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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Friday, May 17, 2013

Stocks edge higher in early trading on Wall Street

May 15 (Reuters) - Post positions for the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes, to be run at Pimlico on Saturday (Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds) 1. Orb, Joel Rosario, Shug McGaughey, even 2. Goldencents, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill, 8-1 3. Titletown Five, Julien Leparoux, D. Wayne Lukas, 30-1 4. Departing, Brian Hernandez, Al Stall, 6-1 5. Mylute, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss, 5-1 6. Oxbow, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas, 15-1 7. Will Take Charge, Mike Smith, D. Wayne Lukas, 12-1 8. Govenor Charlie, Martin Garcia, Bob Baffert, 12-1 9. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-edge-higher-early-trading-wall-street-144341429--finance.html

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Good Reads: Oil's future, wealth in Africa, 'Occupy' failure, progress in Mexico, and the Tsarnaevs

This week?s round-up of Good Reads includes the question "What if we never run out of oil?", a profile of African wealth divides, the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement's?failure to leave a lasting imprint, and a profile of the Tsarnaev family.

By Marshall Ingwerson,?Managing editor / May 7, 2013

A protester at an ?Occupy Denver? rally in Denver, Colo., in November 2011.

Nathan W. Armes/Reuters/File

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It?s increasingly possible that the world may never run out of fossil fuel. The cheap and plentiful natural gas that fracking has brought to your local pipelines may be just a precursor to a much larger and more global reserve stored as methane hydrate ? basically frozen natural gas ? in vast volumes in the world?s seabeds.

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Wealth doesn?t always end poverty

Oil and gas often lead to the so-called resource curse, whereby countries blessed by the revenue that comes out of their ground ? whether oil, diamonds, or manganese ? find both their economies and politics stunted and narrowed by the single-source wealth. A World Bank study of Africa adds a couple of new brush strokes to that picture. Not surprisingly, resource-rich countries such as Nigeria and Gabon have grown 2.2 times faster than resource-poor countries since 1996. Yet, counterintuitively, poverty declined by 16 percentage points in resource-poor countries such as Rwanda and Ethiopia, compared with only seven percentage points in resource-rich ones. The upshot: Oil and mineral wealth brings growth, but doesn?t spread it very far.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/58tnNdvZ3iA/Good-Reads-Oil-s-future-wealth-in-Africa-Occupy-failure-progress-in-Mexico-and-the-Tsarnaevs

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Giving Homeless Abercrombie & Fitch Gear After CFO 'Cool Kid' Scandal Won't Help, Activists Say

By Jamie Utt, The Good Men Project

The internet is in agreement: Fuck Abercrombie & Fitch.

The collective outrage has produced some fantastic responses. My favorite comes from Amy Taylor who proclaims:

?I am proud to say that I may be a not-so-cool kid and the extra pounds I carry may not be a thing of beauty, but I am nothing like you or your brand -- and that, Mr. Jeffries, is a beautiful thing.?

But inevitably, as is par for the course on the interwebs, there are going to be some responses that are less than fantastic, that despite good intentions, actually end up furthering oppression rather than combating it.

Enter the #FitchTheHomeless campaign.

Related story: Dear Mr. Jeffries - An Open Letter From an 'Uncool Kid'

I?ve seen a number of people posting this on Facebook and Twitter with captions like, ?Awesome!? and ?Perfect.? and ?Brilliant!!?

But when a friend posted it to my timeline asking for my thoughts, I immediately was left with a pretty terrible taste in my mouth.

This ?campaign? is neither ?Awesome!? nor ?Perfect.? or ?Brilliant!? And here?s why:

While I am sure the creator had good intentions (?I can humiliate Abercrombie & Fitch while helping people in need!!!?), what it ends up doing is using people experiencing homelessness as pawns to make a political statement.

And that?s really not okay.

Setting aside the immature digs at the physical appearance of Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries, the essential premise of the video seems to be:

Abercrombie & Fitch wants only ?attractive? people to wear their clothes, so let?s rebrand them by putting the ickiest people in their clothes that we possibly can, and who?s ickier than homeless people!?!?

So the White man who created the video puts on his White Savior cape, buys up a bunch of second-hand Abercrombie merch, and heads to a community this is, in every respect, not his space to invade: Skid Row.

Skid Row and Gentrification

The narrator/creator is right in asserting that Skid Row has ?one of the largest concentrations of homeless people? in the U.S., a reality that is a direct result of policies by local authorities that attempted to concentrate the city?s entire homeless population into one area with few resources and services.

But what he ignores is that he?s not the only (seemingly) wealth-privileged White dude going into Skid Row. It is the site of some pretty intense gentrification. And while the influx of capital will indeed mean some new services for the area?s transient and homeless population, it will also undoubtedly mean that many homeless people are scattered to other parts of the city without much support.

So let?s be clear: when the narrator says, ?at first, people were reluctant to accept the clothing? (before making a joke that all people who wear Abercrombie & Fitch are ?narcissistic date rapists? ? hilarious!), it likely has nothing to do with his little crusade.

It?s much more likely rooted in a healthy distrust of White Saviors who have long come to the neighborhood to do feel-good charity or in a resentment of the White money that is transforming Skid Row.

Charity vs Justice

And then there?s our White Savior friend?s statement of, ?It was time to do some charity.?

An incredible friend, ally, and social justice activist named Cheryl Clark offers trainings for social service non-profits aimed at helping them understand exactly why charity is not what they should be striving for. In short, she helps these social service agencies recognize that charity stems from a place of paternalism ?-?I know what you need, so I am going to give it to you whether or not you actually need it.?

As an alternative, she offers a model that she calls ?neighboring,? whereby the non-profit empowers community leaders from the population being ?served? to dictate the direction, scope, and nature of service while engaging non-profit staff and volunteers in building relationships and investing themselves in the community.
Her point is that charity is, despite popular ?wisdom,? not in fact a good thing. It is paternalism based in privilege, and it tends to further oppression rather than helping create justice.

So, Mr. #FitchTheHomeless, what the folks in Skid Row need is not your charity. In fact, neither you or I could ever say what they need. Only the folks in Skid Row can make that determination.

So PLEASE do not encourage well-meaning folks of race and class privilege to charge into homeless peoples? spaces with their Abercrombie & Fitch gear. If you want to donate some clothes, at least do so through accountable organizations that have done the work to build accountable relationships among people experiencing homelessness.

Dehumanization of People Experiencing Homelessness

But what really bothers me about the video, though, is not the paternalism or the blatant expressions of race and class privilege described above.

What bothers me is the way that this #FitchTheHomeless campaign contributes to dehumanization of people who are experiencing homelessness.

If you notice, nowhere in the video do we hear the stories or voices of the people the narrator claims to serve. In fact, we see quite the opposite: quickly changing images of people who seem to fit common stereotypes of what homelessness looks like.

And aside from not really helping anyone, the creator of the #FitchTheHomeless campaign uses people experiencing homelessness as tools, pawns in his socio-political campaign against a wealthy corporation that?s run by an asshole.

And when people are reduced to tools for your campaign, there?s a word for that: dehumanization.
A few companies recently have been criticized for hiring homeless people to carry devices that emit a wireless internet signal. In the words of this ABC news report, stated without irony, ?The company turned homeless people on the streets of Austin into wireless hotspots.?

Did you catch that? The folks who were hired were transformed from being homeless PEOPLE to being objects ? devices for public consumption.

And this #FitchTheHomeless campaign is not really any different. It communicates two things:

Homeless people are tools that we can use for our funny viral campaign against a corporation AND
Homeless people are the opposite of ?attractive? and ?cool.?

They are the, in fact, the single most dehumanized and othered population in the United States, so they are perfect for making our political point.

And this happens within the context that the most people do not even cognitively recognize people who are experiencing homelessness as human beings. And that is not hyperbole. Collaborative research from Duke and Princeton found that when presented with images of ?homeless people,? the Medial Prefrontal Cortex ? the section of the brain that lights up when we recognize other human beings ? does not light up.

Yup ? Your brain and mine are not even recognizing ?homeless people? as people!!!

And this dehumanizing campaign DOES. NOT. HELP.

So, Mr. #FitchTheHomeless, Stop.

And to the rest of my readers out there, if you?re considering participating in this little game, Don?t.

This post was reprinted with permission from The Good Men Project, in partnership with Change From Within.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/abercrombie-fitch-homeless_n_3293624.html

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Go Fish (Somewhere Else): Warming Oceans Are Altering Catches

Crew members unload a catch of sockeye salmon at Craig, Alaska, in 2005. Researchers say fish are being found in new areas because of changing ocean temperatures.

Melissa Farlow/National Geographic/Getty Images

Crew members unload a catch of sockeye salmon at Craig, Alaska, in 2005. Researchers say fish are being found in new areas because of changing ocean temperatures.

Melissa Farlow/National Geographic/Getty Images

Climate change is gradually altering the fish that end up on ice in seafood counters around the world, according to a new study.

"The composition of the [global] fish catch includes more and more fish from the warmer areas, and cold-water fish are getting more rare, because the temperatures are increasing," says Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia, a co-author of the study.

As oceans warm ? a result of climate change ? fish maintain their preferred water temperature by moving away from the equator and toward the poles.

So, for example, people in Denmark are now encountering swordfish, which you'd normally find in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Africa.

"In British Columbia, where I live, we have Humboldt squid, giant squid from Mexico," Pauly says. "They eat all the herrings and stuff, and people don't know them. They are stranded on the beach, and people think they are sea monsters."

And fishermen have scuffled over Atlantic mackerel quotas, as the fish moves north to new grounds around Iceland.

The new study in Nature shows these anecdotes aren't simply a fluke. Data from fish catches from around the world show it's happening everywhere the ocean is warming ? which is just about everywhere.

This trend isn't obvious at American fish counters. That's because 80 percent of our seafood is imported, and we don't know whether fishermen are catching our swordfish in the tropics or the North Atlantic. Also, half of all seafood is now produced in enclosures ? not caught in the wild.

But if it's invisible to us, that's not the case for many people who rely on their local fisherman for protein.

"In the tropics, there are lots of developing countries' fisheries where their ability to adapt to changes in the resources is much lower," says William Cheung, the report's lead author. Like Pauly, he's at the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Center in Vancouver.

The paper documents a migration of some species out of the tropics, as they seek cooler waters. But there are no fish to replace the ones that are leaving. As a result, "these fisheries in the tropics will be most vulnerable to climate change impacts," Cheung says.

The United States will gradually feel the effects as well.

"Imagine a reef fish that is driven by temperature into North Carolina or the Delaware coast," Pauly says. "That reef fish will not find reefs. It's like you having to move, but you cannot take your furniture with you, or your house. That is the problem."

Many fish will have a hard time adapting to this very rapid change, he says.

Mark Payne at the National Institute for Aquatic Resources in Denmark was not involved in the research, but he's impressed by the result.

"This is suddenly a wake-up call," he says. "It's a strong suggestion that climate change is here. It's real, and it's really starting to affect what we catch and, therefore, what we eat."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/15/183968378/go-fish-somewhere-else-warming-oceans-are-altering-catches?ft=1&f=1007

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No new EA games in development for Wii U, company reveals

Earlier this month, EA DICE's Johan Andersson dropped a major bomb: Frostbite 3 won't be ported to the Wii U. The news meant that the company's next-gen franchises were doomed to skip the console: No Battlefield 4, no Star Wars games, no Mass Effect spin-off. Now, EA's Jeff Brown is saying the same fate applies to all of the company's titles, telling Kotaku that the company has "no games in development for the Wii U currently."

The confirmation isn't too surprising, but it is a crushing blow to fans who were banking on EA's 2011 promise to support the console. Although Brown wouldn't rule out the possibility of the company returning to the platform, Kotaku was told that EA feels it fulfilled that promise by releasing games like Mass Effect 3 and Need For Speed Most Wanted during the Wii U's formative months. Despite the loss of third party support, Nintendo has previously urged gamers to be patient. After all, E3 is just around the corner.

Filed under: Gaming

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Source: Kotaku

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/F9v53m8nycE/

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OLPC XO Tablet final version hands-on (video)

The XO Tablet that One Laptop Per Child was shuttling around the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center at CES back in January wasn't quite the final version of the company's first consumer-facing device. Now, a few weeks out from its official June 1st online availability, OLPC's finally got its hands on the shipping product. It's designed by Vivitar, a price-conscious manufacturer hand-picked by retail partner Walmart, marking the first time that the educational company didn't have a direct hand in the creation of its hardware, a big change from the custom components that have traditionally gone into its XO line.

OLPC's made some tweaks to the software, which runs atop of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, taking more advantage of the swipe functionality while navigating through its "I Want to Be An..." UI, which builds the child's experience around dream jobs like astronaut, artist and doctor. It's a super simplified interface built with an even younger target audience in mind than its XO laptops (ages 3 and up, according to the company). The tablet will come pre-loaded with 200 apps (100 in English and 100 in Spanish) and 200 books (also 100 English, 100 Spanish), including selections from content partners like Sesame Street and Oxford University Press. The idea is to offer up enough content so the child can be sufficiently entertained / educated even when not online.

Gallery: OLPC XO Tablet final version hands-on