and devoted father of twin girls is at once inspiring and cautionary.
I have just finished reading your article, "The Fall and Rise of Media," and I felt an almost spooky resonance: I also moved to New York in the dot-com heyday, and my first position here was as an editor and researcher at the Silicon Alley Reporter. As you write in your piece, the media industry in New York was thriving, and there were plenty of jobs out there for anyone who was, as you paraphrase E.B. White, "willing to be lucky."
Those were heady times, but also times of great hubris. It's hard to not roll your eyes when thinking back on all the talk of revolution and changing the world that dominated Internet industry parties, even though a lot of that talk has proven to be more than accurate. However, the ways in which the media landscape has evolved since 2000 do not, to me, appear to be as promising and positive as you suggest at the end of your article.
While my career has changed apace with journalism itself -- I was laid off from SAR in late 2000; freelanced as a factchecker and writer for numerous magazines, from small indie art and film mags to Rupert Murdoch's ill-fated Maximum Golf; and even ghostwrote a couple of books until the opportunities in print journalism dried up to the point where I was back to waiting tables -- I am not as confident that things are changing for the better, or even for the good enough.
Most of the magazines I worked for no longer exist, and I now am part of the so-called "digerati," one of the lucky few who are paid to write for the Web. But even so, I am always on the edge of my seat waiting for the other shoe to drop. Print is dying, and "professional blogger" is often thought to be an oxymoron.
You end your article with a triumphant vote of confidence in the next generation of media workers. I hesitate to call them "professionals" because there is no indication that anyone will be making a living from generating or distributing content for much longer. The skills may not be there.
I teach journalism at a CUNY college, and each semester my students look more and more like the digitally savvy folks you describe in your piece: they're armed with smart phones and are on every social networking site there is, and they're always tapped in. But many of them struggle to write clearly, contextualize, or think deeply about an issue. They live in a world of headlines and tweets, scatterbrained by the mess of information that flows through them as if they were mere ghosts in a rushing current of data. This is not their fault, but rather an effect of the "revolution" we were a part of 10 years ago.
I admire your insights and writing enormously, but I wish you had given some indication of how, exactly, all those "cabals of bright young things" will lead us to a future that may be different than the one you and I came into when we started as journalists, but that is nevertheless a future.
In other words, as the age of the $4 word gives way to a world in which self-appointed unpaid bloggers define reality, however untrue it might be (I'm sure you read Mark Bowden's fascinating piece for the Atlantic's media issue, "The Story Behind the Story"), how will the future sustain itself?
With my best regards,
David Alm
Volunteers with One Brick help to clean up the Bison Paddock in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
In light of World AIDS Day, I want to spotlight an amazing resource for teens - Scarleteen. According to the website, Scarleteen "is compiled and written for a young adult population, primarily based in the information that population directly asks us for, and much of our information is more appropriate for teens and young adults than for older adults." And they mean it! If you're a fuddy duddy, stay away!
Scarleteen may not cater to oldsters, but for young people this site is fab. It treats readers as mature human beings with no sugar coating and no B.S. If you're just trying to get someone to take your side, this isn't the site for you. Scarleteen will tell you the hard cold truth.
The site has a great round up of HIV and AIDS facts. It's lengthy, but it covers most of the bases... if not all of them! And there's a great list of resources at the end too.
As with most independent resources, Scarleteen is in need of support. Instead of that ugly sweater you know someone in your family will buy you, why not ask them to send $10 to Scarleteen? What, you don't put sex education on your holiday list?
There is some good news on this World AIDS day. Twitter turned red to raise awearness. South Africa is undergoing a sea change in their attitude towards the virus (no thanks to the laissez-faire approach of former President Thabo Mbeki).
Alicia Keys is streaming live her World AIDS Day / Keep a Child Alive benefit concert on YouTube at 8 PM EST here. You can RSVP on her Facebook page. The BBC has assembled and digitized 3,000 posters from around the world. Best of all: the UN Program on HIV/AIDS just published new research showing the number of new HIV cases decreasing worldwide.
Keep up the fight!
Check out Kenneth's segment from today on CNN American Morning commemorating World AIDS Day. He will also speak this evening at the Light for Rights New York Event in Washington Square Park. The event is open to the public and will begin at 6pm. Click here for more information about the event and the Light for Rights campaign.
Ancient Internet History
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