Tuesday, February 28th, 2017
Mal Siret, - The Independent (U.K.)
Stephan: Sweden is not a perfect society, no human society is, but if facts and outcome measures are your determinants Sweden is a significantly better society than the United States. And the same could be said of all the other Nordic nations. Why is that? Are they smarter? No.
The difference is that Sweden is a society based on the premise that the function of the state is to produce individual, community, national, and planetary wellbeing, whereas the function of American society is to produce profit for the few at the expense of the many. It isn't really very complicated. We have what we have because of what we are trying to do. They have what they have because of what they are trying to do. As a result they live longer, have a higher standard of living, are happier, are healthier, better educated, and far less violent. It is all a matter of choice.
Swedish demonstration
Credit: Independent
Sweden has topped a poll as the best ‒ or “goodest” ‒ country when it comes to serving the interests of its people while avoiding damaging impacts to other nations and the environment.
The country has outranked 162 others to take pole position in the Good Country Index, a league table based on 35 separate indicators from sources including the United Nations and the World Bank.
Sweden scores highest for positive lifestyle contributions including prosperity, equality, health and wellbeing, while also performing well culturally.
Iceland tops the list for its overall contribution to the planet and climate protection, including low CO2 emissions and minimal production of hazardous material, while the UK performs less well in this area, sitting down in 22nd place.
The UK, however, is top of the table when it comes to science and technology, which takes into account scientific publications and study, Nobel prizes and patents.
The index suggests that Sweden, relative to the size of its economy, does more “good” and less harm than any other country. Smaller countries such as Ireland, Kenya, Iceland and Costa Rica have all dropped in the rankings ‒ this is partly because events around the world make a […]
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Tuesday, February 28th, 2017
J Oliver Conroy, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: One of the unintended consequences of America's endless war, and trashing of the middle class has been this. Wake up America.
Neo-Nazis take part in a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in Columbia, South Carolina. Michael Kimmel studies the role of masculinity in far-right movements.
Credit: Guardian
During the Obama years, various commentators made wild predictions about the death of the white male as a politically relevant demographic. Then came Trump, propelled to power by a wave of angry white men.
The sociologist Michael Kimmel is one of the world’s foremost experts on the phenomenon. As the director of Stony Brook University’s Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, he’s a leader in the emerging field of masculinity studies. His recent research has looked at topics including spree killers (who are overwhelmingly male and white), as well as the relationship between masculinity and political extremism. He’s also just wrapped up a new book studying why men join hate groups – and how they leave.
n a recent interview, Kimmel discussed the election of Trump, domestic terrorism, the men’s rights movement, and the “alt-right”.
Your book Angry White Men: American Masculinity at […]
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Tuesday, February 28th, 2017
Ellen Barry and Nida Najar, South Asia bureau Chief for The New York Times - The New York Times
Stephan: This is a very bad trend; bad in so many ways. Let me just take one, patents.We no longer have manufacturing, jobs are increasingly being robotized, the one place we have remained a positive force is science and technology. And that is largely because of immigrants.
In 2012, a study by the Partnership for the New American Economy found "that
more than 75 percent of new patents awarded to America’s top ten patent-producing universities had at least one foreign-born inventor." In 2013, 51 per cent of the 303,000 patents granted were awarded to immigrants.
As this report describes Donald Trump's policies will have the long term effect of crippling American science and technology.
A church service in Olathe, Kan., in honor of two immigrants from India who were shot in a bar.
Credit Amy Stroth/The New York Times
NEW DELHI — Jeena Sharma, 25, was applying for a work visa to the United States when news came that two Indian engineers had been shot in a Kansas bar by a man who drunkenly questioned their immigration status.
News of the shootings, which took place last Wednesday, was quickly eclipsed by other developments in Washington, and even in Kansas, but the same cannot be said of the Sharma household of Mumbai, where Ms. Sharma has received emphatic maternal lectures about her plans to move, starting first thing in the morning.
“She asked me: ‘Why do you even need to go to the States? Why do you need to go to a country that doesn’t want you? I’m going to be scared for your life every day,’” Ms. Sharma said.
Read the Full Article
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Tuesday, February 28th, 2017
James McAuley, - The Washington Post
Stephan: I see stories like this every day; and feel as if I moved into an alternative U.S. time line in a parallel universe.
You probably know that Mohammad Ali's American born son of the same name was detained for hours, and I did a piece on the British children's author. There is also a teacher who came with a class of children.
And that's not the end of it. Here is another one, involving an internationally known French-Egyptian scholar. It is being taken as a national slight in France.
It is all so vulgar and ham-handed. So anti-wellbeing. It is causing permanent damage to the world's perception of America. The unintended consequences are rippling out.
Credit: Mike Blake/Reuters
PARIS — Henry Rousso is one of France’s most preeminent scholars and public intellectuals. Last week, as the historian attempted to enter the United States to attend an academic symposium, he was detained for more than 10 hours — for no clear reason.
On Wednesday, Rousso arrived at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport after an 11-hour flight from Paris, en route to Texas A&M University in College Station. There, he was to speak Friday afternoon at the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study.
But things did not go according to plan: Rousso — an Egyptian-born French citizen — was “mistakenly detained” by U.S. immigration authorities, according to Richard Golsan, director of the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M.
Today’s WorldView
What’s most important from where the world meets Washington
“When he called me with this news two nights ago, he was […]
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Monday, February 27th, 2017
Robin McKie, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: The stupidity, short-sightedness, and greed of humans is going to affect far more than humans; it will in fact impact the entirety of Earth's matrix of life in ways that the current American administration simply lacks the integrity to acknowledge. I have been following the research on this for several decades now (see SR archives) and the only thing that changes is that the data gets worse and more specific.
Will we be able to reverse this? Theoretically we could, but actually I think it unlikely. I suspect that the generation of my grandsons will see the end of Rhinos, elephants, tigers, lions, and sharks to name just a few of the major species that will disappear.
One in five species now face extinction, but that figure could rise to as many as half within 80 years.
Credit: Georgina Goodwin/Barcroft Media
One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather on Monday to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere.
“The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week.
Threatened creatures such as the tiger or rhino may make occasional headlines, but little attention is paid to the eradication of most other life forms, they argue. But as the conference will hear, these animals and plants provide us with our food and medicine. They purify our water and air while also absorbing […]
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