Thursday, January 16th, 2014
CJ WERLEMAN, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: It is one of the sad truths of history that much of the human narrative consists of stories of religious intolerance, violence, and death. Even now, as any morning's headlines make clear, the most toxic social force in our world is fundamentalism -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim or whatever.
Studies demonstrate the world is becoming less violent, and that human warfare is on the decline. There is one aspect of the human existence, however, that continues to ignite humans to commit violence and atrocities against fellow humans. A major new study published by the Pew Research Center [3] shows that religious hostilities reached a 6-year high in 2012.
Dr. Steven Pinker, Pulitzer prize-winning author and Harvard psychology professor, writes, ‘Today we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species’ existence.” He acknowledges: ‘In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene.” Pinker points out, wars make headlines, but there are fewer conflicts today, and wars don’t kill as many people as they did in the Middle Ages, for instance. Also, global rates of violent crime have plummeted in the last few decades. Pinker notes that the reason for these advances are complex but certainly the rise of education, and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of others has played its part.
Religiosity, however, continues to play its part in promoting in-group out-group thinking, which […]
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Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
DAVID L. KIRP, Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley - San Francisco Chronicle
Stephan: This is wonderful news. As I have written many times if I could wave a wand and make one social change it would be that meditation-mindfullness was taught appropriately at each level in every school not as a religious ritual but as a psychophysical self-regulation practice It would begin at seven.
Why do I say this? There were over a thousand papers published in the peer reviewed literature just between 2006 and 2009 --- three years. We know a lot about the benefits of mediation. (See my Explore SR paper: Meditation-The Controlled Psychophysical Self-Regulation Process That Works. http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2811%2900236-9/fulltext.
This is the fact based sort of thing needed to revitalize public education.
At first glance, Quiet Time – a stress reduction strategy used in several San Francisco middle and high schools, as well as in scattered schools around the Bay Area – looks like something out of the om-chanting 1960s. Twice daily, a gong sounds in the classroom and rowdy adolescents, who normally can’t sit still for 10 seconds, shut their eyes and try to clear their minds. I’ve spent lots of time in urban schools and have never seen anything like it.
This practice – meditation rebranded – deserves serious attention from parents and policymakers. An impressive array of studies shows that integrating meditation into a school’s daily routine can markedly improve the lives of students. If San Francisco schools Superintendent Richard Carranza has his way, Quiet Time could well spread citywide.
What’s happening at Visitacion Valley Middle School, which in 2007 became the first public school nationwide to adopt the program, shows why the superintendent is so enthusiastic. In this neighborhood, gunfire is as common as birdsong – nine shootings have been recorded in the past month – and most students know someone who’s been shot or did the shooting. Murders are so frequent that the school employs a full-time grief counselor.
In […]
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Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
PAUL WALLIS, - Digital Journal
Stephan: This piece tries too hard to be insouciant, but it has a good take on the East Coast, and you can begin to see the kind of costs we are going to pay to deal with sea rise and, that will lead to the debate over what will have to be abandoned. Much of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, for example.
I also picked this story because of the video. Click through to see the video of that area, which gives you a sense of scale of even a modest project. One good thing. It is going to create a lot of skilled jobs. I have worked ay this scale and I can tell you from direct experience that to be successful it requires great skill. Or people get killed and the job doesn't get done.
NEW YORK — Forget denial, this is happening right now. New data from NOAA and a range of incidents along the east coast are rewriting the realities of sea level rise. A combination of rising sea levels and sinking coastal land is hitting the entire US east coast.
The results are costing a lot of money and damaging property values severely. New data from NOAA, (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) indicates that the future is looking expensive, and destructive, for the entire east coast.
The New York Times explains the metrics:
“The work starts with the tides. Because of their importance to navigation, they have been measured for the better part of two centuries. While the record is not perfect, scientists say it leaves no doubt that the world’s oceans are rising. The best calculation suggests that from 1880 to 2009, the global average sea level rose a little over eight inches.”
The result-
Sinking islands, and ‘routine flooding”
People complaining about always “driving through salt water”??? (What, if they drown, there’s a problem?)
Huge expenditure on flood mitigation
The New York Times got some materials from the American Geophysical Union, so I decided to do some digging there.
What’s happening is […]
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Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
EMILY SAWICKI, - Malibu Times
Stephan: Sea rise has begun to impact the coasts. Here is a report on the West Coast. This is the beginning of a trend that is going to have a tremendous impact. In 2010, 123.3 million people, or 39 percent of the nation's population lived in a coastal area. These are the highest population density areas in the country. Far more crowded than the U.S. as a whole. They also have the most large cities. If you live in a coastal area your life is going to be impacted.
The destruction caused by coastal storms in Malibu and its neighboring communities along the Pacific coast is anticipated to increase as ocean levels rise throughout the 21st century, according to a recent study by the City of Los Angeles and USC.
“The next step is crafting policies that reduce risk and protect the public today,” Jonathan Parfrey, the executive director of Climate Resolve, an LA-based nonprofit that works with the government to help prepare for climate change, told the LA Times.
The results of the study highlight a need for investment in protecting coastal areas from storm damage, which will be crucial for the continuing prosperity of local communities.
One major risk Malibu faces in the coming decades will be Pacific Coast Highway. Even at current ocean levels, severe storms can breach the highway, causing dangerous driving conditions and traffic jams, as well as blocking emergency vehicles. With the sea rising, the study predicts, even moderate storms could cause massive damage to the delicate roadway, possibly endangering lives – especially as the PCH is a key evacuation route for many Malibu residents.
In addition, the Pacific Coast Highway serves as a major route for tourists to come in and out of Malibu. However, […]
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Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
Stephan: This is likely to change all our lives, and is an appallingly bad decision. The American courts are now so stacked in favor of corporate interests they are warping the culture in profound ways. Let us hope this decision is appealed and over-turned, or that Congress changes the laws to assure net neutrality, or the FCC gets enough public pressure to overcome the industry and serve the interests of the people . It requires a significant public outcry. And since the corporate media is hardly covering the story, since it so powerfully affects their corporate masters few even seem to know this has happened.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission and its allies have several options, with most of them difficult, after a U.S. appeals court struck down most of the agency’s 2010 net-neutrality rules.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the FCC did not have the authority to prohibit broadband and mobile-service providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic and applications.
With FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler already promising to ‘consider all available options,” it’s clear that the net-neutrality fight in Washington, D.C., is far from over. Wheeler and Michael Weinberg, acting co-president of the digital rights group Public Knowledge, both talked about possibly appealing Tuesday’s decision.
FCC chair Tom Wheeler
However, the chances on appeal are mixed at best. While the court, in Tuesday’s ruling, said the FCC has some authority to regulate broadband, this is the second time the appeals court has struck down a specific FCC attempt to enforce net-neutrality rules, The same court ruled in April 2010 that the agency didn’t have the authority to order Comcast to stop throttling peer-to-peer traffic in the name of network management.
Beyond an appeal, the FCC has several other options. With the agency taking its regulatory authority from the Telecommunications […]
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