Thirty-Five-Hour Work-Week Recommended for Parents
Raising children isn’t considered work, of course. Via ScienceDaily:
Swedish mothers of small children work a lot more now than in the 1970s. This is an important reason why so many parents feel extremely pressured for time. One way to handle the stress is to take advantage of the right for Swedish parents to work half time, according to a new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg. The author of the thesis Jörgen Larsson suggests shorter workweeks for parents.
Jörgen Larsson’s doctoral thesis is based on the observation that parents of small children are in the middle of the most hectic part of their lives. One major reason behind the time pressure is that parents work more hours than in the past. The total paid work time for mothers and fathers of small children has increased by an average of 10 hours per week since the 1970s.
The study, which is based…
Why Nobody Cares What You Think (And What You Can Do About It)
Let me start off by stipulating that I am TOTALLY in your corner, homes. I completely feel your pain, the frustration of having to repeat even the simplest proposition over and over and over (and over) again and just not being heard. It’s a real cross to bear, no?
But we can’t just drop it because some lunkhead refuses to see sense. We’ve got a point here, and even if we personally are not inclined to waste our time on trying to educate some feeble-minded half-wit, the integrity of our position is at stake. It’s not like we can just abandon ship in midstream here. Not without seeming to concede our point to some feckless, illiterate buffoon, anyhow.
I’m sure that’s what most of the problem is here. These people just don’t have the smarts or technical background or personal experience to see things our way. After all, they say, “No sense, no feeling.”…
Is War Porn A Natural By-Product of War?
Joanna Schroeder wonders whether war porn is deviant, or a natural by-product of teaching young people to kill, on the Good Men Project:
The nation was shocked when we learned of more supposed bad behavior by US troops overseas, in the form of posing with the bodies of dead enemy combatants. This isn’t shocking news though, is it? It’s been happening since the beginning of this war, and as far as we know, as long as war has been happening, in one form or the other.
In a fascinating Salon.com piece, former infantry soldier and combat veteran John Rico an insider’s perspective on the function of so-called war porn, and wonders what it is about society that makes us so shocked to learn that young people who’ve been trained to fight and kill since they were 18 years old have reveled in the death of their enemies:
I have to say that I find…
The Rising Cost of Going (and Not Going!) to College
Derek Thompson writes in the Atlantic:
Have you heard about the dangerous, rising cost of not going to college? In the last 30 years, the typical college tuition has tripled. But over the exact same period, the earnings gap between college-educated adults and high school graduates has also tripled. In 1979, the wage difference was 75%. In 2003, it was 230%.
Over the last three decades, the cost of going to college has increased at nearly the exact same rate as the cost not going to college. How can the price of getting something and not getting something both rise at the same time?
That is the paradox of college costs…
150 Million Americans are in Poverty
Tavis Smiley and Cornel West discuss their new book on Democracy Now!:
The latest census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty — or could be classified as low income. We’re joined by Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, who continue their efforts to spark a national dialog on the poverty crisis with the new book, The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto.
The New (Conservative) Liberalism
Charles Davis, on liberalism in America, and how it fails to provide systemic solutions to the problems faced in an increasingly conservative world. Via Al Jazeera:
Once upon a time — say, three years ago — your average Democrat appeared to care about issues of war and peace. When the man dropping the bombs spoke with an affected Texas twang, the moral and fiscal costs of empire were the subject of numerous protests and earnest panel discussions, the issue not just a banal matter of policy upon which reasonable people could disagree, but a matter of the nation’s very soul.
Then the guy in the White House changed.
Now, if the Democratic rank and file haven’t necessarily learned to love the bomb – though many certainly have — they have at least learned to stop worrying about it. Barack Obama may have dramatically expanded the war in Afghanistan, launched twice as many drone…
The Stories We Tell and the Future We Create
Rade writes at A Lament for the Tir Nan Og:
It is fashionable, and unfortunate, that among people interested in living sustainably, having children is often seems as part and parcel with the downfall of everything good. The usual statistics showing how the average America uses an exorbitant amount of energy and resources per-capita are presented, which I think in a subtle way, denigrates the message of a sustainable life. It is as though people who are most committed to sustainable living are telling a story that says their children will follow the usual path of leaving home, setting out on their own and will eventually become SUV driving, McMansion dwelling boobs. The question of who will take the sustainable way of living into the future is not dealt with (in most cases). This is perhaps what I see as the biggest problem with the Permaculture movement as I understand it…
The Beehive Of Society
The British beehive, designed by George Cruikshank in 1840, printed and published in 1867. Via Full Table:
Bully and the Computer that Knows Your Feelings
Via Modern Mythology:
The movie Bully is hitting theaters on Friday, and it is making quite a stir.
The issue of bullying in schools has taken a surprisingly long time to reach a mainstream tipping point, considering its link to many of the school shootings that have destroyed countless people’s lives, not to mention its presence in many of psychological makeups as adults. Some people are challenging its narrative as being too simplistic, overlooking all of the other ways in which bullying occurs in our society.
Be that as it may, it is here now. However, the public discussion on the topic has just begun.
Bullying is not just an issue facing schoolchildren, although in many cases the problem starts there. It is in our homes, our work-places. It is in our language.
That may come as a surprise to some. We all think we can recognize bullying, and certainly sometimes it is obvious: ”I’m going to beat…
The History Of Neoliberalism — And How To Undo It
Via New Left Project, London School of Economics professor Jason Hickel on the 1980s rise of neoliberalism — the belief system that defines our reality:
I often find that my students take today’s dominant economic ideology – namely, neoliberalism – for granted as natural and inevitable. This is not entirely surprising given that most of them were born in the early 1990s, for neoliberalism is all that they have known. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher had to convince people that there was “no alternative” to neoliberalism. Today, this assumption comes ready-made; it’s in the water, part of the common-sense furniture of everyday life.
If an economist living in the 1950s had seriously proposed any of the ideas and policies in today’s standard neoliberal toolkit, they would have been laughed right off the stage. As Susan George has put it, “That the market should be allowed to make major social and political decisions;…
Why Walking Is Political
Via the Guardian, Will Self argues for the symbolic, basic importance of walking as a force against corporate and state control:
Put bluntly: deprived of mechanized means of locomotion – the car, the bus, the train – and without the aid of technology, the majority of urbanites, who constitute the vast majority of Britons, neither know where they are, nor are capable of getting somewhere else under their own power.
Year on year, the number of journeys taken on foot declines – indeed, on current projections walking will have died out altogether as a means of transport by the middle of this century. Now we are alienated from the physical reality of our cities.
Could Humankind Ever Transcend War?
On the Last Word On Nothing, a debate on whether or not war is an innate part of the human makeup. Scientist John Horgan says no:
There is no evidence of hominid or human group violence (as opposed to isolated acts of violence) dating back millions or even tens of thousands of years. The oldest evidence of deadly group violence by humans — a mass grave in the Nile Valley — is about 13,000 years old, and the vast bulk of evidence dates from 10,000 years ago or less, leading scholars such as Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Doug Fry, and Erik Trinhaus to conclude that war is a relatively recent cultural phenomenon, associated often with agriculture and permanent settlements.
In response, some skeptics say, Well, we don’t have good evidence of any human behaviors more than 10,000 years ago. Actually, we have evidence of many complex cultural behaviors — tool-making, hunting, cooking, art,…
People Aren’t Happiest Until They Reach Age 33, Social Media Survey Says
Erin Skarda writes on TIME’s Newsfeed:
It’s true: 30 really is the new 20. A study by Friends Reunited, a British social-networking site, found that 70% of respondents over the age of 40 claimed they were not truly happy until they reached 33.
“The age of 33 is enough time to have shaken off childhood naiveté and the wild scheming of teenaged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth,” psychologist Donna Dawson said in the survey’s findings. “By this age innocence has been lost, but our sense of reality is mixed with a strong sense of hope, a ‘can do’ spirit, and a healthy belief in our own talents and abilities.”
Conversely, only 16% of the survey’s respondents pined for their childhood, while 6% said they were happiest while in college. Many respondents claimed that their happiness at 33 came from fulfillment in their professional lives, as well as having a…
High School Students Suspended After Demanding ‘An Education’
Chastity Pratt Dawsey writes in the Detroit Free Press:
About 50 high school students at Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit were suspended Thursday after walking out of classes to protest a host of issues at the all-boys school.
The concerns included a lack of consistent teachers and the removal of the principal.
The boys, dressed in school blazers, neckties and hoodies, chanted, “We want education!” as they marched outside the school.
Parents organized the walkout because they fear for the school’s future. As recently as last month, students spent weeks passing time in the gym, library or cafeteria due to a lack of teachers, parents said. Worries escalated after district offices moved into part of the building in January, and the school was not listed as an application school for next year…
Muscles, Fire, Guns, the New Frontier and Inner City Savages! The Mythology of Eighties’ Action Films
Jimi Thaule writes on Modern Mythology, a retrospective, reflecting on what is to come:
“We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene!” —Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
The eighties was the last decade of the Cold War, a decade dominated by the presidency of Ronald Reagan and his second term vice president George Bush – elected as Reagan’s successor in 1988. Another significant feature of the decade was the American action film, which had its golden age in the eighties and nearly died out once the Cold War ended.
As the nineties and the Clinton years progressed action films were reduced to action comedies, and only recently have we seen a resurgence of the type of action films we saw in the eighties – in particular with Stallone’s tribute film The Expendables and its anticipated sequel. There…
Media Roots Radio: Existential Conversation – State of Humanity & the World
Via Media Roots:
Robbie & Abby Martin of Media Roots have an impromptu late night conversation about existentialism: the progression of technology and its effect on human interaction; human nature and the inability to face personal truths; reinforced perceptions of reality and societal myths keeping people in line; false flag terrorism, corporate collusion, the police state ruling society by fear and the unsustainable nature of global capitalism.
The Invention Of The Meritocracy
The New Inquiry unearths the 1959 work of sci-fi satire that arguably coined the term — now used in earnest by many pundits to describe and defend our current society:
Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy begins in 2034 with a puzzled member of the commanding elite of the future wondering why in the world various discontented factions of the meritocratic society could be contemplating a general strike.
The more plausible meritocracy seems, the more self-righteous and intransigent the “meritorious” will become. In other words, the obvious shortcomings of the meritocracy myth don’t prevent beneficiaries of the status quo from taking ideological comfort in the idea.
There are inescapable problems of definition and measurement. What counts as merit? Who decides, and how is this decision objective? What sort of tests can be devised to isolate “merit” from some inherently privileged position in society that facilitates it? Doesn’t power redefine merit in terms of itself,…
Minnesota School Board Interferes With Senior’s Porn Star Prom Date
What a little genius. USA Today says:
A Minnesota school district has quashed a high school’s senior plan to bring a porn star to his senior prom.
Mike Stone, 18, had tweeted hundreds of porn actresses with an invitation to the Tartan High School prom May 12 until adult film star Megan Piper accepted his proposal.
Piper tells KSTP-TV’s Mark Saxenmeyer that she missed her own prom and couldn’t turn down Stone’s invitation.
“It was a sweet gesture. It was so cute. I couldn’t say no,” she tells the Twin Cities TV station.
The adult film star adds that she had no intention of turning the evening into a sordid spectacle: “I don’t plan to show up butt naked or anything. I’m going to wear a pretty prom dress.”
Bill Maher: Please Stop Apologizing
In this editorial from the New York Times, Bill Maher decides to “Be More Cynical” and gives a stoic position:
This week, Robert De Niro made a joke about first ladies, and Newt Gingrich said it was “inexcusable and the president should apologize for him.” Of course, if something is “inexcusable,” an apology doesn’t make any difference, but then again, neither does Newt Gingrich.
Mr. De Niro was speaking at a fund-raiser with the first lady, Michelle Obama. Here’s the joke: “Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?”
The first lady’s press secretary declared the joke “inappropriate,” and Mr. De Niro said his remarks were “not meant to offend.” So, as these things go, even if the terrible damage can never be undone, at least the healing can begin. And we can move on to the next time we choose sides…
Americans Often Unfriend Over Politics on Social Media
Via PBS MediaShift:
As a teenager who was vocally opinionated about political issues, I often heard the cautionary refrain “Politics is not the topic of polite conversation.” That counsel must have been lost on me, since I find myself as an adult publicly airing my opinions as both the political correspondent for this blog and as a Democratic analyst periodically appearing on FoxNews.com. I understand the wisdom of that advice, however, and know that conversations about politics (like those about religion) often begin as well-intentioned contests of ideas but end as emotionally charged and intractable disputes.
A new study released today from the Pew Internet and American Life Project illustrates this point. It found that 18 percent of people who use social networking sites such as Facebook and Google+ have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone because of that person’s disagreeable political postings.
To determine whether this is simply a case of the online…
