Thursday Reads: Allergies, French Attitude Adjustments, Neo-Nazi Homicide Update, and More

Posted: May 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, Great Britain, morning reads, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 36 Comments

Pollen

I’ve been saying for awhile now that my spring allergies this year are the worst I can remember. Apparently I haven’t been imagining things. From USA Today:

“Everyone always has a reason to think the current year is the worst year ever for allergies,” said Dr. David Rosenstreich, director of the allergy and immunology division at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

But this year those complaints really do have some merit, he added.

“It’s been a very unusual allergy season. I don’t know if it’s because of the very wet winter or that it’s been cold longer, but the pollen counts are much higher. This week, it’s been running about 6,000 grains a day, instead of the usual 1,500,” Rosenstreich said of his local area.

I knew it was really bad this year! The Chicago Tribune got the same story from different allergy experts.

“Allergy season came a bit sooner and faster, and that’s what took everyone by surprise,” said Dr. Sonali Majmudar, an allergist and immunologist based in Hoffman Estates, who said many of her patients report that they’ve never struggled with allergies before this season.

[….]

The choppy, indecisive early spring weather for which Chicago is known, with temperatures jumping between balmy and freezing every few days, might also be to blame, Majmudar said. When it warms up and cools down, pollination starts and stops and immune systems don’t know how to react, she said.

Also contributing: one of the rainiest Aprils on record. While that might be great for yard plants, it’s a big problem for people with allergies, said Dr. Joseph Leija.

That’s exactly how the weather has been here in the Boston area: cold one day, warm the next, then back to cold–and constant rain.

Leija, an allergist at Loyola University Health System’s Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park, also called this the most severe allergy season he has seen in years.

Tree allergy season, which usually begins to wane by early May, is still going strong this year, said Leija, who provides pollen counts for the Midwest to the National Allergy Bureau.

Well at least I know I’m not completely crazy (just partly). According this article in USA Today, allergies are “on the rise” and ragweed is mostly responsible. Want to know if your city is one of the worst for ragweed? Here’s a list of the top 30 cities.

1 Phoenix
2 Las Vegas
3 Kansas City
4 Riverside-San Bernardino
5 Dallas
6 Chicago
7 Sacramento
8 Philadelphia
9 Denver
10 Washington, D.C. (tied)
10 Minneapolis/St. Paul (tied)
12 New York
13 Cincinnati
14 Baltimore
15 Cleveland
16 St. Louis (tied)
16 Detroit (tied)
18. Atlanta
19 Boston
20 Pittsburgh
21 Orlando
22 Los Angeles (tied)
22 San Antonio (tied)
24 Houston
25 Seattle
26 San Diego
27 Tampa
28 Portland
29 San Francisco
30 Miami

Weird. I always thought the southwest was good for allergy sufferers. And I can’t believe Indianapolis isn’t even on the list!

Researchers say the increase in allergies is related to climate change.

Apocalyptic images of global climate change include drought, rising sea levels, suffocating coral reefs and emaciated, drowning polar bears. But a new study points to some of the more immediate and mundane side effects of global warming: runny noses, itchy eyes and persistent coughs.

Researchers say allergies are on the rise, and it’s the result of warmer temperatures and happier allergens, like ragweed and mold.

It figures, doesn’t it? Another recent study found that men are more susceptible to allergies than women, which is the opposite of what many people have always assumed.

It appears that French women are becoming more cognizant of their rights to not be sexually harrassed. Now one of Sarkozy’s ministers has been accused of sexually harrassing and/or attacking two former employees.

French prosecutors have opened an inquiry into sexual harassment accusations leveled against a junior minister by two women, one of whom said the arrest of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sex crime charges encouraged her to speak up.

The two women filed the complaints this week against George Tron, a minister in charge of the civil service in the center-right government of President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to their lawyer, Gilbert Collard.

Prosecutor Marie-Suzanne Le Queau told Reuters in response to a telephone query that a preliminary inquiry had been opened as a result of the accusations. “The inquiry will cover (suspected) counts of sexual assault and rape,” Le Queau said. All types of penetration can be classified as rape in France.

One of the women

said she was driven to break her silence after former IMF chief Strauss-Kahn was arrested and charged with attempted rape on the basis of the accusations of a New York hotel maid in a case that stunned France and the world.

“When I see that a little chambermaid is capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I tell myself I do not have the right to stay silent,”

I don’t care for the “little chambermaid” reference, but I applaud the general spirit of what this woman had to say.

The Washington Post reports that the French are “questioning attitudes” about the sexual behavior of powerful men

The criminal charges prompted the media to revisit little-reported incidents in which Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexual aggressiveness that appeared to cross the line into harassment. Women have come forward with their own stories of unwanted approaches that they felt powerless to do anything about….

Feminists say that, to succeed in France, women in politics, business and the media have to put up with “heavy flirting” bordering on harassment.

One political TV talk show panel titled “The Return of the Feminists” asked: “Are we all chambermaids?’”

Prominent journalist Helene Jouan said last week that as a young reporter she had to put up with politicians “knocking on my hotel-room door” and sending unwanted text messages. She said the behavior made her uncomfortable, but it was something that was not really talked about.

There is a similar article at Bloomberg.

The arrest in New York of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of attempted rape is forcing men to watch what they say and emboldening women to challenge the modern-day version of France’s “droit de cuissage,” a feudal practice giving masters the right to have sex with female servants. It’s prompting introspection in the media over whether its laissez-faire attitude toward private lives of those in power helps them act with impunity.

“Since power is often thought of as an aphrodisiac, there was a sort of acceptance of men’s excesses toward women,” said Rachel Mulot, a member of a feminist group called “La Barbe,” or The Beard, which on May 22 joined protests in Paris against the “dominant male.” The Strauss-Kahn case may serve as a trigger to help victims of sexual assaults to break the “taboo of rape” in France, she said.

I wanted to give you an update on the case of the 10-year-old boy who shot and killed his Neo-Nazi skinhead dad. I told you I thought it was highly likely that the father was abusing his kids. It turns out I was right. The guy was beating his wife too.

A 10-year-old boy charged with murdering his white supremacist father told investigators that he shot the man after growing tired of him hitting him and his stepmother, court documents showed on Wednesday.

In the hours after the shooting, the boy told investigators he thought Jeff Hall, 32, was cheating on his stepmother and that he might have to choose who to live with, according to a police declaration filed in Riverside County.

The blonde-haired boy from Southern California told investigators he went into his parents’ closet, pulled a revolver off a low shelf, went downstairs and aimed the gun at his father’s ear while he was asleep and shot him. He later hid the gun under his bed, according to court documents.

“It was right there on the shelf,” the boy told investigators, according to the police declaration filed Tuesday in support of an arrest warrant for his stepmother Krista McCary on nine felony charges of child endangerment and criminal storage of a gun.

Investigators also reported that the house was a pigsty and not a fit place to be raising five children, including a two-month old baby girl.

The tornado season is continuing in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and all over the midwest. Why are the tornadoes so bad this year? That’s the question this article in the Christian Science Monitor tries to answer.

Nearly 1,200 tornadoes have swarmed the United States this year, according to preliminary numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Four of these storms have been rated at the highest tornado strength, an EF-5. The death toll from these tornadoes has likely topped 500, a number not seen since 1953.

But why has this year seen so many and such devastating twisters? Scientists point to several large-scale climate factors, some of which have been at work behind the scenes since winter. And at least some of the mind-boggling tornado numbers, believe it or not, can be chalked up to humans — there are more of us around to see them.

The article offers a number of explanations–too much information to excerpt, so read the whole thing if you’re interested.

I’m going to finish with a couple of Obama-family-related stories First, there’s a sex scandal roiling the private elementary school that Malia Obama attended.

The father of a 5-year-old Sidwell Friends School student has filed a $10 million suit against the school for allegedly allowing its staff psychologist to carry on an affair with his wife.

In court filings, Arthur Newmyer claims he and his daughter suffered “severe emotional distress” when then-school psychologist James Huntington carried on a lengthy affair with his wife, Tara Newmyer. Huntington was treating Newmyer’s daughter at the time, and the suit alleges that the girl was routinely present when he and Tara Newmyer would meet to spend time together.

Arthur Newmyer is accusing Sidwell of being aware of the affair and doing “nothing to stop it.”

Finally, as everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows, the Obamas are touring Europe right now. Afrocity posted this photo on Facebook. I think she probably did it to make fun of Michelle Obama, but I really loved it. I just can’t help but like Michelle. I even like her outfits. Go ahead and yell at me for it. I don’t mind. So here’s the photo

I just love that picture! That woman is a good sport and doesn’t take herself too seriously. I like that. If she were President instead of her husband, I think we’d probably be a lot better off, as you can see below: President Obama talks over “God Save the Queen” and quotes Shakespeare inappropriately. What an embarrassment!


So…. what are you reading and blogging about this morning?

Monday Reads

Posted: January 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, financial institutions, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 42 Comments

Good Morning! It’s been a tough weekend. As usual when dreadful events happen, the cable channels are covering the shooting in Arizona 24/7. Things are still happening in the DC despite the horror of that story. I just don’t know how much more I can read about it. Thinking about senseless hatred and violence is starting to make me feel physically ill.

If you do want to read more about the Arizona tragedy, the Washington Post has special section on it: Special Report: The Tucson shooting rampage. The New York Times also has lots of stories and photos on the front page.

Now I’ll see if I can find any other important stories for you to check out this morning.

On Saturday, I wrote a long piece on Darrell Issa, the man who is going have subpoena power as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. The man is a thug, and we’d better be paying attention to what he’s doing. I hope when the news about the shooting calms down that people will take a look at that piece. I don’t usually “pimp” my posts, but I feel that this one is important.

Now I see that the Republicans plan to make changes in another important House committee: Republicans banish ‘civil rights’ and ‘civil liberties’ from House subcommittee

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) blasted Republicans for planning to change the name of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties to the “Constitution Subcommittee.”

“Once again, the new Republican majority has shown that it isn’t quite as committed to the Constitution as its recent lofty rhetoric would indicate,” Rep. Nadler, who has served as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties since 2007, said.

“It has yet again shown its contempt for key portions of the document – the areas of civil rights and civil liberties – by banishing those words from the title of the Constitution Subcommittee.”

The Subcommittee on the Constitution is one of five subcommittees of the US House Committee on the Judiciary. The subcommittee has jurisdiction over constitutional amendments, constitutional rights, federal civil rights, ethics in government, and related matters.

Nice, huh?

I’ve seen people talking about this in the comments, but can I just say that I’m sick and tired of people tampering with Huckleberry Finn? It’s one of my favorite books. I have read it multiple times, and I happen to think it’s a candidate for the Great American Novel.

Mark Twain wrote the book the way he did to deliver some serious messages, one of which was an argument against racism. He did that by demonstrating in his novel why racism is wrong. There is also a strong message in the book about child neglect and abuse and about alcoholism. It’s a brilliant book, and there is no need to censor it. If it is taught in school, then the context of the language Twain used can be discussed and debated. Huckleberry Finn is not a children’s book. High school students are perfectly capable of understanding the book and its importance.

Here’s a piece at Truthdig that offers 10 Reasons Why the Slurs Should Stay in ‘Huck Finn.’ It’s pretty good.

When I was a senior in high school I read Shakespeare’s plays in my English class. There were two teachers who taught the Shakespeare course. My teacher had us read the plays aloud as written. The other teacher, an elderly woman, had students read the “dirty” parts silently. I’m glad I wasn’t in her class. But at least she didn’t make the students skip over those parts entirely or try to censor the plays.

I say let’s read the greatest works of literature as written.

Here’s a interesting and ironic story at the LA Times: 1800s-era skeletons discovered as crews build L.A. heritage center

Under a half-acre lot of dirt and mud being transformed into a garden and public space for a cultural center celebrating the Mexican American heritage of Los Angeles, construction workers and scientists have found bodies buried in the first cemetery of Los Angeles — bodies believed to have been removed and reinterred elsewhere in the 1800s.

Since late October, the fragile bones of dozens of Los Angeles settlers have been discovered under what will be the outdoor space of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes downtown near Olvera Street. According to archaeologists and the chief executive of La Plaza, they appear to be remains from the Campo Santo, or cemetery, connected to the historic Catholic church Our Lady Queen of Angels, commonly called La Placita. The remains are just south of the church.

Pieces of decaying wood coffins as well as religious artifacts such as rosary beads and medals have also been unearthed.

The cemetery, which officially closed in 1844, was the final resting place of a melting pot of early Los Angeles — Native Americans; Spanish, Mexican, European settlers; and their intermarried offspring. But the repercussions of the discovery outside La Placita have been anything but peaceful.

So digging up the bones of early settlers in order to build a monument to early settlers. Ironic.

Dakinikat sent me this Bloomberg article about Goldman Sachs and their investment in Facebook.

News has leaked out that Goldman, supposedly the smartest Wall Street firm, will buy $450 million of stock in closely held Facebook, with Digital Sky Technologies, which invests in start- ups and is partly owned by Goldman, purchasing another $50 million.

The anonymous folks who put out these numbers said the deal sets a value for Facebook equal to that of Boeing Co. and approaching that of Home Depot Inc.

Goldman clearly is capitalizing on Wall Street’s latest diversion: a semi-public stock market for private companies.

Several firms now offer shares of closely held companies or offer estimates of their value, or both.

It seems that Goldman is hyping Facebook in order to increase the value of its own investment in advance of Facebook going public. Shouldn’t that be illegal?

Dak also sent me this link to the Economist about the war on government unions: It’s a long article and I haven’t been able to read the whole thing yet, but it looks worthwhile. Perhaps Dak will do a longer post on this issue.

[MABlue’s picks]
Bethany McLean from Vanity Fair has a great reportage about Goldman Sachs. These poor guys, they’re so misunderstood.
The Bank Job

One of the biggest disconnects on Wall Street today is between the way Goldman Sachs sees itself (they’re the smartest) and the way everyone else sees Goldman (they’re the smartest, greediest, and most dangerous). Questioning C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein, C.O.O. Gary Cohn, and C.F.O. David Viniar, among others, the author explores how their firm navigated the collapse of September 2008, why it has already set aside $16.7 billion for compensation this year, and which lines it’s accused of crossing.

There’s more on the heinous crimes of the week-end, violent rhetoric from Right (spare me the “Both-Sides-Do-It”), and intimidation of political figures.
How the Tucson Massacre Rattled U.S. Judges

For a moment, U.S. District Judge John M. Roll seemed as likely the main target of the Tucson massacre as Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. In 2009, Roll had come under threats severe enough that he and his family were placed under 24-hour protection by the U.S. Marshals Service. After he ruled that a high-profile suit brought by a group of Mexican immigrants could proceed, his phone lines were deluged with angry callers — including at least four that threatened violence.

At the time, the U.S. Marshal for Arizona told the Arizona Republic that the threats had been egged on by radio talk-show hosts critical of Roll’s decision. Critics began sharing his personal information on Web sites as the rhetoric became more heated. The round-the-clock protection lasted a month, though Roll ultimately decided not to press charges against the callers.
[…]
For some members of the judiciary, the news that Roll was among the six who died during the shooting spree in Tucson was unsettling in ways that went beyond personal grief from those who knew and served with Roll, who had been placed on the bench by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 at the urging of Senator John McCain. Just minutes after learning of the slayings, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman of Chicago told TIME in an email that the news of the murder was “very disturbing… Just when we were beginning to feel more secure.”

Or I see. There’s a big difference between men’s tears and women’s tears. As “luck” would have it (or as always in these matters), men’s tears are a turn on for women, but women’s tears are a turnoff for men. Or is it? There’s an interesting study out but not all agree on the interpretation of the results.
Crying, Sex, and John Boehner: Not So Fast

The study is, predictably, getting a lot of media attention (WOMEN’S TEARS SAY, ‘NOT TONIGHT, DEAR’), but experts on tears and crying aren’t so sure the findings mean what the Weizmann scientists say they do. “I like their study very much, and I think their results are fascinating, but I have my doubts about their interpretation,” says Vingerhoets. “I suspect the sexual effect is just a side effect: testosterone, which was reduced when men sniffed the women’s tears, isn’t only about sex: it’s also about aggression. And that fits better with our current thinking about tears.”

Sooooo…. What are you reading this morning?