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POPSReactionary anti-women "men's rights" groups go mainstream
More: Toward the end of her piece, Joyce makes a particularly fascinating point about MRAs' domestic violence arguments: Critics like Australian sociologist Michael Flood say that men’s rights movements reflect the tactics of domestic abusers themselves, minimizing existing violence, calling it mutual, and discrediting victims. MRA groups downplay national abuse rates, just as abusers downplay their personal battery; they wage campaigns dismissing most allegations as false, as abusers claim partners are lying about being hit; and they depict the violence as mutual—part of an epidemic of wife-on-husband abuse—as individual batterers rationalize their behavior by saying that the violence was reciprocal. Additionally, MRA groups’ predictions of future violence by fed-up men wronged by the family-law system seem an obvious additional correlation, with the threat of violence seemingly intended to intimidate a community, like a fearful spouse, into compliance.
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POPSWhy does our society hate children? As a person without kids, I agree entirely about the need for patience. Kids are part of life, and adults should not default to being nasty to or about them. More: Several folks on this and other sites pointed out how much money they would pay for a child-free flight. You know what? I'd pay just as much for a child-friendly flight - where reasonably behaved kids can fly without fear of glares from miserable old ladies, put-off hipsters, and misanthropic businessmen… Indeed, when we took our son on his first cross-country flight, he had a bad time. He screamed, he was in pain from the air pressure, and generally wasn't a happy camper. People were okay, but I still remember That Guy. He came up to me and said, "I have two kids. I've been where you are. Hang in there, it'll get better." In my life, I love my wife, my child, my family, a handful of close friends, and That Guy. I hope he's finding money or falling in love or getting elected mayor somewhere right now.
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POPSConsumer Reports finds BPA in most canned foods More: …our findings are notable because they indicate the extent of potential exposure: Consumers eating just one serving of the canned vegetable soup we tested would get about double what the FDA now considers typical average dietary daily exposure… A 165-pound adult eating one serving of canned green beans from our sample, which averaged 123.5 ppb, could ingest about 0.2 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day, about 80 times higher than our experts' recommended daily upper limit. And children eating multiple servings per day of canned foods with BPA levels comparable to the ones we found in some tested products could get a dose of BPA approaching levels that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies… Drinking three servings per day of canned apple juice with BPA levels comparable to the levels found in our samples could result in a dose of BPA that is more than our experts' daily upper limit.
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POPSScientology: The Truth Rundown More: Contacted by the St. Petersburg Times, Rathbun agreed to tell the story of his years in Scientology and what led to his leaving… Seeking to corroborate Rathbun's story, the newspaper contacted others who were in Scientology during the same period and have left the church: Mike Rinder, one of Rathbun's closest associates for two decades; Tom De Vocht, who Rathbun named as key to his decision to leave; and later, Amy Scobee… The reporters interviewed the four defectors multiple times, and met with church spokesmen and lawyers for 25 hours… The result of the Times' reporting is this multi-part special report, the latest in a long history of Scientology coverage by the Times…This project, as you will see, features the three days of in-depth reports from the St. Petersburg Times, as well as additional content for this Web presentation. Those additional pieces include video; a photo gallery; and links to previous coverage in the Times, including the Pulitzer-winning coverag
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POPSA second chance at life, thanks to strangers on a train More: Mr. Medaglia and Dr. Tolani rode the subway downtown together… He’d missed the 5:13 train and while he was waiting at Penn Station for the 5:59, a woman came up and said, “You did the CPR on that guy, is he really going to live?” “I said I think so,” recalled Mr. Medaglia. “She blew me a kiss. She said, ‘God bless you — you did a great thing.’ I just sat on the train home, thinking, ‘Holy Jesus.’ ” …This was Lieutenant Kelly’s fourth CPR call in 13 years. The three other aideds all died. “Best thing I ever did in my life,” he said… Having gotten a second chance, Mr. Kiernan, a lifelong bachelor, said he is trying to be a better partner to his longtime girlfriend and is trying to eat more carefully, drink less, and seize each day a little more. “I’m not religious,” he said, “but I keep thinking, ‘Who put that cardiologist on the train?’ Coming home tonight, I looked around the subway car — there wasn’t anybody who looked like a cardiologist.”
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POPSOakland's Peerless Coffee is still going strong More: Peerless' cupping room, in fact, might be the most charming around, with the same furniture that John Vukasinovich used decades ago lining its cramped quarters, along with a shiny new spittoon - essential for cupping. "We thought for hygienic purposes, we should retire the old one," jokes George Jr. Perhaps it will last into the next generation - there's already a fourth in the wings. Will Kristina's oldest son, 7-year-old John William, become the family's next great cupper? "I hope," George Jr. says with smile. "Bring him on."
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POPSBarbara Ehrenreich: The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-up More: According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the government was misled by these companies, which failed to report manufacturing delays as they arose. Her department, she says, was "relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy." If, in fact, there's a political parable here, it's about Big Government's sweetly trusting reliance on Big Business to safeguard the public health: Let the private insurance companies manage health financing; let profit-making hospital chains deliver health care; let Big Pharma provide safe and affordable medications. As it happens, though, all these entities have a priority that regularly overrides the public's health, and that is, of course, profit…
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POPSCapitalism isn't a love story More: Let's be clear here. What we are currently practicing isn't capitalism. It's a perversion of the original system, designed within a rigged system, set to benefit a few. And innovators like Yunus and Hertz are primed to lead us into a brave new market - or they would, if we were willing to listen.
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POPSIn defense of jaywalking More: today the word jaywalking is often used as a sort of blanket justification for the dominating presence of cars on city streets. It also reflects a social bias against those people not in cars. (Note this comment in a Federal Highway Administration report: "Still, almost no one can avoid occasional pedestrian status," as if they were discussing exposure to a venereal disease.) …the Netherlands, which has essentially legalized jaywalking, has an enviable pedestrian safety record. …Finally, read newspapers very carefully. A number of studies have documented that media coverage of traffic crashes is selective, framed in certain predictable ways, and often misrepresents the true frequency or nature of actual risk. Jaywalking makes better copy for columnists than actually probing the complex nature of traffic safety.
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POPSThe Revolver notebook More: With the two still shots of the RevolveR Bound Journals above, one might think that they were two different journals at a quick glance, but amazingly enough, they are the same journal. It is very easy to “revolve” from one journal to the next, and the flexibility of having a journal with lined and unlined paper all at once is quite nice. Regardless of which side of this 5 1/2″ by 7 1/2″ journal you are using, it has a magnetic closure on the front side that does a nice job of keeping it securely closed. Some of the other nice features about this notebook are things that you would expect to find with any other high end journal. The very first and very last pages of the journals are writable, and on the lined version, although it is thicker stock, they are both is still lined. Another nice feature is that regardless of which journal you are using, they both lay perfectly flat when open, and I know that many people enjoy having their journals stay flat and open like thi
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POPSThe Quandary With Mammograms: Get a Screening, or Just Skip It? More: Some researchers estimate that as many as one-third of cancers picked up by screening would not be fatal even if left untreated. But right now, nobody knows which ones. So what are women supposed to do? …Hoping to make sense of it all, I consulted several experts. All said mammograms were still important — after all, breast cancer kills 40,000 women a year in this country — but they differed about who really needed them and how often. All agreed that research was badly needed to figure out how to tell dangerous tumors from the so-called indolent ones… Dr. Formenti said the emphasis on screening by groups like the cancer society might have misled the public into thinking that screening could prevent cancer. “It’s a giant misconception,” she said. “…I have to confess that I’m happy if the public gets offended or infuriated” by the debate…"I want taxpayers to say: ‘You have no clarity. Study it. Stop telling us you are a good girl if you get a mammogram.’ ”
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POPSThe trouble with diversity: celebrating difference doesn't reduce inequality More: If you're worried about the growing economic inequality in American life, if you suspect that there may be something unjust as well as unpleasant in the spectacle of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, no cause is less worth supporting, no battles are less worth fighting, than the ones we fight for diversity… Our identity is the least important thing about us. And yet, it is the thing we have become most committed to talking about. From the standpoint of a left politics, this is a profound mistake since what it means is that the political left -- increasingly invested in the celebration of diversity and the redress of historical grievance -- has converted itself into the accomplice rather than the opponent of the right.
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POPSRunning Doc: How to prevent "marathon feet" More: Here are some things you can do to prevent and/or treat "marathon feet": * Train on the same surface you plan to run on. If you are training for a marathon on roads, the treadmill or a soft track will not prepare your body for the pounding… * After the race, and you are urinating normally…you may take (e.g., aspirin or ibuprofen) unless your doctor has told you that you cannot due to a contraindication. * Most important: Immediately upon returning home or to your hotel post-race, soak your feet for 15 minutes in an ice bath. This is the best way to avoid this middle-of-the-night pain. Now, if you have pain the Monday after the event, 15-minute ice baths three times a day and may be necessary for two days to ease the inflammation. If you feel bony tenderness, see a doctor sooner than later -- what you have may not be "marathon feet" but rather a stress or full fracture of a bone in your foot.
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POPSOakland Mayor Ron Dellums needs to explain tax mess or resign More: The debt owed to this city by Dellums is incalculable and there is nothing but pride - or arrogance - standing between him and a full public disclosure of the facts surrounding his tax problem. Anything short of that constitutes unacceptable behavior by a public official and violates the public contract between an elected official and the constituency the office serves. I tried to reach the mayor for comment - but he declined to speak with me, his press secretary Paul Rose told me. No one has asked Dellums to disclose anything that any other politician in the same set of circumstances wouldn't be asked to explain. If he cannot provide a public explanation for a controversy that has become another national embarrassment for this city, it's difficult to see how continuing in his current position is going to be good for anyone - either him or Oakland's citizens.
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