Tag Archives: program

Don’t Let the Rolling Stone Controversy Distract You From the Campus Rape Epidemic

by AaliyahBleau Posted on December 5, 2014

Mother Jones

Questions continue to mount about the veracity of the explosive Rolling Stone article on an alleged gang rape at the University of Virgina. On Friday, the UVA fraternity allegedly involved released a statement disputing details of the story, and Rolling Stone published a note to readers acknowledging that it failed to vet the story adequately. Nevertheless, the serious problem with sexual assault on America’s college campuses cannot be denied, as the data below shows. (Read the initial version of this article here.)

Sources

“1 in 5 undergraduate women…”: Christopher P. Krebs, Christine H. Lindquist, Tara D. Warner, Bonnie S. Fisher, and Sandra L. Martin; “College Women’s Experiences with Physically Forced, Alcohol- or Other Drug-Enabled, and Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault Before and Since Entering College” (link)

“Of the undergraduate women who are sexually assaulted while in college…”: Christopher P. Krebs, Christine H. Lindquist, Tara D. Warner, Bonnie S. Fisher, and Sandra L. Martin for the National Institute of Justice; “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“Women are more likely to be sexually assaulted…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“4 percent of undergraduate men…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“2.5 percentof male undergrads admit…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“63 percent of college men who admit…”: David Lisak and Paul M. Miller, “Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists” (PDF)

“85 percent of college sexual assault victims…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“More than 1/4 of victims say…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“Frat members who took part in a rape prevention program…”: John D. Foubert and Bradford C. Perry, “Creating Lasting Attitude and Behavior Change in Fraternity Members and Male Student Athletes” (PDF)

“Before college, sexual assault perpetration rates…”: John D. Foubert, Johnathan T. Newberry, and Jerry L. Tatum, “Behavior Differences Seven Months Later: Effects of a Rape Prevention Program” (link)

“4 percent of college sexual assault victims report…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

“Percentage of assailants who are disciplined…”: “The Campus Sexual Assault Survey” (PDF)

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Don’t Let the Rolling Stone Controversy Distract You From the Campus Rape Epidemic

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With Training Program, Central Park Conservancy Spreads Its Wealth

by Myrna Posted on October 19, 2014

The group’s Five Borough Crew program targets fields and lawns in parks that need restoration work the most. Original link:   With Training Program, Central Park Conservancy Spreads Its Wealth ; ; ;

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With Training Program, Central Park Conservancy Spreads Its Wealth

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How Monsanto Crashed SXSW—and Brought the Drama to My Panel

by KDXRickeygvwipk Posted on October 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Let’s face it: While panels at conferences can be fun, interesting, even provocative, rarely do they provide drama, intrigue, or surprise. On Wednesday at South by Southwest Eco in Austin, my colleague Kiera Butler and I sat on a panel that counts as a genuine exception. And it had nothing to do with our own oratorical skills or those of our excellent co-panelists, author and agriculture researcher Raj Patel and Texas A&M cotton breeder Jane Dever.

So here’s what happened: Our session, entitled, “GMOs Real Talk: The Hype, the Hope, the Science,” proceeded as you might expect. I thought we had a pretty robust discussion of the potential and pitfalls of biotechnology in contributing to global food security going forward. Then, at the very end of the hour, during the Q&A session, a SXSW Eco staffer took the mic and dropped a bombshell: She alleged that the GMO seed/pesticide giant Monsanto had sponsored several earlier panels—paying the travel expenses of the participants—without disclosing it to the organizers.

The standing-room-only crowd—which had greeted our biotech-skeptical discussion warmly—erupted in guffaws and gasps. Soon after, Monsanto online-engagement specialist Janice Person bravely took the mic. The room took on the electric charge of a public confrontation in the mythical Old West: the accused party straining to calm a pitchfork-bearing mob. She assured the highly skeptical room that the company had no intention to mislead the organizers and just wanted to participate in the discussion. And thus our panel ended, in glorious chaos. Later, Person expanded her thoughts into this blog post and told me via email that “we regret if there was a misunderstanding,” and “it was certainly not something we tried to hide.”

But I, too, was surprised. While we were preparing our SXSW Eco panel, we had a participant drop out late in the process. I wanted to find a replacement who would cogently defend the industry—I like to be on panels with the frisson of controversy, the energy of open debate. If I had known the Eco conference would be chockfull of Monsanto people, I would have tried to snag one to join us on stage. But when I glanced over the program, the “Farming to Feed 9 Billion” certainly didn’t catch my eye. Moderated by Tim McDonald, former director of community at Huffington Post, it featured three farmers, none of whom listed any Monsanto affiliation.

In a later email, McDonald described for me how the panel came to be: “A friend of mine…who works for Monsanto asked me if I would be interested” in pitching an SXSW Eco panel, he wrote. “I told her if they would cover my travel and work on getting the panelists, I would be happy to organize and moderate the panel.”

As it happens, I attended that panel, which took place Monday. At the start, the moderator, McDonald, announced that Monsanto had paid for his and the other panelists travel expenses, but promised an open dialogue all the same. I somehow missed his saying that, but I did note on Twitter that several Monsanto-affiliated folks were enthusiastically live-tweeting the discussion, which I frankly found rather vague and diffuse. Apparently, McDonald’s disclosure from the stage was the first indication of Monsanto’s involvement that the conference’s organizers got. And judging from the SXSW Eco staffer’s announcement at our panel, they were none too pleased with the lack of transparency. (I’ve reached out to SXSW Eco for comment; I’ll update when I hear back.)

In the end, Monsanto’s SXSW Eco kerfuffle takes its place in the annals of awkward corporate PR maneuvers, alongside the company’s ill-starred attempt to pay experts to participate in an “an exciting video series” on the “topics of food, food chains and sustainability” as part of sponsored content for the publisher Condé Nast.

Link – 

How Monsanto Crashed SXSW—and Brought the Drama to My Panel

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$26 Billion in US Aid Later, the Iraqi Military Is a Total Disaster

by TwylaDutton Posted on September 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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As US bombs rain down on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, analysts agree that this war will ultimately be won on the ground. Too bad the Iraqi defense forces are a shambles. The New York Times reports that the United States still has to train the country’s 26 “intact and loyal” brigades. And the Iraqi government has yet to recruit and set up national guard units. “It is not going to be soon,” says a State Department official.

Sound familiar? Following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US government spent billions trying to rebuild Iraq’s security forces so they could fight insurgents such as ISIS. By the fall of 2012, about a year after the full withdrawal of American troops, this effort had consumed about half the money the US government spent on Iraq’s reconstruction, according to the final report of the Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

Here’s where that money went:

Training the Iraqi military: $1.32 billion
SIGIR says: “As with the police force, the number of troops reporting for duty continually fell below desired levels, with AWOL rates exceeding 3% per month.”
Providing military, logistical, and maintenance support for the Iraqi military: $2.6 billion
Renovating and building Iraqi military bases: $4.1 billion
Supplying the Iraqi military with aircraft, boats, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other gear: $3.4 billion
Developing an elite counterterrorism force: $237 million*
Maybe: Since the US government did not keep track of this specific expenditure, SIGIR says “the total costs of the program remained unknown.”
Training, staffing, and supplying Iraqi police: $9.4 billion
Developing the “Sons of Iraq” program to train to provide jobs for about 100,000 mostly Sunni insurgents: $370 million
SIGIR says: “Financial controls were weak, program managers could not tell whether SOI members received their US-funded salaries, and the Pentagon was unable to provide evaluations of the program’s outcomes.”
Developing other infrastructure security programs: $300 million
Shoring-up Iraq’s courts: $681 million.
SIGIR says: “The court system contends with human rights issues, including reported acts of torture and retaliatory prosecutions by police and military authorities.”
Building prisons, including the never-completed Khan Bani S’ad prison: $165 million

Total cost of rebuilding, training, supplying the Iraqi military, police, and justice system: Around $26 billion

Meanwhile, the estimated cost of the new war in Iraq? Around $15-$20 billion. That’s according to a recent estimate by Gordon Adams, Bill Clinton’s defense budget confidant and a professor at American University. But that could change quickly. Two weeks earlier, Adams estimated this campaign would cost $10-$15 billion.

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$26 Billion in US Aid Later, the Iraqi Military Is a Total Disaster

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Green Pre-Schools: An Early Start for Sustainable Living

by FredaCulver Posted on September 16, 2014

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Green Pre-Schools: An Early Start for Sustainable Living

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Our Letter to President Obama

by Posted on August 22, 2014

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Our Letter to President Obama

Posted 22 August 2014 in

National

The Fuels America coalition is taking its case directly to President Obama today in a full page advertisement in the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, a weekly newspaper broadly distributed across the island. In this open letter to the President, America’s leading biofuel producers are alerting the President how a proposal by his administration — if it is not fixed — will inadvertently cause investment in advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol to shift to China and Brazil, undermining his effort to tackle climate change.

As you enjoy some rest this week, we wanted to share some important news about advanced biofuels.

First, the good news: in no small part due to your efforts to transition America to a clean energy future, we are launching four large, commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants. Using groundbreaking technology developed by America’s most innovative companies, these four facilities will convert agricultural residue into the lowest-carbon motor fuel in the world.

Now, the bad news: the companies and investors looking to deploy the next wave of cellulosic ethanol facilities have put U.S. investment on hold because the EPA is proposing to dramatically change how the Renewable Fuel Standard works.

EPA’s proposal doesn’t just cut the amount of renewable fuel in the gasoline supply. It fundamentally changes how the annual targets are calculated. Instead of basing the targets on our industry’s ability to produce and deliver fuel, the proposal would allow the targets to be reduced if the oil industry refuses to make renewable fuels available to the consumer. Oil companies largely control retail fueling infrastructure through a complex maze of contracts with distributors that often restrict the sale of alternatives.

As designed, the Renewable Fuel Standard attracted U.S. investment because it changed this dynamic. If the program moving forward reflects rather than mitigates the oil industry’s unwillingness to market renewable fuel, the policy will cease to be effective and drive our industry overseas.

That’s why just increasing the biofuels volumes this year or next will not solve the problem. The solution must preserve the original structure of the program, incentivizing oil companies to provide fuel choice to the American consumer and support the retail infrastructure to sell more renewable fuel.

You have always been a strong champion of advanced biofuels and we know it is not your intent to undercut investment. It’s not too late to get the final rule right, so together we can make the United States the leader in producing the cleanest fuels in the world.

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Our Letter to President Obama

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Rick Perry Indictment Highlights the Hack Gap Once Again

by Houston68Q Posted on August 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Simon Maloy finds five pundits arguing that last week’s indictment of Rick Perry was flimsy and obviously politically motivated:

Who are these five pundits downplaying the case against Texas’ Republican governor? In order: New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, MSNBC host Ari Melber, political scientist and American Prospect contributor Scott Lemieux, the Center for American Progress’ Ian Millhiser, and the New Republic’s Alec MacGillis. Five guys who work/write for big-name liberal publications or organizations. This, friends, is the Hack Gap in action.

Ah yes, the hack gap. Where would we be without it? For the most part, it doesn’t show up on the policy side, where liberals and conservatives both feature a range of thinkers who bicker internally over lots of things. It mostly shows up on the process side. Is the legal reasoning on subject X sound? Is it appropriate to attack candidate Y in a particular way? Is program Z working well or poorly? How unanimously should we pretend that a mediocre speech/poll/debate performance is really a world-historical victory for our guy?

Both sides have hacks who are willing to take their party’s side on these things no matter how ridiculous their arguments are. But Republicans sure have a lot more of them. We’ve seen this most recently with Obamacare. Obviously liberals have been more positive in their assessments of how it’s doing, but they’ve also been perfectly willing to acknowledge its problems, ranging from the website rollout debacle to the problems of narrow networks to the reality of rate shock for at least some buyers. Conservatives, conversely, have been all but unanimous in their insistence that every single aspect of the program is a flat-out failure. Even as Obamacare’s initial problems were fixed and it became clear that, in fact, the program was working reasonably well, conservatives never changed their tune. They barely even acknowledged the good news, and when they did it was only to set up lengthy explanations of why it could be safely ignored. To this day, virtually no conservative pundits have made any concessions to reality. Obamacare is a failure on every possible front, and that’s that.

Liberals just don’t have quite this level of hackish discipline. Even on a subject as near and dear to the Democratic heart as Social Security, you could find some liberals who supported a version of privatization back when George Bush was hawking the idea in 2005. It’s pretty hard to imagine any conservatives doing the opposite.

Is this changing? Are liberals starting to close the gap? Possibly. The liberal narrative on events in Ferguson has stayed pretty firm even as bits and pieces of contradictory evidence have surfaced along the way. The fact that Michael Brown had robbed a convenience store; that he wasn’t running away when he was shot; and that a lighter policing touch didn’t stop the looting and violence—none of those things have changed the liberal storyline much. And maybe they shouldn’t, since they don’t really affect the deeper issues. A cop still pumped six rounds into an unarmed teenager; the militarized response to the subsequent protests remains disgraceful; and the obvious fear of Ferguson’s black community toward its white police force is palpable. Maybe it’s best to keep the focus there, where it belongs.

Still, a bit of honest acknowledgment that the story has taken a few confusing turns wouldn’t hurt. Just as having a few liberal voices defending Rick Perry doesn’t hurt. Keep it honest, folks.

POSTSCRIPT: And what do I think of the Perry indictment? I’m not sure. When I first saw the headlines on Friday I was shocked, but then I read the stories and realized this was all about something Perry had done very publicly. That seemed like a bit of a yawner, and it was getting late, so I just skipped commenting on it. By Monday, it hardly seemed worth rehashing, especially since I didn’t have a very good sense of the law involved.

So….I still don’t know. The special prosecutor who brought the indictment seems like a fairly straight shooter, so there might be something there. Overall, though, I guess it mostly seems like a pretty political use of prosecutorial power.

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Rick Perry Indictment Highlights the Hack Gap Once Again

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Sandwich Me In – Zero Waste Dining

by KarolynThibodea Posted on August 15, 2014

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Arizona State’s Chip Sarafin Just Became the First Publicly Gay Player in Major College Football

by Roderic2845 Posted on August 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Arizona State University offensive lineman Edward “Chip” Sarafin revealed he is gay in a newly published magazine profile, making him the first active player in major college football to come out publicly.

Although his conversation with Compete—a Tempe-based LGBT sports magazine—marks the first time Sarafin has told his story to the media, he said he came out to his teammates last spring. “It was really personal to me,” he said, “and it benefited by peace of mind greatly.”

Sarafin, who is a fifth-year senior earning a master’s degree in biomedical engineering, has not played in a game in his four years as a Sun Devil. With his announcement, he follows in the steps of current St. Louis Rams linebacker Michael Sam, who came out to the media after completing his college football career at the University of Missouri, and the University of Massachusetts’ Derrick Gordon, who became the first openly gay men’s college basketball player just months ago. Sam tweeted his support shortly after the news broke:

Arizona State football coach Todd Graham had this to say about Sarafin in a statement Wednesday:

We are a brotherhood that is not defined by cultural and personal differences, but rather an individual’s commitment to the Sun Devil Way. Chip is a fifth-year senior and a Scholar Baller, a graduate and a master’s student. His commitment to service is unmatched and it is clear he is on his way to leading a successful life after his playing career, a goal that I have for every student-athlete. Diversity and acceptance are two of the pillars of our program, and he has full support from his teammates and the coaching staff.

Sarafin, who plans to become a neurologist, is currently helping develop a lightweight, sturdy carbon-fiber football helmet. He does outreach with younger athletes, educating them on the dangers of playing through concussions. He says he strives to be the type of person who “gives back to everyone and loves his family.”

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Arizona State’s Chip Sarafin Just Became the First Publicly Gay Player in Major College Football

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GNC Pro Performance® AMP Ripped Vitapak® Program 30 Pak(s)

by 07ld5ksl Posted on August 3, 2014

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