Tag Archives: word

Canada’s Trudeau promises to do no harm to First Nations, does harm anyway

by HermelindaKauper Posted on August 3, 2016

Canada’s Trudeau promises to do no harm to First Nations, does harm anyway

By on Aug 3, 2016Share

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was expected, by some, to reset his government’s relationship with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, because he claimed his administration “will never impose solutions from the top down.”

Less than a year after assuming office, he’s already broken his word: Instead of working in partnership with indigenous peoples, Trudeau’s government is backing a hydroelectric dam project that will cause unnecessary and irreparable harm.

As DeSmog Canada reports, Trudeau’s government is pushing through permits for the British Columbia dam project, which is contested by the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations. The dam’s own environmental assessment report finds dam would flood surrounding agricultural land and “result in the loss of some important multi-use, cultural areas and valued landscapes.” The losses would be permanent and a violation of treaty.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans told DeSmog Canada that it would take First Nations’ concerns into account — but those concerns mean very little once construction goes forward.

Despite so many promises from Trudeau, indigenous peoples still have to take Canada’s government to court to answer for broken treaties and broken promises.

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Canada’s Trudeau promises to do no harm to First Nations, does harm anyway

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Democrats and Republicans Have Mirror Image Race Problems

by SonWinburn Posted on July 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Sunday, Chuck Todd asked Donald Trump about former KKK grand wizard and famous white nationalist David Duke:

On Tuesday, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman asked about Trump’s reply to Todd:

And here is longtime Republican policy wonk Avik Roy:

“Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble,” Roy says. “We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”

….He expands on this idea: “It’s a common observation on the left, but it’s an observation that a lot of us on the right genuinely believed wasn’t true — which is that conservatism has become, and has been for some time, much more about white identity politics than it has been about conservative political philosophy. I think today, even now, a lot of conservatives have not come to terms with that problem.”

Trump’s politics of aggrieved white nationalism — labeling black people criminals, Latinos rapists, and Muslims terrorists — succeeded because the party’s voting base was made up of the people who once opposed civil rights. “Trump tapped into something that was latent in the Republican Party and conservative movement — but a lot of people in the conservative movement didn’t notice,” Roy concludes, glumly.

The problem for Republicans is simple to describe: it’s not that their leaders are racist, but that they’ve long tolerated racism in their ranks. They know this perfectly well, and they know that they have to broaden their appeal beyond just whites. But they’re stuck. If they do that—say, by supporting comprehensive immigration reform or easing up on opposition to affirmative action—their white base goes ballistic. In the end, they never make the base-broadening moves that they all know they have to make eventually.

For Democrats, the problem is the mirror image. Bashing Donald Trump and his supporters for their white nationalism helps with their base, but it’s the worst possible way to attract working-class whites who might be attracted to traditional Democratic economic messages. Once you say the word “racism,” the conversation is over. Potentially persuadable voters won’t hear another word you say.

As long as this remains the case, Democrats will routinely win the presidency because their non-white base is growing every year. But Republicans will routinely win the House—and sometimes the Senate—because way more than half of all congressional districts are majority white. Result: endless gridlock.

I wish I knew the answer.

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Democrats and Republicans Have Mirror Image Race Problems

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The Marines Are Taking the "Man" out of 19 Job Titles

by BebeHernsheim0 Posted on June 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Marine Corps will rename 19 job titles to make them gender neutral, as the military works to integrate women into more combat roles.

The word “man” will be cut from many of the titles and replaced with the word “Marine,” a Marine Corps spokeswoman confirmed to Mother Jones, adding that an official announcement would be made Friday. Jobs like “basic infantryman” will now be called “basic infantry Marine.”

Some names will remain the same, a Marine official told the Marine Corps Times, which first reported the title changes Monday. “Names that were not changed, like rifleman, are steeped in Marine Corps history and ethos,” the official said.

But that hasn’t appeased some male soldiers. “On one hand, the name changes from ‘man’ to ‘person’ or whatever they want to call it doesn’t really matter. They could call mortarmen bakers for all I care,” Marine rifleman Sgt. Geoff Heath told the Washington Post. “But on the other, it’s a direct reflection on society’s crybaby political correctness.”

The title changes come after the Pentagon last year announced that the military would open all its combat jobs, including in special operations, to women for the first time. Of all the services, the Marine Corps has been the most resistant to integration, releasing a study that found all-male units performed better than mixed-gender units. But Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the study was “not definitive,” and in January this year Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the Marine Corps and Navy to review its job titles and descriptions.

Other military branches may not make similar changes. The Air Force and Army do not plan to revise their gender-specific job titles, officials from both branches confirmed to Mother Jones. “It is important to note the suffix ‘man’ itself is really derived from the word ‘human,'” Army spokesman Wayne V. Hall said. “This is why you still see the Air Force use ‘airman’ for all their personnel, or ‘policeman’ or ‘Congressman’ and even ‘woman.'”

Here’s a list of the Marine Corps title changes, via Stars and Stripes.

Old
New
Basic infantryman
Basic infantry Marine
Riverine assault craft crewman
Riverine assault craft Marine
Light-armor vehicle crewman
Light-armor vehicle Marine
Reconnaissance man
Reconnaissance Marine (to include three other recon-related jobs that include the word “man”)
Infantry assaultman
Infantry assault Marine
Basic field artillery man

Basic field artillery Marine

Field artillery fire control man
Field artillery fire control Marine
Field artillery sensor support man
Field artillery sensor support Marine
Fire support Marine
Fire support Marine
Basic engineer, construction and equipment man
Basic engineer, construction and equipment Marine
Basic tank and assault amphibious vehicle crewman
Basic tank and assault amphibious vehicle Marine
M1A1 tank crewman
Armor Marine
Amphibious assault vehicle crewman
Amphibious assault vehicle Marine
Amphibious combat vehicle crewman
Amphibious combat vehicle Marine
Antitank missileman
Antitank missile gunner
Field artillery operations man
Field artillery operations chief

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The Marines Are Taking the "Man" out of 19 Job Titles

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The Trump Files: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word "Trump"

by SelenaMaria01 Posted on June 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is notoriously protective of his brand, so when he learned in 1988 that a small Georgia-based company was selling business cards dubbed “Trump Cards,” he played a card of his own: he launched a legal war against the firm, Positive Concepts, Ltd., in a bid to get the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel its trademark registration.

Trump’s lawyers claimed PCL deliberately chose the moniker in order “to benefit…from the worldwide fame, distinction and glamour of Donald J. Trump and his ‘TRUMP’ name.”

PCL’s lawyer, Kevin L. Ward, said at the time that the tycoon was trying to create a “trump” monopoly: “Donald Trump simply wants to own the word ‘trump,’ and anybody who wants anything to do with it will have to face Donald Trump. We can’t give up a word in the English language just because somebody has the power and money to do so.”

The battle between the business card-maker and the real estate mogul eventually concluded in true Trumpian fashion—with a deal. In exchange for royalties and the rights to the trademark, Trump dropped his objection, licensed PCL to make the cards, and officially endorsed them, according to reports by the Associated Press.

Ward, the attorney who represented PCL, told Mother Jones that both sides were happy with the result of the settlement. He nevertheless pointed out that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “trump”—referring to a playing card of a suit that outranks the others in the deck—dates back to the 16th century, long before Donald Trump could stake his claim on it.

The former President of PCL, Edward Zito, did not respond to requests for comment.

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The Trump Files: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word "Trump"

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Rubio Makes Fun of Trump for Spelling "Choker" Correctly

by RosemaryCaird5 Posted on February 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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At a campaign rally on Friday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida took out his phone and read from Donald Trump’s Twitter account, hoping to mock the GOP front-runner. Things did not go according to plan.

Rubio made fun of Trump’s spelling of the word “choker”—except that Trump’s tweet, as Rubio read it, spelled the word correctly. “He spelled choker C-H-O-K-E-R,” Rubio said. “Chocker.”

Trump did misspell the word in an earlier tweet, which he deleted.

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Rubio Makes Fun of Trump for Spelling "Choker" Correctly

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How to Tell if You’re Being Scammed by ‘Organic’ Labels

by VirginiBrowder Posted on February 7, 2016

Last month,Consumer Reportscontinued its crusade against the use of the term natural on food labels. The website and magazine has for several years correctly asserted that natural is one of the most misleading and meaningless food labels out thereand yet it’s used on product after product after product.

In a newsurvey of 1,005 shoppers,Consumer Reportsfound that two-thirds of shoppers believe natural means more than it does (note: the termis not even defined by the FDA) and almost half assume natural claims on labels are independently verified.

The meaningless natural label is one thing. But what about organic? Can we be sure that when products are labeled organic, it means they are almost completely pesticide-free?

Not always. Take companies whose name includes the word organics or organics. After the Cornucopia Institute, an organic industry watchdog group, exposeda number of companies who were skirting the qualifications for organic by putting the word in their products’ names, the United States Department of Agricultureattempted to clarify its stance on the matterin late 2014. Unfortunately for us, the USDA didn’t clear up much, saying that it would address potential violators on a case-by-case basis:

While we believe that the term, organic, in a brand name context does not inherently imply an organic production or handling claim and, thus, does not inherently constitute a false or misleading statement, we intend to monitor the use of the term in the context of the entire label. We will consult with the FTC and FDA regarding product and company names that may misrepresent the nature of the product and take action on a case-by-case basis.

Did you catch that? The USDA admits that the use of organic or 100 percent organic on food labels on non-certified products may be misleading, but claims organic in a company name does not imply organic production or handling. As a shopper, isthat how you see it? If most consumers believe natural implies a certain standard of production and handling, how much more is this true for a hyper-specific term like organic?

The best way to know for certain that a product is certified organic is the presence of theUSDA’s organic labelthe gold standard. Before a product can bear it, a government certifier personally inspects the facility, ensuring that no less than 95 percent of ingredients are organic and non-GMO, and that animal products contain no antibiotics or growth hormones.

As for everything else making grand claims or putting organic in the name? Verify, verify, verify.

Written by Steve Holt. Reposted with permission from Thrive Market.

More from Thrive Market:

The Many Health and Beauty Benefits of Raw Honey
The Terrifying New Film About GMOs You Need to See
5 Strange Superfoods that Belong in Your Smoothie

Photo credit: Paul Delmont

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Tell if You’re Being Scammed by ‘Organic’ Labels

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Ben Carson Bible Shames Ted Cruz

by Karine4481 Posted on February 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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Ben Carson warned Christians on Wednesday to beware Ted Cruz as a false prophet.

Well, Carson never quite said those words. But in an extraordinarily passive-aggressive press conference in Washington, DC, this afternoon, called “in response to deceptive Iowa caucus tactics,” Carson told reporters that voters should judge all candidates by the words of Jesus in the Book of Matthew, implicitly calling Cruz out for his involvement in an effort to mislead Iowa caucus voters into thinking Carson had dropped out of the race.

“I make no bones about the fact that I am a person of faith, and I believe it what it says in Matthew 7:20: ‘By their fruit you will know them,'” Carson told reporters. “You know people not by what they say, but by what they do.”

That line is actually the culmination of a longer verse about false prophets who turn out to be wolves:

“15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

But Carson also refused to say he was talking about Cruz.

“I didn’t say a word about Ted Cruz,” Carson told reporters, when asked if he was talking about Cruz. “What I said is what we need to be able to do is look at a person’s life, look at the way a person does things and the way a person treats other people, and make a judgment.”

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Ben Carson Bible Shames Ted Cruz

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Hip Hip Hooray For They!

by MonikaKerr Posted on January 9, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post reports some terrific news:

Singular “they,” the gender-neutral pronoun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 linguists at the American Dialect Society’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday evening.

….The Post’s style guide ratified this usage last month, which caused some grammar pedants to shriek. But as Post copy editor Bill Walsh explained, the singular they is “the only sensible solution to English’s lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun.”

OK, so we can now say:

I talked to Pat, and they said the sofa was on its way.
Pat said their sofa had been promised for tomorrow.
Pat came over, and I talked to them about when the sofa would arrive.

Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it? But I’m all for it. I will celebrate the day when gendered pronouns are gone for good.

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Hip Hip Hooray For They!

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How to Protect Your Photos and Files from Natural Disasters

by RozellaMccune Posted on January 4, 2016

If your home is unexpectedly hit by fire, floods, a hurricane, a tornado or even a crashing tree, will your photos and important papers be safe?

If you take some smart precautions before disaster strikes, you can minimize your losses and save yourself a lot of worry, too. Here’s what to do:

1) Digitize photographs. If you still maintainphoto albums that are important to you, be forewarned that they are heavy, bulky and if you have a lot of them, probably too voluminous to move quickly. If you don’t have time to evacuate before a disaster hits, you could lose them all. The solution is to digitize your photos while you have the time and peace of mind to do so. Get an inexpensive scanner and set it up next to your computer screen. Go through your albums, but don’t scan every single image. Most albums show multiple pictures from the same scene. Pick one or two that are most representative, scan those, then file them into folders you can easily sort through and retrieve. The initial scanning process will take time, but once it’s done, you will breathe easier knowing your photos are secure. You can also create a list in Word or other word processing file to remind yourself what pictures are where.

2) Digitize documents. Scan insurance policies, last wills and testaments, passports, bank records, birth certificates, your mortgage and any other documents you wouldn’t want to lose in the event a natural disaster occurs.

3) Set up a back-up hard drive. I have an external hard drive that constantly backs up my files. When I scan a photo, it not only goes to a file on my laptop, it also ends up on the backed-up hard drive. The hard drive is light and portable, so in the event of a disaster, I could easily carry it as well as my laptop out of the house. NOTE: Some people back up to thumb drives, and of course, this works and is better than nothing. But I have a tendency to lose thumb drives or get them confused. The hard drive keeps everything in one place and nicely organized.

4) Back up to “the cloud.” Even though I have a back-up hard drive in my home, I also back up my computer constantly to a secure file in the internet cloud. I had this lesson reinforced a couple of years ago, before I had my own external hard drive back up. I decided I would back up everything to the cloud “just in case.” The day after the back-up was complete, a massive electrical storm in my area completely fried my computer. When I replaced the computer, the backup files were easily re-installed from my file in the cloud, with nothing lost. Companies like Carbonite.com offer good cloud back-up services.

5) Store original documents in a safety deposit box or in a fire-proof bank vault. If you have original documents at home, even after you’ve scanned them, you might want to secure them in a secure safety deposit box in a safe place ora fire-proof bank vault. If you had a lawyer draw up your will, or you have a financial adviser who helps with investments, both of them should also have copies of these documents; check to make sure they’re taking proper precautions.

6) Use the photo back-up options available on your phone. I have an Android phone, so the photos I take on my phone frequently and automatically back up to my Google photos folder. You can do the same on a Mac. By the way, using this feature is also handy in the event your phone is stolen.

7) Store documents and photos on your second floor or higher, if you have one. This is an especially good precaution if you live in an area that is prone to flooding.

8) Identify the most valuable documents, images, files and records to protect, recommends Polygon. Most of us have far more files than we need. Know which ones you need to keep, and which ones aren’t of primary importance. Winnowing out the extras has an added bonus: it will reduce clutter.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security offers useful guidance on how to prepare for natural disasters generally here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Protect Your Photos and Files from Natural Disasters

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Here’s Barack Obama’s Newest Plan to Fight Climate Change

by LarueM834422536 Posted on October 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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The White House launched a new Twitter handle devoted to climate change Tuesday afternoon. The stream, called @FactsOnClimate, claims to provide “the facts on how is combating climate change in the U.S. and mobilizing the world to .”

The first three tweets highlight the most important pieces of President Barack Obama’s climate legacy: His signature plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and his stated commitment to reaching an international agreement on climate action in Paris this winter.

As Obama has made climate action a priority during his second term, his administration has doubled down on slick digital content to get the word out. There’s a nice basic website, an immersive interactive portal to explore the science, Facebook videos, essays on Medium, and now this.

The Paris talks, where the US delegation is expected to support a commitment to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025 (compared to 2005 levels), are coming up in just over a month. Heads of state from around the globe are expected to drop in for the first day of the talks; on Monday, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters they “could certainly count Obama among the leaders who’s considering traveling to Paris.”

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Here’s Barack Obama’s Newest Plan to Fight Climate Change

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