Skip to Content

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Behavioralism leads to “monkeynomics”

Laurie Santos from Yale University in a TED talk that looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way primates make decisions. Santos says that her experiments in “monkeynomics” shows that some of the silly choices humans make, monkeys make too. It is bad enough that the financial crisis and the Gulf of Mexico oil […]

Thank you for exterminating the Prospect Park geese!

The New York Times reports that wildlife biologists working with the federal Agriculture Department last week gassed to death nearly 400 geese in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.  The reason for the extermination was to cull the large geese population which threaten airplane flights over the city. Prospect Park is near to both JFK and La Guardia […]

The problem with “cyberbullying”

The New York Times on Monday ran a front-page feature about how school administrators and teachers were being pulled into cases of “cyberbullying” of students outside of school hours. The Timesarticle admits that “cyberbulling” is an “imprecise label for online activities ranging from barrages of teasing texts to sexually harassing group sites”. In a 2010 study, an organization called […]

“Addicted” to gadgets?

There’s been much written lately about the impact of electronic gadgets on our everyday lives. First, there have been reviews and articles about Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Second, the New York Times ran a long feature on Monday called “Hooked on gadgets, and paying a mental price”. I […]

1,200 troops sent to Mexican border to… do what exactly?

President Obama has ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to the border in the Southwest. The New York Times reports that Obama’s decision came after Obama met with Republican senators who had demanded more troops. But Republicans were generally not placated. Senator John McCain of Arizona said it was not enough, and called for 6,000 in […]

Unhappy meals: ban on fast-food toys is an attack on parental authority

  This video tells the story of a move by Santa Clara county in California to ban restaurants from giving toys along with their fast-food meals. To many, the idea of a ban seems obviously ridiculous. What killjoys. Don’t the politicians have better things to do. But in 2008, it was the Santa Clara board that led the […]

Debate over charter schools gets going

It looks like the debate over charter schools is picking up. Last Sunday, the New York Times published a front-page feature on charter schools. It is the first major article I can think of that was critical of charter schools. The article noted that the charter school “movement” has the support of philanthropists (Bill Gates, […]

Don’t boycott Arizona!

Thumbnail : Don’t boycott Arizona!

In response to the Arizona immigration law introduced about 10 days ago, various pro-immigration groups condemned Arizonans for being bigots, and have called for a boycott of the state. But name-calling and boycotting are the wrong ways to oppose Arizona’s law, and will only make matters worse.  I say this as someone who opposes the law. […]

Bill Gates and the problem with philanthropy

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an interesting story called “Gates rethinks his war on polio”. It tells how polio has spread across Africa, even after Bill Gates had donated $700 million to try to eradicate it. The Journal said the spread “marks a setback for the Microsoft Corp. co-founder’s new career as a […]

South Park: internalizing the fatwa

Thumbnail : <i>South Park</i>: internalizing the fatwa

Toward the end of last week, the South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone said that Comedy Central had censored its episode that aired last Wednesday, to remove references to the prophet Muhammad. The Viacom-owned network also pulled the episode off its website. In an earlier episode that aired on April 14, the show’s […]

Page: 14 / 16 ‹ First 11 12 13 14 15 16 Last ›

CONTACT ME

I'd like to hear from you. Feel free to email me with comments, suggestions, whatever. I can be reached at mail@americansituation.com.