NewsTrust - Social Change - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

How to Use the Internet Wisely, for Your Health and Your Country's

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Howard Rheingold - May. 13 (Opinion) - Use the following methods and tools to protect yourself from toxic bad info. Use them and then pass them along to others. Promote the notion that more info literacy is a practical answer to the growing info pollution. Be the change you want to see. Although the Web undermines authority (by enabling anybody to publish), authority is still useful as one clue to credibility in a detective hunt that accounts for many other clues. Claims to authority, however, need to be questioned. I might add credibility to my assessment if a source is a verified professor at a known institution of higher learning, an authentic MD or PhD, but I would not subtract it from people without credentials whose expertise seems authentic. If you are going to grant credibility to people whose expertise is based on being a professor of something, make sure that assertion is accurate. Don't stop at simply verifying that the claim to be a professor is valid if you are looking for scientific credibility. The next step is to use the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index that derives a score from the scholar's publications, citations by other scholars, grants, honors, and awards. If you want to get even more serious, download a free copy of Publish or Perish software, which analyzes scientific citations from Google Scholar according to multiple criteria. Or use the h-index to calculate how many times other scientists have cited a particular source. Again, don't trust just one source; triangulate.

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Income inequality does matter

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

USA Today - By Philip Meyer - Mar. 27 (Opinion) - Despite its emergence as a concern in the 2012 presidential campaign, the issue of income inequality does not bother most of us. Maybe we haven't thought about it enough. A recent Gallup Poll found that only 46% believe it "extremely important" or "very important" for the federal government to enact policies that would reduce the gap between rich and poor.

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Focus on Social Issues Could Shape Battle for Women

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Richard W. Stevenson - Feb. 24 (Opinion) - There are any number of ways in which the politics of culture wars might play out, but perhaps the biggest question is the degree to which the new attention on social issues might shape the battle for one of the most important electoral swing groups: moderate and independent women voters.

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How will technology influence the news in 2012?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Dan Gillmor - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - Predicting the next year's news is a fool's errand, but looking at technological trends could give us a hint At the beginning of 2011, aging dictators ruled Egypt and Libya, and despotism was the nearly unquestioned reality in most of the Middle East. The eurozone was seeing trouble at its edges, but wasn't heading toward collapse. News International had successfully covered up most of its rampant bad acts, and Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of even greater control over British media and politics. Anyone who might have predicted how utterly and rapidly those realities would change might have been branded a lunatic. Which is one reason why the annual journalistic ritual of making predictions about the year ahead is a fool's errand. With that in mind, let me offer instead some observations about the technology and media trends we've seen in past months, and how they might play out in 2012. In many cases, the trajectory is deeply worrisome. But I remain an eternal optimist in the face of ...

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Globalization Has Role In This Double Whammy

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Simon Nixon - Aug. 10 (Opinion) - On the face of it, there's not much to link the London riots and the latest gyrations in global markets. The wave of violence and looting that has spread across the U.K. over the past few days has been mass criminality not a protest movement. And the global stock market rout was triggered by concerns over the euro zone, U.S. government debt and the global recovery rather than anything specific to the U.K. Indeed, the markets have singled out the U.K. as a haven, its debt now cheaper to insure than that of Germany. Even so, there's a link between the two phenomena—and it is an unsettling one. Both reflect the challenges of globalization. The creation of a rules-based multi-lateral trading system has been one of the greatest triumphs of the past 65 years. But the crash and the riots are evidence of the pressure this system is coming under from above and below.

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A Rosa Parks Moment: Climate Activist Tim DeChristopher Sentenced to Prison

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Jeff Goodell - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - Once in a while, the moral insanity of the world we live in reveals itself to anyone who cares to look. One such moment came yesterday afternoon, when 27-year-old Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison for disrupting a federal auction of oil and gas leases in 2008.

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Bill Gates: Was the $5 Billion Worth It?

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By JASON L. RILEY, Bill Gates - Jul. 24 (Editorial) - A decade into his record-breaking education philanthropy, Bill Gates talks teachers, charters—and regrets. 'It's hard to improve public education—that's clear. As Warren Buffett would say, if you're picking stocks, you wouldn't pick this one." Ten years into his record-breaking philanthropic push for school reform, Bill Gates is sober—and willing to admit some missteps. "It's been about a decade of learning," says the Microsoft co-founder whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now the nation's richest charity. Its $34 billion in assets is more than the next three largest foundations (Ford, Getty and Robert Wood Johnson) combined, and in 2009 it handed out $3 billion, or $2 billion more than any other donor. Since 2000, the foundation has poured some $5 billion into education grants and scholarships. Seated in his office at the new Gates Foundation headquarters located hard by the Emerald City's iconic Space Needle, Mr. Gates says that education isn't only a civil-rights issue but also "an equity issue and an economic issue. . . . It's so primary. In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there's such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success."

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The future of news: Back to the coffee house

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - Three hundred years ago news travelled by word of mouth or letter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of pamphlets, newsletters and broadsides. “The Coffee houses particularly are very commodious for a free Conversation, and for reading at an easie Rate all manner of printed News,” noted one observer. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience newspaper, the New York Sun, pioneered the use of advertising to reduce the cost of news, thus giving advertisers access to a wider audience. At the time of the launch America’s bestselling paper sold just 4,500 copies a day; the Sun, with its steam press, soon reached 15,000. The penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from a two-way conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of firms controlling the media. Now, as our special report explains, the news industry is returning to something closer to the coffee house. The internet is making news more participatory, social, diverse and partisan, reviving the discursive ethos of the era before mass media. That will have profound effects on society and politics.

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Argument, Truth and the Social Side of Reasoning

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gary Gutting - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - In a recent discussion about reasoning, one point was overlooked: Knowledge of the truth is a social process. Philosophers rightly think of themselves as experts on reasoning. After all, it was a philosopher, Aristotle, who developed the science of logic. But psychologists have also had some interesting things to say about the subject. A fascinating paper by Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier has recently generated a lot of discussion.

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SlutWalks and the future of feminism

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Jessica Valenti - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - More than 40 years after feminists tossed their bras and high heels into a trash can at the 1968 Miss America pageant — kicking off the bra-burning myth that will never die — some young women are taking to the streets to protest sexual assault, wearing not much more than what their foremothers once dubbed “objects of female oppression” in marches called SlutWalks.

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Britain's "Big Society": Sparking An Active Citizenry

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Brooks - May. 20 (Opinion) - Here in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is trying to foster that sort of society. Until Cameron, Britain — like the U.S. — had one party that spoke on behalf of the market (the Conservatives) and one party that spoke on behalf of the state (Labour). But Cameron is initiating a series of policies, under the rubric “Big Society,” that seek to nurture community bonds, civic activism and social capital.

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Ayn Rand's inexplicable appeal

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Michael Gerson - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - The appeal of Ayn Rand to conservatives is both considerable and inexplicable. Modern conservatism was largely defined by Ronald Reagan's faith in the people instead of elites. Rand regarded the people as "looters" and "parasites."

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Fixes: A Scorecard for Companies With a Conscience

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Tina Rosenberg - Apr. 12 (Opinion) - The law states that the duty of a business’s directors is to maximize profits for shareholders. Obviously, there are many ways to maximize profits; even costly socially responsible activities can do just that in the long term. But when a business is on the block, there is often no more long term for shareholders. The difference in the prices offered by Hot Fudge Partners and Unilever offered was too great. The directors of Ben and Jerry’s felt that if they had accepted the lower offer, they could have expected a lawsuit from shareholders — which they would likely have lost. The company was acquired by Unilever in April 2000. Ben and Jerry’s is far from alone. The typical pattern for a new, successful, triple-bottom-line company is that it quickly gets gobbled up by a major corporation

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On Libya, too many questions

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By George F. Will - Mar. 09 (Opinion) - Today, some Washington voices are calling for U.S. force to be applied, somehow, on behalf of the people trying to overthrow Moammar Gaddafi. Some interventionists are Republicans, whose skepticism about government's abilities to achieve intended effects ends at the water's edge. All interventionists should answer some questions.

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History's shifting sands

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - By Mark LeVine - Feb. 27 (Opinion) - .something has changed. An epochal shift of historical momentum has occurred whose implications have yet to be imagined, never mind assessed. In the space of a month, the intellectual, political and ideological centre of gravity in the world has shifted from the far West (America) and far East (China, whose unchecked growth and continued political oppression are clearly not a model for the region) back to the Middle - to Egypt, the mother of all civilization, and other young societies across the Middle East and North Africa. Standing amidst hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir Square seizing control of their destiny it suddenly seemed that our own leaders have become, if not quite pharaohs, then mamluks, more concerned with satisfying their greed for wealth and power than with bringing their countries together to achieve a measure of progress and modernity in the new century.

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If Not Now, When?

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Thomas L. Friedman - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - Any road to democracy in the Arab world will be long and rocky.

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How Qaddafi Lost Libya

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Andrew Solomon - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - It seemed unlikely that Libya, sandwiched between regime collapse in Tunisia and regime collapse in Egypt, could be untouched by the movement.

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Wisconsin power play

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman: - Feb. 21 (Opinion) - Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin's new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It's like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

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Delirious Joy in Bahrain

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Nicholas Kristof - Feb. 19 (Opinion) - Pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain are deliriously celebrating the withdrawal of army troops from the Pearl Roundabout.

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Islamism has lost its monopoly on dissent

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Richard Phelps - Feb. 17 (Opinion) - The uprisings in the Middle East have shown that viable political opposition is no longer the preserve of Islamists alone.

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Dialogue on the revolution in Egypt

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Marc Steiner Show - By Marc Steiner, Dr. Shibley Telhami - Feb. 15 (Interview) - After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power over the weekend, waves of emotions ensued from citizens of the country and abroad. Our guest is Dr. Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland in College Park. Dr. Telhami is also a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute.

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Mubarak Resigns

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Amy Davidson - Feb. 11 (Opinion) - Who is president of Egypt? Not Hosni Mubarak, as of a few minutes ago. His speech last night had not done whatever work it was supposed to do—assuming it even resembled the speech that was planned.

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India’s protection against Egypt style rebellions

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By John Elliott - Feb. 11 (Editorial) - Questions have frequently been asked in India during the past three weeks about whether the type of uprising seen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square could happen there, with a street-level rebellion occupying a city centre and spreading across the country to such a degree that it topples (or almost topples) the national government.

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Cairo: The Protest Diaries

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Frontline - Feb. 11 (Interview) - We first met Ahmed Youssry and Abdel Hameed Ezzat two years ago during the making of "Middle East, Inc." The story followed them across Cairo as they hustled their way through a nail-biting contest, one part of a regional effort to inspire a new generation of Arab entrepreneurs. Ahmed planned to start a green recycling business. Abdel Hameed had designed and produced a multipurpose laptop bag. One of their ideas would ultimately win the competition. You can watch the original story to find out who took home the prize.

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Cairo's Protests Reverberate in Tehran

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Reza Aslan - Feb. 09 (Opinion) - What Iran-watchers have been eagerly waiting to see is whether the dramatic success of the ongoing Arab push for democracy will reenergize the dormant Green Movement in Iran and get Iran's youth back onto the streets.

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