May 2013
99 posts
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Improve Working Conditions in Bangladesh? Walmart... →
canadian-communist:
In the wake of the worst garment factory tragedy in world history, which left over 1,200 dead in Bangladesh last month, a number of Western brands have signed an agreement to improve working conditions in their subcontracted factories there. Walmart was missing from the list of signatories.
The legally binding agreement, signed by retailers including H&M, Primark,...
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“In the 101 top-grossing family films…from 1990 to 2004, of the over 4,000...”
– Natasha Walter, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, pages 69-70, 2010. (via bitemebeautiful)
Bringing this back as people have started reblogging this again and EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS.
(via bitemebeautiful)
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Americans Who Battle Cancer Are Twice As Likely To... →
Cancer patients are much more likely to go bankrupt than Americans who aren’t faced with a cancer diagnosis, a new study finds. Even the Americans who have access to health insurance aren’t necessarily safe from bankruptcy, since the high cost of treating cancer can still put an untenable strain their finances. A team of researchers […]
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Israel has highest poverty rate in the developed... →
Israel is the most impoverished of the 34 member countries, with a poverty rate of 20.9%, according to a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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“The 40-hour workweek, as we know it, came from the Fair Labor Standards Act...”
– ‘Working Families Flexibility Act’ Doesn’t Give Flexibility or Support to Working Families (via robot-heart-politics)
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Woman Arrested for Making Late Payments on a... →
nefermaathotep:
It’s now getting to the point that debtors prisons are growing. People are being put in jail for not being able to make payments on time or owing too much money. Two Atlanta women have a story that is a cautionary tale and nightmare for anyone who has ever borrowed anything on credit. It might also make you think twice about going to Aarons for anything.
A woman who doesn’t...
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A More Ordinary Poet
While the fascination with Dickinson’s biography and the complexity of her words have long kept her readers, critics, and poetic inheritors engaged in unraveling her, Dickinson criticism has recently shown a marked interest in combining these two challenges—the biographical and the textual—in order to study Dickinson’s material trace: a real woman whose life took place on paper.
Read Gillian...
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Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has... →
the-lone-pamphleteer:
by Jacob Chamberlain for commondreams.org
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of biotech giant Monsanto, ordering Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, 75, to pay Monsanto more than $84,000 for patent infringement for using second generation Monsanto seeds purchased second hand—a ruling which will have broad implications for the ownership of...
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Declining Public Appetite for Large Wars of...
Unlike before, unlike in prehistoric times, unlike during the good old days when the public’s appetite for large wars of occupation made for lively, crisp, contoured news reporting filled with edifying dramas of mass slaughters and satisfying banquets of blood and guts and sinew-strewn sidewalks. Those were the better days, the past times, the public knew a good large war when it got one, the...
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Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides... →
They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable.Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World
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“The Obama administration is forecast to turn a record $51 billion profit this...”
– Obama Student Loan Policy Reaping $51 Billion Profit
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“Don’t cry about it. Deal with it. My advice will be, whatever opportunity comes...”
– AIG CEO Robert Benmosche’s commencement advice to the 2013 graduates of Alfred University on the topic of high unemployment among young graduates.
And speaking of opportunities, Qualia Coffee in Washington D.C. is seeking unpaid coffee-roasting interns for year-long commitments.
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"No to Profit"
Americans may have much to learn from the upwelling of public sentiment against privatized education in Chile. The United States is just starting down the long road toward outsourcing education to private interests such as massive open online courses (MOOCs). But in Chile we see what four decades of privatized education can achieve, particularly when it is backed by a dictatorship capable of...
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After Rana Plaza
newyorker:
James Surowiecki writes about the recent garment-factory collapse in Bangladesh and asserts that government involvement is necessary in order to improve labor standards: http://nyr.kr/ZUFySv
Don’t miss the mention of MIT’s Richard Locke, who wrote the lead essay of our latest forum on global labor standards.
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“You mean the generation that paid three times as much for college to enter a job...”
– When comments are better than the article, Atlantic edition (“The Cheapest Generation: Why Millennials aren’t buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy”)
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“Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as...”
– Paul Bloom’s “The Case Against Empathy” in The New Yorker.
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“Renowned author Dan Brown got out of his luxurious four-poster bed in his...”
– Don’t make fun of renowned Dan Brown
By Michael Deacon
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Boston Review — Lili Loofbourow: No to Profit... →
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Wall Street Journal creates new position for...
Memo from WSJ Deputy Editor Gerard Baker:
As technology for developing content advances and demand for well-developed content grows apace, we face proliferating opportunities to expand our audience and increase the range of content we are developing. The most dynamic news organizations will develop content that dominates the media landscape.
To help us achieve that goal of well-developed...
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This video of a Texas high school student taking his teacher to task has become a viral hit. You may be asking, “What about the Texas miracle?”
The New York Times reports on the dismal finances of the state’s education system (and before you get there, the unionization rate of Texas teachers is 1.8%, according to Kevin Drum) while AlterNet details the widespread criminalization of...
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“When someone is getting paid, even innocuous statements look murky.”
– Meet the Lobbyists Who are Also Think-Tank Scholars
BY BROOKE WILLIAMS AND KEN SILVERSTEIN
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Unaware of Tsarnaev warnings, Boston counterterror... →
In the fall of 2011, a key Boston police counterterror intelligence unit — funded with millions of dollars in U.S. homeland security grants — was closely monitoring anti-Wall Street demonstrations, including tracking the Facebook pages and websites of the protesters and wri &
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“These American families were swindled by public policy, white terrorism, and...”
– The Ghetto Is Public Policy
A generation of young black people saw their families’ middle-class values earn their parents pariah-class treatment.
Ta-Nehisi Coates May 9 2013
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Russian art anarchists explain themselves →
Anarch-art-activism is the only lively activity in Russia. Nowadays, when even hope for democracy in Russia is ruined, painting flowers and pussy cats or making any other “pure” art, lacking a socio-political content, is to support the right-wing authorities. The symbol of anarchy - a skull-and-bones - has to be painted right at the Russia’s parliament building. That’s what we did Our...
“When I was brought in here, I was explicitly told that the bloodletting had come...”
– Will Bourne, editor of the Village Voice, explaining why he and his deputy, Jessica Lustig, walked off the job today. I had the privilege of meeting both of them recently, and know a few people that work in that newsroom. They struck me as ceaselessly talented, energetic, and positive. They were...
Decade After Iraq, Right-Wing and Liberal Hawks... →
Study: Children of "tiger moms" have worse grades,... →
shortformblog:
It seems that when you scream at your kids and call them “garbage” and “fatty” on a regular basis, you often end up with depressed kids. That’s not an enormous surprise. What is surprising, however, that Amy Chua’s technique—which advises explosive anger and name-calling when a child falls short of expectations, amongst other things—doesn’t even get results. “[T]iger moms produced...
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