Posts Tagged ‘whistleblowing’
Weekend Links! So Many!
* Harris Wittels has died. I really loved his appearances on Earwolf, but the one I keep thinking about is his appearance on “You Made It Weird” last November, where he spoke about his addiction at length. The humblebrag.
* Oliver Sacks writes about his terminal cancer diagnosis in the New York Times.
* The Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference began today. This year’s theme is “Animacy” and both Lee Edelman and Lauren Berlant are keynotes.
* TNI has a great excerpt from the beginning of Creepiness.
* A President’s Day remembrance of Ona Judge.
* Neill Blomkamp is making an Alien. The Man In The High Castle Gets Series Order From Amazon. Amazon should greenlight this next.
* The City and the City may be a BBC drama. I would have said it was unfilmable, but sure, let’s give it a try.
* Boston’s winter from hell. What the massive snowfall in Boston tells us about global warming.
* A Siberian blast—seriously, this air is from Siberia—has turned the eastern U.S. into an icebox featuring the most extreme cold of anywhere on Earth right now. Looking ahead, there’s plenty more where that came from.
* Rudy Giuliani, still horrible.
* Melodrama is so powerful, then, because by promising heroic emancipation from terrorist villainy, it implies that US citizens can overcome their feelings of diminished political agency and lost freedom. Melodrama promises that both the US state, and individual Americans, will soon experience heroic freedom by winning the War on Terror. They will cast off their feelings of vulnerability and weakness through heroic action—even when the villain they attack is not the primary cause of their powerlessness or suffering.
* The fastest way to find Waldo. You’re welcome.
* Would you like to understand how the “new” Harper Lee novel, “Go Set a Watchman,” came to be billed as a long-lost, blockbuster sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird” — one of the definitive books of the American 20th century — when, by all the known facts, it’s an uneven first draft of the famous novel that was never considered for publication? Would you like to get a glimpse into how clever marketing and cryptic pronouncements have managed to produce an instant bestseller, months before anyone has read it?
* Republicans think this is their moment to kill higher education in America. And they might be right.
* Congressman Says We Don’t Need Education Funding Because ‘Socrates Trained Plato On A Rock.’ Checks out.
* The outlook for the rest of Illinois isn’t much better. We Need Syriza in Illinois.
* That there are any homeless children anywhere in the country is an unthinkable national tragedy.
* Save the Wisconsin Idea. You may have to save it from its saviors.
* The inexorable tuition explosion that will result is proving to be politically untenable, and Walker has moved immediately to head it off, consequences be damned. And UW leadership, having adopted a posture of supporting the public authority on principled grounds, is left in the politically deadly position of having to fight for the power to raise tuition arbitrarily.
* Meanwhile let’s kill all the state parks too.
* Meanwhile Milwaukee is one of America’s poorest cities. Though it still has one thing going for it.
* “Scott Walker says he consults with God, but his office can’t provide documents to prove it.”
* Ideology Seen as Factor in Closings in University of North Carolina System. No! It can’t be!
* New Education Initiative Replaces K-12 Curriculum With Single Standardized Test.
* The best and worst presidents. The hottest U.S. presidents. The beardiest presidents.
* Mother Jones loves Minnesota governor Mark Dayton.
* The visiting professor scam.
* We don’t need more STEM majors. We need more STEM majors with liberal arts training.
* Academic interviews are horrible, mealtime edition.
* Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote Overwhelmingly To Ban Advanced Placement U.S. History.
* The West Coast cargo strike.
* DWYL, porn industry edition.
* What is going to happen to all of those African-languages-speaking, archive-obsessed, genre-discovering graduate students? Listen, I have some terrible news.
* The death cult called the MLA wants you to have hope for some reason though. Really strange study.
* Florida Passes Plan For Racially-Based Academic Goals.
* Meanwhile, affirmative action for men in college admissions.
* “A Superbug Nightmare Is Playing Out at an LA Hospital.”
* But one of America’s ugliest secrets is that our own whistleblowers often don’t do so well after the headlines fade and cameras recede. The ones who don’t end up in jail like Manning, or in exile like Snowden, often still go through years of harassment and financial hardship. And while we wait to see if Loretta Lynch is confirmed as the next Attorney General, it’s worth taking a look at how whistleblowers in America fared under the last regime.
* Boston Using Prison Labor To Shovel Heaps Of Snow In Frigid Temperatures For Pennies.
* Revealing scenes from the deranged thinking in the tech industry.
* SMBC messing with the primal forces.
* LARoB reviews Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble and Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s Guantánamo Diary and Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1.
* Clarissa Explains White Supremacy.
* Iceland begins to jail bankers.
* “College Apologizes for Way It Gave M&Ms to Children.”
* “Can There Be Too Many Museums?”
* “Which sexual positions are more likely to break your penis?”
* Giant Ron English art-book: Status Factory.
* An excerpt from David Graeber’s The Rules of Utopia.
* Oral histories of the early days of the HIV epidemic.
* National Adjunct Walkout Day is growing near. It’s Time to Review Your Adjunct Employment Policies.
* Trying to create a promotion track outside the tenure stream at Denver.
* The adjunct unionization movement. And more on that.
* Campus cops prepare for National Adjunct Walkout Day.
* Here’s a thing about @OccupyMLA that uses me as its stooge for part of it. Yay?
* Interesting Kickstarter: “Pioneers of African-American Cinema.”
* “DoJ report on Montana justice: Don’t get raped in Missoula, even if you’re only five years old.”
* Justice Department ‘seriously examining’ Ferguson race case.
* Another piece on the rise of the Title IX industry. Provocative Harvard Law Review forum on Title IX overreach. However bad we’re doing, though, we can certainly always do worse.
* Perhaps with each tuition bill, students should receive a breakdown of how their dollars are spent.
* Academic hiring: The Trading Places hypothesis.
* How Arizona State Reinvented Free-Throw Distraction.
* The Oscars and racism. The Oscars and sexism.
* The Brazilian town where the Confederacy lives on.
* DC Comics is bringing back Prez, this time as a teenage girl who gets elected president by Twitter.
* Holding Out For a Heroine: On Being a Woman and Loving Star Wars.
* 10 Worst Misconceptions About Medieval Life You’d Get From Fantasy Books.
* A rare piece from NRO worth linking: The Right-Wing Scam Machine.
* Former Nazi Guard Charged with 170,000 Counts of Accessory to Murder. Take the plea deal!
* The CIA asked me about controlling the climate – this is why we should worry.
* To misappropriate the prophecy of another technological sage: the post-human dystopia is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed yet.
* Mark Bould has another post on Jupiter Ascending trying to wrangle its treatment of gender. Lots of good discussion of Princess Leia here too.
* Plans to whip us up into another invasion in the Middle East are proceeding apace.
* When horrific child abuse becomes quirk.
* Florida police officer: “Planting evidence and lying in your reports are just part of the game.”
* Cuteness in history. Why when you see something cute you (sometimes) want to destroy it.
* Another Reason To Worry About The Measles.
* Wearable Workplace “Mood Monitors” Are About To Become A Thing.
* A People’s History of Franklin.
* Asexuals and Demisexuals in Wired.
* Five-alarm nerd alert: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality has begun its final arc.
* Settlers of Catan: The Movie.
* And in case that’s not enough here’s some more proof we as a nation are still capable of great things.
Tuesday Links!
* Ian Bogost on moralism and academic politics: The Opposite of Good Fortune is Bad Fortune.
* This week on Studio 360: Will Sci-Fi Save Us?
* The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program.
* They say there are no heroes anymore, but I’ve decided not to promote any of the truly horrible things people have been saying about Gaza. You’re welcome.
* Lazer-guided metaphors about America in 2014: FEMA Wants to House Migrant Children in Empty Big Box Stores.
* Or this one: Luxury Condo’s “Poor Door” Is Now City-Approved.
* The Globe and Mail has a powerful piece about Huntington’s disease and the right to die.
* UC Regents approve pay increase for university executives. Top UC coaches earn twice as much money as top UC brain surgeons. Why Are Campus Administrators Making So Much Money?
* In recent years, a handful of community colleges in that state have outsourced the recruitment and hiring of adjunct instructors – who make up the overwhelming majority of the community college teaching force – to an educational staffing company. Just last week, the faculty union at a sixth institution, Jackson College, signed a collective bargaining agreement allowing EDUStaff to take over adjunct hiring and payroll duties.
* Segregation and Milwaukee, at PBS.
* A recent random spot check of hundreds of arraignments by the Police Reform Organizing Project showed that in many courts around the boroughs, 100% of those appearing for minor legal violations — things like taking two seats on a train or smoking in a train station — are people of color.
* The nation’s top gun-enforcement agency overwhelmingly targeted racial and ethnic minorities as it expanded its use of controversial drug sting operations, a USA TODAY investigation shows.
* Sun Ra Teaches at UC Berkeley, 1971.
* There’s a place in Cornwall where LEGO washes in with the tide.
* Historical Slang Terms For Having Sex, From 1351 Through Today.
* Five Former Players Sue NFL Players Union Over Concussions.
* In praise of UNC’s anti-grade-inflation scheme.
* Holy NDA, Batman! One of the nation’s largest government contractors requires employees seeking to report fraud to sign internal confidentiality statements barring them from speaking to anyone about their allegations, including government investigators and prosecutors, according to a complaint filed Wednesday and corporate documents obtained by The Washington Post.
* First a LEGO episode, now a Futurama crossover: The Simpsons really wants me back. It’s been fifteen years, dudes, just let me go…
* How does squatters’ rights fit into Airbnb’s business plan?
* This Woman Has Been Confronting Her Catcallers — And Secretly Filming Their Reactions.
* Art Pope vs. North Carolina.
* Red Klotz, who led basketball’s biggest losers, the Washington Generals, dies at 93. A Statistical Appreciation of the Washington Generals And Harlem Globetrotters.
* “So, what have you learned in your many years of toddler torture?” “They hate it.”
* Dan Harmon on Paul F. Tompkins’s Speakeasy, with beloved Milwaukee institutions like the Safe House and the Marquette University English Department warranting mentions. Now, for PFT to finally appear on Harmontown….
* Now, please hold all my calls: the next episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead comes out today…
Wednesday Morning!
* Man tragically unable to remember saying Barack Obama would make a great president says Hillary Clinton will make a great president. Meanwhile, the rest of us are reduced to talking about Obama’s secret achievements.
* Solitary Confinement May Dramatically Alter Brain Shape In Just Days, Neuroscientist Says.
* Last Night on Jeopardy No One Wanted to Answer Qs About Black History.
* Noose Found Around The Neck Of Statue Honoring Civil Rights Icon At Ole Miss.
* What Does it Mean that Most Children’s Books Are Still About White Boys?
* The J.R.R. Tolkien Manuscripts: Public Showings in 2014.
* Here are the hoops a college football team has to jump through to be allowed to form a union.
* 84-Year Old Nun Sentenced To Prison For Weapons Plant Break-In.
* Academic freedom with violence.
* Has humanity produced enough paint to cover the entire land area of the Earth? The dream remains alive.
* Whistle-blower fired from Hanford nuclear site.
“We do not agree with her assertions that she suffered retaliation or was otherwise treated unfairly,” URS said, adding Busche was fired for reasons unrelated to the safety concerns. “Ms. Busche’s allegations will not withstand scrutiny.”
…
Busche is the second Hanford whistle-blower to be fired by URS in recent months. Walter Tamosaitis, who also raised safety concerns about the plant, was fired in October after 44 years of employment.
* A new China Miéville short story collection, scheduled for November 2014.
* A world of horrors: There is no such thing as a child prostitute.
* In the same way that certain styles of dance simulate sex, the Winter Olympics simulates scraping one’s February-chapped nostrils against the surface of a Kleenex whose aloe content is useless and reaching out for the warm escape of death. It’s an art of failed suicide attempts.
* A preliminary sketch of the data reveals, of course, that by 2050 films will be reviewing us.
* “First, why would we even think about letting it go through?”
* “This whole thing is totally and completely bonkers.”
* Grace Kerr sometimes jokes with her family that “Amanda was not that great. Zach is awesome.” What she means is that her son is finally happy, and is helping others.
* Diseased and unsound meat: Hot Pockets®!
* In Act Of Protest, Ai Weiwei Vase Is Destroyed At Miami Museum.
* News You Can Use: Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Castrate a Hippo.
* A portrait of Steve Jobs made entirely out of e-waste.
* The Ice Caves of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
* Candy Crush: Addictive Game, Incredible Business, Horrible Investment.
* How the north ended up on top of the map.
* Inside Kappa Beta Phi, the Wall Street Fraternity.
* And our long national nightmare is over: Obama apologizes for disparaging art historians.
Wednesday Links
* The hunger for crisis: All of this literature is the product of what the philosopher John Gray has described as “a culture transfixed by the spectacle of its own fragility.” Call it dystopian narcissism: the conviction that our anxieties are uniquely awful; that the crises of our age will be the ones that finally do civilization in; that we are privileged to witness the beginning of the end. I like the term, but I’d maybe push further on it — our true dystopian narcissism is our willingness, even eagerness, to bring about the final collapse.
* Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years In Prison For Leaking U.S. Secrets To WikiLeaks. I wonder if the decision to let war crimes slide, while maximally prosecuting those who reveal the existence of war crimes, could have any bad consequences down the line.
* In every society, democratic or totalitarian, the sensible, grown-up thing to do is to commit to the long haul of sleazy conformity. The rewards are mostly guaranteed: if not freedom or happiness, then respectability and degree of security. What spoils it is the obstinate few who do otherwise – those, absurdly, who actually believe in the necessary fictions; enough to be moved and angered by the difference between what an organisation does in reality and what it says in public.
* The camp is the nomos of the modern: South Carolina City Approves Plan To Exile Its Homeless.
In order to accommodate all the homeless people who will now be banned from downtown, the city will partner with a local charity to keep an emergency shelter on the outskirts of town open 24 hours a day. However, it’s unlikely the shelter, which can handle 240 guests, will be enough to handle the local homeless population, which numbers more than six times the available beds.
To see how this all turns out, consult Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Past Tense” Parts 1&2.
* How Detroit Can Help Solve America’s Student-Loan Crisis. Spoiler alert: Detroit just needs some heroic Job Creators™!
* And can You Solve Slate’s Gerrymandering Jigsaw Puzzle? Pretty good demonstration of how absurd representation has become.
Fourth of July America Links USA USA – 2
* Once you have been accepted into the elite, it is considered perfectly normal for various elite institutions to just give you vast sums of money for doing almost nothing, for the rest of your life. And the idea that outsiders might find these arrangements shocking, corrupt or simply sleazy is totally baffling to the people in charge of elite institutions. They don’t get it, at all.
* America’s Left: Find it on Twitter. Warning: He names names.
* Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images. The innocent have nothing to fear he swore an oath to keep us safe is this even really news &c.
* Killer Robot Won’t Stop Killing Itself.
“When we first turned it on, it just quietly looked around the room for several minutes, and then shot itself,” said Samsung engineer Do-hyun Gyeong. “At first, we thought there was just a problem with the battery. But when we fixed it up and took it out for its first flight, it just threw itself in front of a truck.”
* Good guy with a gun shoots and kills two innocent bystanders after suspect was already apprehended.
* Mavericky: McCain Slams Efforts To Curb Rampant Campus Sexual Harassment As Violating Free Speech.
* When the NSA came recruiting at UW Madison.
* On the merits, Snowden’s claim for asylum would not count for much in any country.
* It’s official: Military coup in Egypt.
* Obamacare’s going to be a complete debacle, isn’t it. Sigh.
* The Candy Crush Menace. Don’t let it happen to you!
* And Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal discovers there’s just a man behind the curtain.
Gerry Canavan 