I really didn't want to revisit all the disturbing events and revelations, but I made myself do so. Think Progress has put together this comprehensive Iraq timeline, including ample links. Here are the most recent three events on the timeline: AUGUST 7, 2006: The top U.S. military official in Iraq, Gen.…
How would you like to quickly access any of 547 newspaper front pages from 46 countries? You can do it right here, at a website called Today's Front Pages. Quite impressive! Click on "Read Today's Recap" for a short recap of some of the headlines.
Check out the map below. It is a map of the Linguistic Geography of the Mainland United States (a higher resolution version is available here): Imagine that there is some loony person who would argue that the dialect he speaks is the one true, objectively superior dialect and that all other dialects are inferior…
If someone asked you how deeply you subscribe to biases- based on race, age, sex, sexual orientation, or religion- what would you say? The more open-minded of us usually try to avoid prejudice at all costs, to the extent that we reject our natural tendency to generalize. But even if we don’t accept it, society exposes us to a barrage of prejudiced perspectives on a daily basis.
How many times do you see a black criminal at large on the local news? How often do household cleaning product commercials center on women? How does the teenage character behave on prime-time sitcoms? These small, frequent examples spread a variety of stereotypes, and impact the way we perceive others, even if we feel loath to recognize such bias.
Since most people don’t want to admit upholding prejudice, Harvard psychologists devised the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT tests whether an individual has a preference for certain ideals of gender, race, and other categories, all of which indicate bias. The test works like this:
Below I’ve provided a list of words, and four categories. The IAT asks you to group the words provided into one of two columns. Each column represents two categories- in this case, Male & Career, and Women & Family. Go down the list and tap the appropriate column on your screen for each word as quickly as you can without making any mistakes:
You probably found that test fairly simple. Now try it with two of the …
Providing jobs for homeless people. We’d pretty much all agree that it is a fine thing to do. It hadn’t occurred to me before to complain about the jobs that might be offered, although I have complained that pay and benefits for many jobs are inadequate. A recent “news story” made me take notice. The story is here but you have to register to look at it. I’ve reprinted it below so you won’t need to:
Homeless Shelter Residents get Jobs at Collection Agency
August 28, 2006 – by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com
A Washington state-based collection agency owner is pairing up with a faith-based homeless shelter to provide jobs for homeless people in the area.
Wayne Garlington is the owner of Accounts Receivable Inc., and sits on the board of Open House Ministries – both based in Vancouver, WA. He is currently employing five women to work as collection agents.
Garlington said he has been pleased with their performance. “They’re not being handed something,” he told the the Columbian News. “They really want to work.”
The jobs not only give the women benefits, they also allow for them to increase their income through bonuses. The company collects on overdue accounts for the city of Vancouver and Clark Public Utilities, among others.
Garlington decided to try out the idea after hearing about a similar plan being carried out by a collection agency on the East Coast.
A ‘faith-based’ homeless shelter, why isn’t that an oxymoron? If you really had faith, would …