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Javier E

WATCH: Protester Confronts Fox Station That Deceptively Edited 'Kill A Cop' Chant - 0 views

  • to murder police on Monday. The chant went "we won't stop, we can't stop, 'til killer cops, are in cell blocks," according to C-SPAN footage. But WBFF cut the audio short and told viewers that the words were in fact "we won't stop, we can't stop, so kill a cop."
  • Jones called out the station several times for misrepresenting her words. "The interesting part that really gets to me is, where you guys edited it and stopped — like, how could that be a mistake?" she said. "Once you play that whole thing, you would know that's not something that's being said," she added. The interviewer apologized several times, and though Jones told the station she was grateful to come on, she also said she now fears for her reputation and her safety. Near the end of the interview she began to cry. "At the end of the day, people's lives are on the line," she said. "Now, even though we're doing this, I still don't feel safe because I still feel like the message is out there." "What if a crazed-out cop or a crazed-out supporter thinks I'm trying to get cops killed?" she later said, wiping tears from her face.
Javier E

I Want 'Allahu Akbar' Back - The New York Times - 0 views

  • I’m 37 years old. In all those years, I, like an overwhelming majority of Muslims, have never uttered “Allahu akbar” before or after committing a violent act. Unfortunately, terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda and their sympathizers, who represent a tiny fraction of Muslims, have. In the public imagination, this has given the phrase meaning that’s impossible to square with what it represents in my daily life.
  • Not long after the killing in Charlottesville, Muslim extremists in Barcelona plowed a vehicle through a crowd, killing 16 people. Within hours, Mr. Trump repeated a long-debunked myth, urging those who sought to combat terrorism to “study what General Pershing did to terrorists when caught” — shoot them with a bullet smeared in pig’s blood. “There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” he tweeted. Allow me to clarify: You don’t have to dip your bullets in pig blood to kill us. Regular bullets work just fine. Why? Because we’re human.
  • That’s why it hurts that on Tuesday, “Allahu” and “akbar,” those two simple words so close to our hearts, instantly shaped the entire news coverage and presidential response. A common, benign phrase used daily by Muslims, especially during prayer, is now understood as code for “It was terrorism.”
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  • Some people yell “Allahu akbar” and others chant “heritage,” “culture” and “white pride.” The preferred slogans of a killer don’t make much difference to the people whose lives are lost or their loved ones, but they make all the difference in Americans’ collective understanding of a tragedy.
Javier E

Military Unit, Ravaged by War, Regroups Back Home to Survive the Peace - WSJ - 0 views

  • “We have the mantra that we’re the strongest on the planet, that we’re indestructible,” Sgt. Musil said of the paratroopers. But, he admitted, “we’re scared.”
  • Over the past decade, the men rarely got together, and when they did, it was likely for a funeral. In September, there was another one when a Bravo Company veteran, Derek Hill, shot himself after returning from a job as a contractor in Iraq.
  • Then the suicides began, including the sergeant’s best friend, Alan, who during what seemed to be a flashback shot two neighbors before apparently realizing what he had done and turning the gun on himself.
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  • When Sgt. Musil came back from Afghanistan he unplugged from the others who had seen what he had seen in combat. He didn’t talk much to anyone about that year in southern Afghanistan. He deleted his social-media accounts. But the memories festered. His marriage fell apart.
  • On a weekend this past spring, the VA and the Independence Fund brought 98 remaining Bravo Company veterans together to test a theory: Just as they relied on each other to survive in combat, they could again rely on each other to survive the lingering effects of war.
  • Bravo Company’s traumatic tour and high suicide rate have drawn the attention of the Department of Veterans Affairs and an advocacy group called the Independence Fund. The agencies declared men from the unit—including Sgt. Musil—to be at what the fund calls “extraordinary risk” of succumbing to addiction, isolation and suicid
  • During an 11-month tour of Afghanistan’s notorious Arghandab Valley, three soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment were killed in action and a dozen more lost at least one leg or arm. In the 10 years since they returned to the U.S., two B Company soldiers—isolated from their buddies, struggling with their demons—have killed themselves, more than a dozen have tried and others admit they have considered it.
  • “Derek, Grant, Timmy—all those guys died at their own hands,” said Sgt. 1st Class Robert Musil, listing close friends from Bravo Company and other units he served in who had killed themselves. “All those men were warriors. If they can do it, what’s stopping me?”
maxwellokolo

French forces kill militants in Mali forest - BBC News - 0 views

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    France says its forces in West Africa have killed or captured more than 20 militants in a forest near Mali's border with Burkina Faso. A statement by its regional force said air and ground forces were involved. It did not identify the militant group. A French soldier was killed in the area earlier this month.
Javier E

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”
  • The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health. These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household
  • Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s—I had never seen anything like it.
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  • the trends persisted, across several years and a series of national surveys. The changes weren’t just in degree, but in kind.
  • The biggest difference between the Millennials and their predecessors was in how they viewed the world; teens today differ from the Millennials not just in their views but in how they spend their time. The experiences they have every day are radically different from those of the generation that came of age just a few years before them.
  • it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent.
  • theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media. I call them iGen
  • Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet.
  • iGen’s oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010. A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone.
  • . I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then I began studying Athena’s generation.
  • More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills.
  • Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.
  • the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.
  • But the allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents. The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.
  • Today’s teens are also less likely to date. The initial stage of courtship, which Gen Xers called “liking” (as in “Ooh, he likes you!”), kids now call “talking”—an ironic choice for a generation that prefers texting to actual conversation. After two teens have “talked” for a while, they might start dating.
  • only about 56 percent of high-school seniors in 2015 went out on dates; for Boomers and Gen Xers, the number was about 85 percent.
  • The decline in dating tracks with a decline in sexual activity. The drop is the sharpest for ninth-graders, among whom the number of sexually active teens has been cut by almost 40 percent since 1991. The average teen now has had sex for the first time by the spring of 11th grade, a full year later than the average Gen Xer
  • The teen birth rate hit an all-time low in 2016, down 67 percent since its modern peak, in 1991.
  • Nearly all Boomer high-school students had their driver’s license by the spring of their senior year; more than one in four teens today still lack one at the end of high school.
  • In conversation after conversation, teens described getting their license as something to be nagged into by their parents—a notion that would have been unthinkable to previous generations.
  • In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half.
  • Beginning with Millennials and continuing with iGen, adolescence is contracting again—but only because its onset is being delayed. Across a range of behaviors—drinking, dating, spending time unsupervised— 18-year-olds now act more like 15-year-olds used to, and 15-year-olds more like 13-year-olds. Childhood now stretches well into high school.
  • In an information economy that rewards higher education more than early work history, parents may be inclined to encourage their kids to stay home and study rather than to get a part-time job. Teens, in turn, seem to be content with this homebody arrangement—not because they’re so studious, but because their social life is lived on their phone. They don’t need to leave home to spend time with their friends.
  • eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders in the 2010s actually spend less time on homework than Gen X teens did in the early 1990s.
  • The time that seniors spend on activities such as student clubs and sports and exercise has changed little in recent years. Combined with the decline in working for pay, this means iGen teens have more leisure time than Gen X teens did, not less.
  • So what are they doing with all that time? They are on their phone, in their room, alone and often distressed.
  • despite spending far more time under the same roof as their parents, today’s teens can hardly be said to be closer to their mothers and fathers than their predecessors were. “I’ve seen my friends with their families—they don’t talk to them,” Athena told me. “They just say ‘Okay, okay, whatever’ while they’re on their phones. They don’t pay attention to their family.” Like her peers, Athena is an expert at tuning out her parents so she can focus on her phone.
  • The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently.
  • Eighth-graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who play sports, go to religious services, or even do homework more than the average teen cut their risk significantly.
  • The roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.
  • The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
  • There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness
  • Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media
  • If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence based on this survey, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen
  • Social-networking sites like Facebook promise to connect us to friends. But the portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation. Teens who visit social-networking sites every day but see their friends in person less frequently are the most likely to agree with the statements “A lot of times I feel lonely,” “I often feel left out of things,” and “I often wish I had more good friends.” Teens’ feelings of loneliness spiked in 2013 and have remained high since.
  • This doesn’t always mean that, on an individual level, kids who spend more time online are lonelier than kids who spend less time online.
  • Teens who spend more time on social media also spend more time with their friends in person, on average—highly social teens are more social in both venues, and less social teens are less so.
  • The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.
  • It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out
  • Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan. (That’s much more than the risk related to, say, watching TV.)
  • Since 2007, the homicide rate among teens has declined, but the suicide rate has increased. As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves. In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.
  • For all their power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbate the age-old teen concern about being left out.
  • Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly—on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups.
  • Forty-eight percent more girls said they often felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared with 27 percent more boys. Girls use social media more often, giving them additional opportunities to feel excluded and lonely when they see their friends or classmates getting together without them.
  • Social media levy a psychic tax on the teen doing the posting as well, as she anxiously awaits the affirmation of comments and likes. When Athena posts pictures to Instagram, she told me, “I’m nervous about what people think and are going to say. It sometimes bugs me when I don’t get a certain amount of likes on a picture.”
  • Girls have also borne the brunt of the rise in depressive symptoms among today’s teens. Boys’ depressive symptoms increased by 21 percent from 2012 to 2015, while girls’ increased by 50 percent—more than twice as much
  • The rise in suicide, too, is more pronounced among girls. Although the rate increased for both sexes, three times as many 12-to-14-year-old girls killed themselves in 2015 as in 2007, compared with twice as many boys
  • Social media give middle- and high-school girls a platform on which to carry out the style of aggression they favor, ostracizing and excluding other girls around the clock.
  • I asked my undergraduate students at San Diego State University what they do with their phone while they sleep. Their answers were a profile in obsession. Nearly all slept with their phone, putting it under their pillow, on the mattress, or at the very least within arm’s reach of the bed. They checked social media right before they went to sleep, and reached for their phone as soon as they woke up in the morning
  • the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep: Many now sleep less than seven hours most nights. Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night; a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived
  • Fifty-seven percent more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991. In just the four years from 2012 to 2015, 22 percent more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep.
  • Two national surveys show that teens who spend three or more hours a day on electronic devices are 28 percent more likely to get less than seven hours of sleep than those who spend fewer than three hours, and teens who visit social-media sites every day are 19 percent more likely to be sleep deprived.
  • Teens who read books and magazines more often than the average are actually slightly less likely to be sleep deprived—either reading lulls them to sleep, or they can put the book down at bedtime.
  • Sleep deprivation is linked to myriad issues, including compromised thinking and reasoning, susceptibility to illness, weight gain, and high blood pressure. It also affects mood: People who don’t sleep enough are prone to depression and anxiety.
  • correlations between depression and smartphone use are strong enough to suggest that more parents should be telling their kids to put down their phone.
  • What’s at stake isn’t just how kids experience adolescence. The constant presence of smartphones is likely to affect them well into adulthood. Among people who suffer an episode of depression, at least half become depressed again later in life. Adolescence is a key time for developing social skills; as teens spend less time with their friends face-to-face, they have fewer opportunities to practice them
  • Significant effects on both mental health and sleep time appear after two or more hours a day on electronic devices. The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices. Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits.
aprossi

Severe storms and tornadoes hit the South, killing at least 6 and leaving heavy destruc... - 0 views

  • Severe storms and tornadoes hit the South, killing at least 6 and leaving heavy destruction
  • Strong storms and tornadoes whipped across parts of the South on Thursday evening and Friday morning, killing at least five people in Alabama and one in Georgia, and leaving parts of several communities in ruins.
  • Firefighters were going door to door in the city of about 40,000 people southwest of Atlanta on Friday morning, and helped several people from their homes after trees fell on the structures
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  • In all, 23 tornado reports formed -- one in Mississippi; 17 in Alabama; and five in Georgia, the weather service said. Teams from the weather service will inspect the areas to confirm which were hit by tornadoes.
  • About 38,000 homes and businesses were without power in Alabama and Georgia
margogramiak

Compound from medicinal herb kills brain-eating amoebae in lab studies -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

  • Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a deadly disease caused by the "brain-eating amoeba" Naegleria fowleri, is becoming more common in some areas of the world, and it has no effective treatment.
  • Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a deadly disease caused by the "brain-eating amoeba" Naegleria fowleri, is becoming more common in some areas of the world, and it has no effective treatment.
    • margogramiak
       
      Wow, that's scary.
  • Inula viscosa or "false yellowhead," kills the amoebae by causing them to commit cell suicide in lab studies, which could lead to new treatments.
    • margogramiak
       
      Nature based medicine is so interesting to me.
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  • Although the disease, which is usually contracted by swimming in contaminated freshwater, is rare, increasing cases have been reported recently in the U.S., the Philippines, southern Brazil and some Asian countries.
    • margogramiak
       
      That's terrifying. I wonder how something like that spreads effectively.
  • traditional medicine in the Mediterranean region, could effectively treat PAM.
    • margogramiak
       
      Traditional medicine is trusty!
  • Then, they isolated and tested specific compounds from the extract. The most potent compound, inuloxin A, killed amoebae in the lab by disrupting membranes and causing mitochondrial changes, chromatin condensation and oxidative damage, ultimately forcing the parasites to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis.
    • margogramiak
       
      We've studied concepts similar to this one in biology. Very interesting stuff!
  • Although inuloxin A was much less potent than amphotericin B in the lab, the structure of the plant-derived compound suggests that it might be better able to cross the blood-brain barrier. More studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis, the researchers say.
    • margogramiak
       
      It's pretty cool that this disease is still considered rare, and we're already figuring out how to fix it.
johnsonel7

How News Coverage of Coronavirus Compares to Ebola | Time - 0 views

  • A novel coronavirus that originated in China and has since spread to more than 20 other countries has dominated headlines across the globe since it was first announced in December 2019, as scientists and media outlets (including this one) scramble to understand the virus’ origins, trajectory and impact. The wall-to-wall coverage of the virus, known has 2019-nCoV, has been unusually heavy, even in comparison to other recent health threats, such as the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that began in August 2018 and continues to this day.
  • Throughout January 2020, the first full month of the 2019-nCoV outbreak, more than 41,000 English-language print news articles mentioned the word “coronavirus,” and almost 19,000 included it in their headlines, LexisNexis data show. By contrast, only about 1,800 English-language print news articles published in August 2018, the first month of the DRC outbreak, mentioned “Ebola,” and only about 700 headlines mentioned the disease.
  • The two viruses have also produced two very different outbreaks. Ebola, which causes a hemorrhagic fever that’s deadly in about half of cases, is incredibly potent but has been mostly contained to the DRC, where it has killed 2,246 of the roughly 3,500 people who have contracted it, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data. While the WHO declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” last year, Ebola has not spread far beyond the DRC. (The earlier West African outbreak was more widespread: It killed more than 11,000 people and spread to multiple continents.)
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  • Meanwhile, 2019-nCoV, which causes symptoms similar to the flu, has killed about 2% of the 31,500 people it has infected so far, but has spread to more than 20 countries—including, crucially (at least in terms of understanding media coverage), the U.S. Any time an issue affects the U.S., the Western press kicks into high gear, Miller says.
  • After the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, the U.S. press was criticized for overstating the possible threat to Americans.
tongoscar

30,000 People Were 'Disappeared' in Argentina's Dirty War. These Women Never Stopped Lo... - 0 views

  • But each Thursday, one of Argentina’s most famous public squares fills with women wearing white scarves and holding signs covered with names.
  • They are the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and they are there to bring attention to something that threw their lives into tragedy and chaos during the 1970s: the kidnapping of their children and grandchildren by Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship.
  • For decades, the women have been advocating for answers about what happened to their loved ones. It’s a question shared by the families of up to 30,000 people “disappeared” by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” a period during which the country’s military dictatorship turned against its own people.
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  • In 1976, the Argentine military overthrew the government of Isabel Perón, the widow of populist president Juan Perón. It was part of a larger series of political coups called Operation Condor, a campaign sponsored and supported by the United States.
  • The Dirty War was fought on a number of fronts. The junta dubbed left-wing activists “terrorists” and kidnapped and killed an estimated 30,000 people.
  • The government made no effort to identify or document the desaparecidos. By “disappearing” them and disposing of their bodies, the junta could in effect pretend they never existed.
  • In 1977, a group of desperate mothers began to protest.
  • Soon, the government turned against the protesting women with the same brand of violence they had visited on their children. In December 1977, one of the group’s founders, Azucena Villaflor, was kidnapped and murdered. Twenty-eight years later, her relatives received confirmation that she had been killed and dumped in a mass grave. Several other of the group’s founders were also kidnapped and presumably killed.
  • But the women didn’t stop. They protested throughout the 1978 World Cup, which was hosted by Argentina, and took advantage of international coverage to make their cause known.
katherineharron

Trump reverts to usual impulses by stoking tensions over Floyd protests - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • If President Donald Trump's initial response to the police killing of an unarmed black man in Minnesota surprised some as uncharacteristically measured, his threat of violent police retaliation and military intervention as protests raged thrust him more squarely into a familiar position as racial instigator and defender of law enforcement.
  • The tweets, which appeared while images of fires and destruction aired on cable news late into the evening on Thursday, were slapped with a warning by Twitter for violating its rules against glorifying violence.
  • In them, Trump seemed to imply protesters could be shot and the US military could become involved if violence continued in the city, which has been gripped with unrest after disturbing video emerged of a white police officer pinning a black man to the street by his neck as he gasped for breath. The man, George Floyd, died while in police custody.
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  • "These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen," Trump wrote on his personal account. "Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!"
  • "I've let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts," said Miami Police Chief Walter Headley in 1967 as he announced a campaign against crime that included using dogs, guns and a "stop and frisk" policy.
  • He spoke out forcefully against NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose kneeling protest during the playing of the National Anthem was meant to shine a spotlight on racial injustice and harsh police tactics. Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, even stormed out of an Indianapolis Colts game when some players kneeled during the anthem.
  • Instead, Trump has been more likely to mock that phrase, which has been used by Black Lives Matter protesters ever since. In 2016, he made fun of Mitt Romney by bringing his hands to his neck and shouting "I can't breathe" to illustrate Romney "choking" in the 2012 presidential election.
  • He called the death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot by a white man while jogging in February, a "heartbreaking thing." His Justice Department is investigating the killing as a federal hate crime, though Trump has held out the possibility that "something that we didn't see on tape" could explain the killing.
tongoscar

'SARS-like damage' seen in dead coronavirus patient in China, report says | Fox News - 0 views

  • A lung biopsy found that a man who died in China from the new coronavirus last month had lung damage reminiscent of two prior coronavirus-related outbreaks, SARS and MERS.
  • “The pathological features of COVID-19 greatly resemble those seen in SARS and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection. In addition, the liver biopsy specimens of the patient with COVID-19 showed moderate microvascular steatosis and mild lobular and portal activity (figure 2C), indicating the injury could have been caused by either SARS-CoV-2 infection or drug-induced liver injury,” the new report published in The Lancet concluded.
  • The new coronavirus, COVID-19, has infected more than 72,000 people and killed over 1,868, far larger numbers than those who suffered from the SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, two other coronavirus epidemics of the past two decades.
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  • In late 2002, a coronavirus nicknamed SARS broke out in Southern China, causing severe pneumonia and rapidly spreading to other countries. SARS infected more than 8,000 and killed 774, before disappearing altogether after a number of public health measures. In 2012, a similar outbreak known as MERS began infecting people in Saudi Arabia. It still causes infections in a small number of people each year, and in total has caused around 2,500 infections and more than 850 deaths.
  • The SARS disease appeared to be more deadly, however, killing around 10 percent of those infected.
Javier E

(3) Algorithms Didn't Kill Hipsters; Poptimism Did - 0 views

  • I don’t think it is algorithms per se that have killed hipsters so much as the all-encompassing imperative of poptimism.
  • At its core, poptimism is the idea that because a thing is popular, that means that it is good and should be celebrated.
  • Poptimism has spread beyond music and is at least part of the reason why, for instance, you see constant demands that comic book movies get best picture nominations.
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  • poptimism has intertwined with a variety of cultural omnivorism that encourages people to embrace the most popular fare from all genres. And this is where the algorithm comes in: it feeds people a steady drip of the most popular things and assures you you’re good for enjoying a diverse array of sameness.
  • But, and this is important, taste distinctions still matter. Social rank demands fealty to certain ideals of taste, even if artistry isn’t the taste that matters. “Omnivorism, for all of its rejections of ‘taste,’ still presupposes that cultural choice can change society,” Marx writes. “Consumerism can support allies, shame enemies, and deny prestige and financial support to oppressors.”
  • In the modern cultural landscape, “the hipster” has been replaced by what might be called “der kommisar,” and der kommisar has a few general rules for how to appreciate culture:
  • 1.     Artists should create content that promotes progressive political views and reveals unconscious biases against oppressed groups.2.  Gatekeepers should work to represent minority voices by elevating minority artists.3.     Consumers should only buy artworks and goods with progressive values that are created by upright individuals.4.     Majority groups should never profit on styles or stories that originate within minority groups.5.     Critics should decanonize antiprogressive artists and their works, and question aesthetics associated with high-status distinction.*
  • “art should avoid being for art’s sake when social equity is at stake.” The quality of artistry matters less than supporting artists who think the right things and say the right things
  • I don’t think you can really understand much of the last decade or so of cultural writing—or, for that matter, cultural production—if you don’t understand this dynamic and how poptimism, omnivorism, and identity politics have all spun together to change, at the very least, how people talk publicly about the art they consume
katieb0305

Richmond, California: Paying kids not to kill - CNN.com - 0 views

  • But this is no ordinary group. The mentor is an ex-con working for the city. The teens are suspected of the worst types of crimes but haven't faced prosecution, for lack of evidence. The mentor's job: Get them to put down their guns, stop their violent ways and transform their lives beyond the streets.
  • Fueled by gang violence, neighborhood rivalries and large-scale unemployment among black youth, the violence led to 47 homicides in Richmond in 2007
  • The next year, Boggan saw the killings drop to 27 -- a 40% decline -- as he began his strategy of hiring reformed ex-cons and sending them into the most violent neighborhoods to keep the peace.
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  • And so Operation Peacemaker was born. Loosely based on an academic fellowship, the ONS program invites some of the most hardened youth into the fold: often teenage boys suspected of violent crimes but whom authorities don't have enough evidence to charge criminally.
  • They are hooked up with mentors -- the reformed criminals-turned-city workers -- who offer advice, guidance and support to get jobs. If the fellows show good behavior after six months, they can earn a stipend of up to $1,000 a month.
  • In the media, the fellowship is often dubbed "cash for criminals," which makes Boggan's eyes roll. He laughs because, although it's true, the program is so much more. And it's predicated on the most basic of human elements: "We harass them with love and kindness."
mcginnisca

Woman says she was near killed Oregon occupier Finicum - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Victoria Sharp says she is certain LaVoy Finicum was unjustly gunned down by state police after they and the FBI pursued his vehicle in southern Oregon.
  • "I know what I saw."
  • Sharp said she heard three shots and saw Finicum fall
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  • You know, I can't say that he was reaching for a weapon or not," said Sharp.She watched the video again."OK, he was running through snow and it does not look like he is reaching to me. He's trying to keep his balance. He's running, I remember it. He didn't reach for anything."
sissij

Common Science Myths That Most People Believe | IFLScience - 0 views

  • We only use 10% of our brains.ADVERTISINGinRead invented by TeadsADVERTISINGinRead invented by Teads It's true that there’s a great deal we don’t know about the brain, but we certainly do know that we use our entire brain.
  • Sugar makes children hyperactive. Attending any child’s birthday party where cake, ice cream, and sugary drinks about would make just about anyone a believer that sugar influences hyperactivity. There has not been much evidence to suggest that the so-called “sugar buzz” is actually real for children (aside from a small subset with an insulin disorder coupled with certain psychiatric disorders).
  • Antibiotics kill viruses.  This one pops up every cold and flu season. Antibiotics, by their very definition, kill bacteria.
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    This article really surprise me that some of my intuitions are wrong. I always thought that if we swallow the gum, then the gum will stick in our stomach and never go away. However, it will pass along as waste. This shows that for many people, some fields of science they learned about are usually second-handed. Many "scientific knowledge" we have are not first handed and they have been modified. Before we are using them as scientific knowledge, we need first to make sure that they are really science, not another myth. --Sissi (1/10/2017)
nataliedepaulo1

People Thought Machine Guns Might Prevent Wars - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Hiram Maxim didn’t set out to invent a killing machine. But a lifetime of tinkering and building eventually led Maxim, who called himself a “chronic inventor,” to design and build the world’s first portable and fully automatic gun.
  • “It is the most dreadful instrument that I have ever seen or imagined.”
  • “This is indeed a very curious world. I was the first man in the world to make an automatic gun,” Maxim wrote. “It is astonishing to note how quickly this invention put me on the very pinnacle of fame. Had it been anything else but a killing machine, very little would have been said of it.
sissij

How Social Isolation Is Killing Us - The New York Times - 0 views

  • About one-third of Americans older than 65 now live alone, and half of those over 85 do. People in poorer health — especially those with mood disorders like anxiety and depression — are more likely to feel lonely. Those without a college education are the least likely to have someone they can talk to about important personal matters.
  • Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline in older adults, and isolated individuals are twice as likely to die prematurely as those with more robust social interactions. These effects start early: Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health 20 years later, even after controlling for other factors. All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking.
  • The loneliness of older adults has different roots — often resulting from family members moving away and close friends passing away. As one senior put it, “Your world dies before you do.”
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  • “In America, you almost need an excuse for knocking on a neighbor’s door,” Dr. Tang told me. “We want to break down those barriers.”
  • “You don’t need a playmate every day,” Dr. Tang said. “But knowing you’re valued and a contributing member of society is incredibly reaffirming.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story
  • A great paradox of our hyper-connected digital age is that we seem to be drifting apart. Increasingly, however, research confirms our deepest intuition: Human connection lies at the heart of human well-being. It’s up to all of us — doctors, patients, neighborhoods and communities — to maintain bonds where they’re fading, and create ones where they haven’t existed.
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    We are always finding reasons to do something good for others. However, these barriers are just invented. We don't need reason to be kind and friendly. The digital age gives us access to more people, but it also limits attention and effort to form a friendship. Our brain is limited so there is attention blindness showing that we cannot handle too much information. What we should do is focus our attention on people in our community and actually make effort to form relationships and connections. Usually, people that's most realistic and close to us are not online. --Sissi (12/23/2016)
katrinaskibicki

TV is killing off so many characters that death is losing its punch - Vox - 0 views

  • TV is drowning in cheap, sloppily executed deaths
  • The spring of 2016 has been marked by death after death after death on TV. Some have proved controversial. Some have passed without commentary. A couple have been largely applauded.
  • But the fact remains: TV is killing major characters at an astonishing rate.
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  • That's the allure of a TV death in a nutshell. It's why everybody in the industry keeps chasing it. It raises the show's dramatic stakes. It almost automatically creates lots of conversation. And when done well, it can take your show to another level.
  • The problem with most TV deaths is pretty simple: They're frequently devoid of meaning, inserted into the plot only to create shock and boost a show's profile on Twitter.
  • Since it's hard to simply force audiences to care about the deaths of extreme supporting characters, both The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have increasingly turned toward sensationalizing the deaths that do occur, making them bigger and bloodier, with mixed results.
  • The problem only compounds itself if you survey television as a whole. In isolation, a death that is adequate, though not particularly stirring, becomes harder to take when there's a whole wave of mediocre deaths around the programming grid. It gives off the appearance of a medium that's turning, increasingly, toward desperation.
julia rhodes

At Neutral Site, Syrians Feel Free to Confront the Other Side - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The ones that really nettle them come from Syrians.
  • Opposition activists and citizen journalists pop up everywhere: in hotel lobbies, on sidewalks, even at a breakfast table overlooking snowcapped mountains.
  • Here in neutral and secure Switzerland, Syrian government delegates used to meeting journalists only inside a government-controlled bubble are finding that almost anyone can come up to them anytime, anywhere, and ask anything.
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  • New encounters — some cordial, some not — have swept Syrians of all stripes out of their comfort zones. That could make a difference eventually, in a war so polarized that opposing sides do not even agree on basic facts, let alone on how to solve the conflict and on who is most responsible.
  • With a cameraman, they asked them if they would accept Mr. Assad’s ouster through negotiations. Many protesters answered politely, but others yelled “God, Bashar and nothing else!” and began shoving and shouting. A man grabbed Mr. Hadad’s phone and threw it.
  • “We agreed on one thing,” Ms. Maala said. “The killing in Syria needs to stop.”
  • a reporter from Al Manar introduced himself by saying, “I’m Hezbollah.”
  • “Do you think we’re happy you’re slaughtering the Syrians?” Mr. Hadad said he answered. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, has intervened on the government’s side. The man replied that Hezbollah was fighting to protect a revered shrine near Damascus.“You killed half of Syria for the sake of a shrine,” Mr. Hadad said, and anger flickered across the man’s face.“If I were in an Arab country, I wouldn’t dare,” Mr. Hadad recalled. He said he then relented and told the man that dialogue between them would help.
Laura Gates

Recent killings of teachers in Mass., Nev. bring risks of profession to the forefront - 0 views

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    I thought this was an interesting article that discusses violence in schools, and how our preconceived ideas about dangers in the teaching profession have changed. I think it'll be really interesting to see what direction education takes in response to these events.
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