Basic liberal assumptions to remember

02apr20 26mar20 07dez2018

"Much of America still lives in the dark ages,

bound to their conspiracies,

unable to account for basic liberal assumptions:

     women are equal citizens,

     science is real,

    doctors aren’t trying to kill you,

    the news isn’t always lying,

    races can co-exist,

    school is important,

    government can do more good than bad,

     etc." 

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/07/the-case-for-chuck-mertz-not-noam-chomsky-as-americas-leading-intellectual/

Filmes Indicados por Tema

Autismo

Uma viagem inesperada (Filme) 

The good doctor (Série)

daily meditation could slow brain aging

02/04/20 26-23mar2020

Study suggests daily meditation slows brain aging by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress

Researchers scanned [Budhist Monk] Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's brain

via an MRI machine four times over the past 14 years.

Over the same period, the researchers also obtained MRI brain scans of a control group consisting of 105 other adults from the local area who were near in age to Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.

The researchers then submitted all of the brain scans to an AI system called the Brain Age Gap Estimation (BrainAge) framework. It had been taught to make

educated guesses of a person's age by looking at brain scans.

It does its work by noting the structure of gray matter in the brain, which lessens in mass as a person ages.

The BrainAge system estimated Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's age to be 33 [while he actual age was 41];

others in the control group fell into what the team described as the "typical aging band."

The researchers interpreted this result as evidence of his brain aging at a slower rate than the control group.

The researchers note that the BrainAge system did find some parts of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's brain that had aged in ways similar to the control group, suggesting that

brain aging differences between individuals may be due to coordinated changes throughout a person's gray matter.

They also noted that they had found evidence showing that Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's brain

     had matured earlier

     than the brains of the others in the control group.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-daily-meditation-brain-aging.html

>8000 step a day could lower risk of early death, study finds

02apr20 26-24mar2020 

compared with taking 4,000 steps per day,

taking 8,000 steps per day was associated with about a 50% lower risk of death and

taking 12,000 steps per day was associated with a 65% lower risk of death.

By contrast the team found no link between

     mortality and the intensity of steps

     – explored by looking at steps per minute – once the total number of steps taken was considered.

step monitoring in more than 4,800 adults aged 40 or over has shown that higher step counts are associated with a lower chance of death from any cause over a 10-year period. What is more, it seems individuals do not need to hit 10,000 steps a day to start seeing a benefit.

By contrast, taking 2,000 steps per day was linked to a 50% greater risk of death than hitting 4,000 steps per day, with 21.7 deaths per 1,000 adults per year compared with 14.4 deaths per 1,000 adults per year respectively.

Further analysing showed higher step counts were also associated with a lower risk of death from

cardiovascular disease and

cancer.

However, the study has limitations, including that

it cannot prove that the increased walking is the cause of a reduced risk of death, while

participants’ data on their health and lifestyle

was only collected at one point in time and by self-report,

and activity was only monitored over one week.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/24/higher-step-counts-could-lower-risk-early-death-study-finds

Speech recognition racial bias

02apr20 26-24mar2020

On average, the systems misunderstood

     35 percent of the words spoken by blacks but only

     19 percent of those spoken by whites.

Automated speech recognition less accurate for blacks: study

All five speech recognition technologies had error rates that were almost twice as high for blacks as for whites—even

when the speakers were matched by gender and age and

when they spoke the same words.

Error rates were highest for African American men, and the disparity was higher among speakers who made heavier use of African American Vernacular English.

Hidden bias

The researchers speculate that the disparities common to all five technologies stem from a common flaw—the machine learning systems used to train speech recognition systems likely rely heavily on databases of English as spoken by white Americans. A more equitable approach would be to

include databases that reflect a greater diversity of the accents and dialects of other English speakers.

While the study focused exclusively on disparities between black and white Americans, similar problems could affect people who speak with

• regional and
• non-native-English accents,

the researchers concluded.

If not addressed, this translational imbalance could have serious consequences for people's careers and even lives.

• Many companies now screen job applicants with automated online interviews that employ speech recognition.
• Courts use the technology to help transcribe hearings.
• For people who can't use their hands, moreover, speech recognition is crucial for accessing computers.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-automated-speech-recognition-accurate-blacks.html

Coronavirus: what engineers could do?

02apr2020  26mar2020

... put a virologist, a social scientist and an engineer in the same room (or videoconference), and new ideas to delay transmission and safely allow wider elements of day-to-day life continue could emerge.

No country, has managed to deploy engineering solutions in a way that also helps day-to-day life continue in some safe way (in coronatimes). 

When you look at the potential that engineering can bring to this in

• a public health (preventive) rather than
• a medical (restorative) setting,

it shows how much we're actually missing.

SAGE for coronavirus comprises two groups,

one which draws on the epidemiology of historic pandemic flu,

and one that focuses on the social science of public health. These groups feature experts across medicine, epidemiology and social sciences only.

But engineers? Not likely, it seems. There are no dams here to fix … or are there? Clearly the infection needs to be contained, and allowed to trickle out in a controlled flow in order for the whole system to be managed safely into a less critical state.

That sounds like an engineering challenge to me.

When we look at which countries have done relatively well in tackling the virus, there are signs of (computer) engineering at work. In South Korea it is reported that an app—Corona 100m—helped mobilise crowdsourced information on infections, both possible and actual. In China, part of the "effectiveness" in containing the deaths from the virus is reportedly due to the rapid construction of new hospitals. No country, however, has managed to deploy engineering solutions in a way that also helps day-to-day life continue in some safe way.

Ultimately, we need to design creative, workable and effective responses that better balance protection from the virus with disruption to daily life. Instead, we have scientists with fantastically deep knowledge about the biology and epidemiology of viruses, and maybe about the cognitive tricks that lean us towards doing one action over another.

What engineers could do

Let's pause for a moment and think about what could have been done to help slow the spread of COVID-19, without also shutting down the whole of society, with potentially huge, long-term economic and social consequences.

If virologists can give some insight into the main sources of transmission, could engineers design specific, deployable responses to that?

I'm not an engineer or a virologist, but I study how science, technology and engineering can be used in policy to change the world for the better. So while I don't have the answers, I can start the ball rolling.

What about focusing on the mass production and distribution of on-street hand sanitizer, or gloves treated with new, safe anti-viral coatings?

There may also be new ways of opening doors without grabbing the handle, or indeed pressing lift buttons.

Could we design better protective infrastructure for shop workers facing customers at tills?

What about bring-your-own trolley handles?

Or new kinds of easy-to-make and deploy protective face gear for the elderly and vulnerable?

Engineering solutions would have been especially effective early on during the outbreak, before measures like lockdown were introduced. But even during lockdown, they could help minimize the spread of the virus in the parts of society that are still open, such as banks and supermarkets.

Sat here on my own, I can't solve the problem, but put a virologist, a social scientist and an engineer in the same room (or videoconference), and new ideas to delay transmission and safely allow wider elements of day-to-day life continue could emerge.

When you look at the potential that engineering can bring to this in

• a public health (preventive) rather than
• a medical (restorative) setting,

it shows how much we're actually missing. It may be that these particular (disinfectant) solutions are not workable at scale, but the point is that engineers could probably come up with other design solutions that would work. It's their job.

The problem is, often social scientists just don't speak to or mix with engineers very much. It's a deep-rooted problem, like two parts of a family that fell out years ago over some obscure argument that nobody remembers, but everyone repeats.

I work at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy department at University College London. We see it as part of our mission to bring scientists and engineers together so everyone can benefit. The coronavirus case study shows now more than ever how much we need that kind of collaboration.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-coronavirus-scientists-solutions.html

Inequality Regimes

02ap2020 26mar20

“Thomas Piketty Takes On the Ideology of Inequality”

‘Every human society must justify its inequalities,’ the book begins. 

What follows is a comprehensive investigation of how different societies have done precisely that, 

ranging through what the book terms various ‘inequality regimes.'”

The tendency in economics now—as well as in a great deal of public discussion—is to

view the economy as a natural force,

existing independently from our ideas about what it is and how it ought to work.

This book systematically demolishes that self-serving conceit by charting in extensive detail

how differently it has operated at different periods of time, and

how its operation is conditioned by the ideologies with which it co-develops.

‘The market and competition,

profits and wages,

capital and debt,

skilled and unskilled workers,

natives and aliens,

tax havens and competitiveness—

none of these things exist as such,’ Piketty insists.

‘All are social and historical constructs’ that ‘depend entirely’ on the ‘systems that people choose to adopt and the conceptual definitions they choose to work with.’…

An exhaustive assessment of Capital and Ideology would require more space and expertise than I have, but the basic contours of the book are easy enough to describe.

“Thomas Piketty Takes On the Ideology of Inequality” [Marshall Steinbaum, Boston Review].

Leituras pendentes 01apr2020

Desemprego estimulado

29/03/2020
24/08/2018

Inverter a espiral de desinvestimento e de desemprego avassalador: é necessário lembrar todo dia que esse desemprego foi programado.

Isso, ainda mais, depois de péssimas notícias, na área de economia, em relação ao desemprego recorde de:
- + de 11 milhões de desempregados;
- sobretudo chef@s de família;jovens;
Situação que só deve se agravar com a expansão da pandemia do Coronavirus.

Já dizia Manu d'Ávila, em 2018

''as medidas anticrise do desgoverno Temer exterminaram com o mercado de trabalho".

Eu digo, mais especificamente, que  "exterminam os trabalhadores e outros precarizados".

Já que os trabalhadores estão cada vez mais:
desalentados de procurar trabalhos.

E aqueles poucos que conseguem serviço,  encontram condições cada vez mais precarizadas com, entre outros aspectos:
- o avanço do trabalho informal;
-  a terceirização irrestrita, inclusive de atividades fins.
- uberização;

O "precariado" ( conceito de Jessé de Souza) precisa estar consciente de que seu  extermínio e degradação são  programados.

Nessa conjuntura devastadora de mais de 11% de desempregados no Brasil, como não me lembrar de que até  2013, o Brasil vivia com desemprego, pelo menos oficial, de menos de 5%.

Lembro-me ainda mais de economistas neoliberais decretarem todo dia  a necessidade de:

- aumentar o desemprego para diminuir o custo da mão de obra.

Você se lembra disso?

comente por favor:
o que pode ser feito para mudar essa desgraça?

robot advisers site crash

29/04/2020
05/01/2018
"The web sites of two of the country’s biggest robo-advisers -- Wealthfront Inc. and Betterment LLC -- crashed as the S&P 500 Index sank 4.1 percent. Complaints quickly spread across Reddit and other Internet sites from people who had trouble logging onto their accounts. "

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-05/robo-adviser-websites-crashed-cutting-clients-off-from-accounts

By

Peggy Collins

Updated on June 6, 2017 3:05 PM BR (Sao Paulo)

As a society, we’ve decided we trust robots to weld our cars together but we’re not ready to let them drive. How about investing our savings? Automated financial services, known as robo-advisers, are software programs that use algorithms to do what flesh-and-blood financial advisers do, but at a far lower cost. The startups that launched the industry said the rise of robo-advisers would both disrupt the $20 trillion field and give millions of investors access to the kind of smarts only the well-to-do have been able to afford. It’s not yet clear whether robo-advisers can outperform their human counterparts on anything other than price — no small matter. Either way, the big players in the field have decided the idea has enough promise for them to try to beat the newbies at their own game.
(...)
Morgan Stanley is augmenting its 16,000 financial advisers with machine-learning algorithms that suggest trades, take over routine tasks and send reminders when your birthday is near.
(...)
Many American investors have turned to advisers who charge a flat fee, most commonly 1 percent of a client’s assets under management. In general, traditional advisers only serve customers with significant savings, often at least $250,000, or in some cases millions. Betterment has no minimum; Wealthfront’s is $500. Online, potential clients answer a few questions about things like their age, salary and financial goals. Computer algorithms then propose one of several cookie-cutter portfolios — such as 40 percent in stocks and 60 percent in bonds for someone who said their first priority is having a safety net. The services usually use a range of exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, which invest in stocks, bonds and other assets such as
natural resources and
corporate debt.
The programs periodically buy and sell securities to keep the mix matched to investors’ risk tolerance.
https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/robo-advisers

class of plan - 1st bim - 2nd theme - career plan

review: 1st theme (with 6wh questions)
forgetting curve - review - 1;7;30;60 days

(a) class orientation: Providing the objectives for which a specific task/lesson/series of lessons take(s) place

- a) oral drill, filling mindmap - 10 minutes
- b) written text explanation - 10 minutes
- c) reading about theme text (reading strategy) or oral presentation or ENEM Question - 10 minutes
- d) lyrics or poem (6whq) - 10 minutes

(b) class structure: Outlining the content to be covered
(c) class structure: signalling transitions between lesson parts

Oral Drill

work in pairs: ask your closest colleague:
"what is your chosen job?"
"which are +  aspects of it? (while, but,)
[work memory: < =7 items at a time]
"which are - characteristics of it ?
(while, but,)
"how much money will you get, at the beginning"  and
"who will help you get there?"
"what will you/they/it do for help you?
"how will ----- do it?"
"why will this help?"

new questions: 2 per class / asked for 5 students
review: earlier classes questions asked for 2 or 3 students, dependent of class level

scaffolding example

scaffolding - per class or per theme (??)
1st theme-
Teacher ask 5 st: "what is you chosen job?"

2nd theme
a) Teacher asks for Student one: "What is your chosen job?"
b) Student one ask students two: "What is your chosen job?" - st2 ask st3; st3 ask st4; st4 ask st5

3rd theme
a) teacher ask student 1: What is your chosen job?
b) Student 2 ask st3 about st1 chosen job: "St3, What is S1 (his/her) chosen job?"
c) teacher ask st4: What is your chosen job?
d) S5 ask st6 about st4 chosen job: "St6, What is St4 chosen job?"

Answers according to students level:
basic: keyword answer;
intermediate: longer modelled answer;
advanced: free speech possible answers

Student one: enginering/ My chosen career is ------'.
  I don't know.
           I am shy (inference).
           I don't want to participate, because...
           He or She do not know yet
           He or She did not do the exercise! (Don't want to be a snitch)  (tattletalle, snitch, informant, grass, mole, spy)

presentation and written text (intersection of 3 circles)
      -    learning ( learning, strategies and focus)
      -    job choice (career, competition and education)
      -   robots and AI ( tech revolution, robots, ethics)
       -  work and robots ( robots, work, and education)
       -  career's planning (

Written Text modeling structure:

- introduction: What
- Dev 1: Why
- Dev 2: Which were +-,
- Conclusion: intervention proposal: who could/would; what could/should/must; how could/should/must/ought;

Conversation:

two questions added per class (10 first minutes)

(ask to five students, mainly at the backbench)

- What is your dream job?
- Why do you want to work at this job?
- Which are some positive and some negative aspects about this job? ( so much labor)
- How much money will you probably get, annually, at the -------- of your career, according to your job? (beginning; middle; ending)
- Who can do something to improve your chances at getting this job? (you, your family, the school, the government)
- What do _____ can do?
- How do ------ can help?
- Which are another things ------- can do?
- Which effects are expected?

          class planning

a 1 - 1 lirics  per week; poem per week, ENEM question ( next week music: at facebook - students share choices with links at specific thread and the most voted will be your translated and  listened))

ENEM Question - multiple choice question per class

English Enem or 2019 Enem various subjects translated to English

A2 - 1st reading together in english, 3nd translating together, ask questions about text)

b1 – Written text

one written text each 4 classes - 1 part per class

(introduction [what; who; when; where];

dev1: why - causes [conjunctural, underlying, structural];

dev2: which - consequence [short; middle; long term];

conclusion: intervention - how to deal - (who- what - how - which effects; local - regional - global)

middle (reading activity)

c1- reading a written thematic text per class (wh q&a; causes and consequences; intervention proposal

deepening a learning strategies  (1 study/reading/written  strategy per bi-weekly subject)(pre-view tittle, source, skimming, scanning, textual genre, contradiction, incoherence, phrasal topic) - see core standards gradation)

Reading  Cartoons or graphics (main subject - specific information) - Wh-question

C2 - Oral presentation - each student different presentation - (1 coordenator-organizer):

- presenting (presentation moderator),

writing text (dissertative;)

- debating ( 2 people)

- visualizing (2 people);(6wh mind map, drawing)

performing (dance; theater)

creating (ludic activity; play) narrative; poem

verbalizing - free speech about subject; pedagogical

ENDING class (oral practice)

D1 - oral Wh questions about subject of the week (given at the last class - flipped classroom;  fill blackboard mindmap - Oral practice

a2 - drill and conversation  practice including at least two wh-question per class (pair work? )

- visualize the question while your classmates ask them?

Answers =Extending thinking time (from 3 to 5 sec)

- beginner - only key words
- intermediate - complete answer
- advanced - complete answer and related example

a3a- wh-questions alternate close and open questions -

(what [who; where;when];

why [i-u-b];

which [s-m-l]  (+|- but - adjectives);

how [l-r-g]) (who [individual, collective, institution, government], what, how, details, which effects)

about bi-weekly theme -

a3b - begin with "what" and each class add two other wh-q

10 students asked per each class (remember: 4 classes per sub-theme)

A4- next class question [what; why; which; or how] flipped classroom

End class

- question  to think while listening: what is the main subject? (without answer)

- listen to music and following worksheet

- translating together

- read together in English

- answering question

  (most listened on vagalume or spotify or billboard)

(https://www.billboard.com/charts/streaming-songs)

D3 - read -Last week top trending topic from Google

D 4 - 1 series or movie plot (most watched on Netflix) (https://reelgood.com/) - subtitles

D5  - 1 book first paragraphs

February - (learning and writing strategies)

March - career choice ang main invention in chosen field

april -robots; artificial intelligenge s; cellphone)

2nd bimester (table of intervention)

may -  cultural diversity - graphite and cinema (stereotypes and representation)

June - (Internet and social media problems; cyberbullying; fake news; game addiction;

3rd bimester (three cicles intersection's area)

august   - water (lack, contamination: urban; agriculture and pesticides)

September - beauty patterns; food problems; suicide

September  - greatest inventions and tech revolution (greatest inventions; cars; vaccines - antivaxx; computer; cellphone

4th bimester

- Outubro até Enem

        - learning strategies review

          1 question Enem per class)

November

climate change (anthropogenics and consensus; causes (industrialization/); consequences; intervention)

questions for evaluating

exercise - open questions

rec. paralela - open and multiple (closed)

provao  - multiple choice

questions structure

a)  subject of the text  (specific as main)

b) causes (basic,  immediate,  or underlying) (March )

c) consequences  (long term, short, or middle) ( April)

d) how to deal (individual, collective, or institutional)  (may)

questions main subject of the text

a) specific info

b) main

c) contraction with specific info

d) not related or inferences (irrational, or illogical)

- Utilizando questões do Enem para prática
-  exercício avaliativo nos dias 5 e 6/11
- simulados e correções de últimas quatro provas do Enem.

Novembro pós-enem - Reading and study strategies - going deep

Writing

  4 texts

        Learning strategies

         Learning styles

        Evaluation strategies

        Reading strategies

         Writing strategies

oral presentation

demonstrate their learning, which can include:

verbalizing,

visualizing,

writing,

performing,

presenting,

debating, and

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers

Oral presentation

         Presentation a text about learning

   Choose a theme and a textual genre

Exercício (alternativa)

-    Dois exercícios - nota média aritmética dos dois
- Dois exercícios, cada um valendo 4 ponto
- Osegundo servindo como
-           2nd chamada para quem perdeu
-            recuperação paralela para quem não conseguiu média

revisão Enem

A- Graffiti and contestation: social and class relations

B- Media and beauty patterns: anorexia and bulimia

Marketing and consumerism:

C- Social media and post-truth discourse: antivaxx

Internet forums and anti-science discourse

D- Movies and representation: racism

Cinema and gender representation

- Education: homeschooling and social segregation

Career

o consumismo,

o desperdício e

a obsolescência programada.

arts

cinema and representation

social medias and hate speech

graffiti and

internet e pós-verdade e discurso anticiência

         movimento antivacina

         terraplanistas

         theory of evolution and criacionism

Discurso de ódio na internet

           antifeminismo

           racismo - anti-cotas

escola

      - alfabetização e Letramento digital: com melhorar os processos de aprendizagem

      - educação domiciliar  (homeschooling)

      - Evasão Escolar

      -  violências na escola

                  (física, psicológica,

                    bullying, intelectual )

     -  escola cívico-militar

youth

       - redução da maioridade penal

       - weapons acess- mass shootings

       -  extremism - youth radicalization

       - epidemia das drogas

       - spread of sexually transmitted disieses

Migrações

          cultural diversity and difference

          fronteirs - empire strikes back

           prostitution - trafic human

internet

   - over-exposition - depressão -

   -  increase in suicide rates

   - deepfake - you, wherever you want

   - fakenews

    - cyberbullying

   - nudes, sexting and child pornography

   - paedophylia

“Temas ‘engajados’, que sugiram pautas associadas a movimentos sociais ou a uma visão de mundo mais progressista, como questões identitárias ou de gênero, racismo, feminismo ou pautas LGTBQ+, bem como aquelas ligadas à preservação ambiental não devem aparecer na redação”. (Marcelo Pavani, Oficina do Estudante)

https://m.vestibular.brasilescola.uol.com.br/enem/10-temas-que-podem-cair-na-redacao-enem-2019.htm

Mediterranean diet and gut bioma

After the year was over, those who had followed the Mediterranean diet saw beneficial changes to the microbiome in their digestive system. The loss of bacterial diversity was slowed, and the production of potentially harmful inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-17 were reduced.

At the same time, there was a growth of beneficial bacteria linked to improved memory and brain function, the study said. The diet also appeared to boost "keystone" species, critical for a stable "gut ecosystem" and which also slowed signs of frailty, such as walking speed and hand grip strength.
Previous publications from the ongoing study found those who followed the diet closely had improved episodic memory and overall cognitive ability. Higher adherence to the diet also reduced the rate of bone loss in people with osteoporosis and improved blood pressure and arterial stiffness.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/02/17/health/mediterranean-diet-microbiome-wellness/index.html

Sanders proposals' support

ny polls have documented what the public thinks about Sanders’ policy positions, and the evidence is overwhelming: From a wealth tax to minimum wage, they are extremely popular.

Last March, a CNBC/All-American poll illustrates this: support for paid maternity leave, 85%; government funding for childcare, 75%; boosting the minimum wage, 60%; free college tuition, 57%. Medicare for all came in at 54%. In October 2019, The Hill reported on an American Barometer survey that found “70% of the public supported providing ‘Medicare for All,’ also known as single-payer healthcare.”

Another key policy proposal with broad public support is a wealth tax that both Sanders and Elizabeth Warren support. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll (1/10/20), nearly two-thirds of respondents agree that the very rich should pay more. Among 4,441 respondents, 64% strongly or somewhat agreed that “the very rich should contribute an extra share of their total wealth each year to support public programs.” Support among Democrats was even stronger, at 77%, but a majority of Republicans, 53%, also agree with the idea.

https://fair.org/home/factchecking-nprs-attempted-takedown-of-bernie-sanders/

Direito a preguiça

"Lafargue escreveu O Direito à Preguiça, colocando ao centro de sua reflexão a necessidade de recuperar algo muito similar ao conceito latino de otium: para romper as grades da prisão, os subproletários deveriam reapossar-se daquele tempo que os antigos dedicavam ao estudo, ao cuidado com o espírito e à estruturação do pensamento."
https://outraspalavras.net/mercadovsdemocracia/cronofagia-o-roubo-do-tempo-do-sono-e-das-ideias/

Sinn Fein’s Victory is Ireland’s ‘Brexit Moment’

Sinn Fein’s Victory is Ireland’s ‘Brexit Moment’ When Left-Out Voters Turn on the Elite
by PATRICK COCKBURN
“People wanted to kick the government and Sinn Fein provided the shoe to do the kicking,” says Christy Parker, a journalist from the beautiful but de-industrialised town of Youghal in county Cork. He speaks of the “chasm” between the elite benefiting from Ireland’s impressive economic progress and the large part of the population that has been left behind.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/17/sinn-feins-victory-is-irelands-brexit-moment-when-left-out-voters-turn-on-the-elite/

Can Sanders Do it? Jan 31, 2020 James K. Galbraith

 As of 2019-2020, the Core Sanders has been supplemented by an “Expanded Sanders” program comprising the Green New Deal (GND), a federal job guarantee, a wealth tax, and a plan to abolish and forgive student-loan and medical debts. Of these four policies, the first two would be expansionary or stabilizing in their economic effects. The third is, in my view, impractical, and the fourth is perhaps more far-reaching than is generally appreciated.
 By boosting incomes without creating new consumption goods, the GND is similar to an industrial mobilization for war. The increase in income from GND-related activities will be partly offset by a decrease in wasteful finance, private health insurance, and excessive medical provision (somehow defined), as well as reductions in military spending consistent with ending America’s forever wars.
 But how, then, would the GND be funded? True “financing” is a matter of real resources, not scrounging for tax revenue. As noted above, those real resources would come from cutting back on finance, health insurance, unnecessary medical provision, and the military, and by mobilizing residual unemployed and underemployed workers toward more useful and necessary activities. Tax revenue would then come from these workers’ earnings, and from more effective levies on the profits of the companies that employ them.

 Among the circumstances likely to face a Sanders administration in 2021 are those left over from the 2008 financial crisis, which gave way to a decade of slow but steady growth, accompanied by a broad reduction of unemployment. The decline in the unemployment rate partly reflects an aging workforce and decreased immigration, but mainly a large increase in new service-sector jobs paying mediocre wages. As a result, an ever-growing number of US households have come to rely on multiple earners to make ends meet.Meanwhile, neglect of public investment has accelerated physical decay in many parts of the country. Mitigating and adapting to climate change demands major investments, and a large share of the available physical resources will need to be committed to carrying out a successful transition to a clean-energy economy. Obviously, this has not happened under Trump.

Sanders Can Do It

Whether an economic program as a whole succeeds or fails largely depends on how its various components add up. Based on a general evaluation of Sanders’s agenda, it appears that a reasonable answer to the question of whether he can do it if given the chance is: Yes, he can. The Sanders movement is growing, and the candidate’s program is popular. Equally important, the Sanders agenda is largely coherent as a matter of basic economics, broadly balanced between elements that boost economic growth and those that free up resources, and largely consistent with the broader conditions, domestic and international, that the next US president is likely to face.
 https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/what-if-bernie-wins-by-james-k-galbraith-2020-01

Events in Syria have Taken a Dangerous Turn

In recent days, we’ve been witnessing a noticeable deterioration of the security situation in Syria. Hostilities are being reported both the in Idlib and Aleppo governorates, where radical militants are desperately trying to regain control of sections of the M5 highway they had to surrender. Gunfights are being reported near the village of al-Rashidin to the west of Aleppo.

https://journal-neo.org/2020/02/15/events-in-syria-have-taken-a-dangerous-turn/

Some Economic and Political Factors of Coronavirus Outbreak

At present, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the global economy is potentially heading for a disaster. It would suffice to allude to various problems that are bound to arise when foreign investment and capital flow into the Chinese economy dry up. After all, the PRC has been one of the key drivers of growth of the global economy.


https://journal-neo.org/2020/02/16/some-economic-and-political-factors-of-coronavirus-outbreak/

capital cities the best places to live?

What makes capital cities the best places to live?

Capital cities, no matter the size, are centres of
economic and institutional resources, and the
quality of life they offer contributes to their
competitive advantage, especially in attracting
investment and highly qualified labour forces.Quality of life data show that in most countries, the capital city has advantages compared to the regions outside the capital. In light of the continued growth of capital city populations and the concentration of resources within them, this policy brief explores the source of the advantages of capital cities in quality of life. Are these advantages mostly related to specific demographics that these cities nurture and attract? Or do these advantages stem from opportunities that major cities provide due to their scale and economic growth?
The policy brief aims to clarify why policy should focus on both the economy and society when it comes to advancing economic, social and territorial cohesion.

In Europe, people living in the capital city generally have a better quality of life than people living in other parts of a country. On this basis, it seems that capital cities are indeed the best places to live.

Capital cities have, by and large, larger proportions of people who report feeling resilient – able to cope during times of hardship – compared to other urban centres and rural regions in the same country. Some characteristics of city populations – such as a younger age profile and higher educational attainment – contribute to resilience, while others, such as housing insecurity, erode it. The findings suggest that some other latent factor, possibly related to opportunities for economic advancement and improving one’s living standards, could underlie the extra resilience that capital cities provide.
 The findings are drawn from the European
Quality of Life Survey 2016, which monitors
different dimensions of quality of life examined
here: individual quality of life and well-being,
quality of society, and quality of public
services.

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/policy-brief/2020/what-makes-capital-cities-the-best-places-to-live?&utm_campaign=quality-of-life-and-public-services&utm_content=ef18025&utm_source=social-europe&utm_medium=banner
 Eurofound (2020), What makes capital cities the best places to live?, European Quality of Life Survey 2016 series, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

$5.34 Ladder Defeats $2.5 Billion wall

Brilliant New $5.34 Ladder Defeats Not So Brilliant $2.5 Billion Trump Fever Dream

by

Abby Zimet, Further columnist

Now, Mexicans still determined to come here despite our national mayhem have discovered a new, cheap, go-to method of scaling Dear Leader's pesky, pointless pet project. Using two lengths of light, cubed, readily available rebar called castillo - ubiquitous in Mexican construction and LOL the wall itself - they're fashioning hook-and-ladder rigs; the rebar is fitted with steps, and connected to four thinner poles bent into a U-shape to hug the top of the wall. The rust-colored rebar is naturally, fortuitously camouflaged, barely visible against the rust brown wall. And it's dirt cheap: Six meters of castillo cost 99 pesos, about $5.34, at Juárez' Hágalo - or Do It Yourself - True Value hardware store.

Last spring, the new ladders started turning up near the El Paso section of wall, where the number of single male migrants who mostly use them has nearly doubled in recent months; border agents say the level of "evading activity" has likewise soared. Last week, they found 9 ladders in one spot. Meanwhile, the whole stretch of border is littered with rusted rebar - waiting on the Mexican side, yanked down on the U.S. side, poking from dumpsters, their users long gone. Outwitted and conscripted into ludicrous service, agents say all they can do is pull abandoned ladders off the wall, cut them up, and hope they can't be used again. "It's a very powerful, very powerful wall," Trump brayed at a September rally there, "the likes of which, probably, to this extent, has not been built before."

"A wise man lets a fool build a wall before choosing the height of his ladder.” - Socrates

Think the US is more polarized than ever? You don’t know history

February 14, 2020 5.23pm ESIt has become common to say that the United States in 2020 is more divided politically and culturally than at any other point in our national past.
As a historian who has written and taught about the Civil War era for several decades, I know that current divisions pale in comparison to those of the mid-19th century.
Between Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army at Appomattox in April 1865, the nation literally broke apart.
More than 3 million men took up arms, and hundreds of thousands of black and white civilians in the Confederacy became refugees. Four million enslaved African Americans were freed from bondage.https://theconversation.com/think-the-us-is-more-polarized-than-ever-you-dont-know-history-131600

Facial expressions don't tell the whole story of emotion

by Laura Arenschield, The Ohio State University

"Some claim they can detect whether someone is guilty of a crime or not, or whether a student is paying attention in class, or whether a customer is satisfied after a purchase," he said. "What our research showed is that those claims are complete baloney. There's no way you can determine those things. And worse, it can be dangerous."...
After analyzing data about facial expressions and emotion, the research team—which included scientists from Northeastern University, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin—concluded that it takes more than expressions to correctly detect emotion.
Facial color, for example, can help provide clues.
"What we showed is that when you experience emotion, your brain releases peptides—mostly hormones—that change the blood flow and blood composition, and because the face is inundated with these peptides, it changes color," Martinez said.
The human body offers other hints, too, he said: body posture, for example. And context plays a crucial role as well.,,,,https://techxplore.com/news/2020-02-facial-dont-story-emotion.html

Bloomberg Misleads on Stop-And-Frisk

Bloomberg Misleads on Stop-And-Frisk

February 14, 2020

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg misleadingly stated that he “cut” the police practice of stop-and-frisk — a policy that he “inherited” — by “95%” by the time he left office as mayor of New York. There were nearly twice as many stops in his last year as mayor compared with the year before he took office.

impossible to fight for socialism from within the Democratic Party

Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democratic Socialists of America say it is possible to fight for socialism from within the Democratic Party. Such a political program is not real socialism and can lead only to disaster.

...
 What the ruling class does fear, however, is that the growing opposition to capitalism will develop on an independent, revolutionary basis in the working class. Sanders serves to contain this opposition and, in his words, take discontented youth and “bring them into the Democratic Party.”
...

The Democratic Party is the oldest capitalist political party in the world. Founded in 1828, it carries in its political DNA all of the American ruling class’s great crimes.


This was the party of the southern slaveowners before the Civil War, of the forced removal and massacre of Native Americans, of Jim Crow segregation and of the anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese restrictions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is the party that jailed socialists and immigrants during World War I and dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the conclusion of World War II.
The Democratic Party launched and sustained the Korean War and Vietnam War, ended “welfare as we know it,” supported the hyper-criminalization of nonviolent drug use, voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, passed the PATRIOT Act, kept Guantanamo Bay open, and bailed out the banks after the market crash of 2007-08.

Instead of helping Sanders save the Democratic Party, the IYSSE and SEP appeal to you: take action by supporting real socialist candidates in the 2020 elections, Joseph Kishore for president and Norissa Santa Cruz for vice president.
Our campaign recognizes that the fight for socialism means turning toward the working class, the chief progressive social force under capitalism. This class, comprised of billions of people in every country, has the power to transform the world.
Awakening the tremendous political energy of this social force requires educating workers and dispelling the lies of the corporate media. Fighting for socialism means making workers aware of their common class interests, giving them an understanding of the nature of capitalist society, and explaining the role of the state, the police, the courts and the political parties of the different factions of the capitalist class.

 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/14/lett-f14.html

Warmer climate and mass migration

Warmer climate leads to current trends of social unrest and mass migration: study

 

Research by an international team of scientists led by University of New Mexico Professor Yemane Asmerom suggests contraction of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) during a warming Earth, leading in turn to drying of the Neotropics, including Central America, and aggravating current trends of social unrest and mass migration.

Positioned near the equator where the trade winds of the northern and southern hemisphere converge, the ITCZ is the world's most important rainfall belt affecting the livelihood of billions of people around the globe. Globally, seasonal shifts in the location of the ITCZ across the equator dictate the initiation and duration of the tropical rainy season. The behavior of the ITCZ in response to the warming of the Earth is of vital scientific and societal interest.

 "What we found was that in fact during the Medieval Climate Anomaly Southern Belize was very dry, similar to modern central Mexico. In contrast, during the Little Ice Age cool period, when it should have been dry by the standard old model, it was the wettest interval over the last 2000 years," said Asmerom. "The pattern that emerges when all the data across the full transect of ITCZ excursion is supportive of the expansion-contraction model." The implication of this that regions currently in the margins of the ITCZ are likely to experience aridity with increased warming, consistent with modeling data from Central America. These data have important implications for rainfall-dependent agriculture system on which millions of people depend for food security.

Co-author and UNM Professor of Anthropology Keith Prufer is an environmental archaeologist, who has been conducting research in Belize for 25 years. "In the last five years there have been mass migrations of people in Guatemala and Honduras—partially driven by political instability, but also driven by drought-related conditions and changes in seasonality. This is creating enormous problems for agricultural production and feeding a growing population. There is growing evidence that these changes are a direct consequence of climate change."
"This work highlights the convergence of good science with policy relevancy. It also illustrates the strength of cross-disciplinary collaborative work, in this case international," said Asmerom.

 

 

by University of New Mexico

seniors looking for assisted living

 For more than a decade, “assisted living” residences grew faster than any other segment of the long-term care industry. Typically more home-like than a full-care nursing facility, assisted living is often favored by people who are generally independent, but still need support with daily activities. In general, providers offer fewer medical services, though many provide health and memory care for residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.

 

 We and our colleagues track the ever-changing circumstances of long-term care in the U.S. As we study policies and practices, we have observed that the expansion of assisted living is clearly a game-changer, creating new challenges in the industry. Many states have increased assisted living regulation in recent years. Some consumer advocates have called for nursing-home style federal rules, though others oppose this, saying assisted living should remain flexible enough to serve residents with a range of needs, from personal care only to end-of-life comfort.

Using criteria formulated from prior research, along with information provided by some states, we examined 39 key elements of each website. Those elements included the size of the facility, cost, license status, the insurance it accepts, and any special services offered, such as memory care. We also looked at each website’s usability – the ease in finding critical information.

more and more people are choosing assisted living. The government is now funding many residences to provide care for low-income disabled citizens. Their needs – and vulnerability – are significant, enough for states to reassess their roles in protecting assisted living residents. Adding accurate and detailed content to their websites would be a great first step. 

https://theconversation.com/incomplete-and-inadequate-information-lacking-for-seniors-looking-for-assisted-living-129426

career and technical education

My research has found that the best investment in career and technical education is when it’s targeted toward schools that design all instruction around developing career paths, say, as an electrician or as a nurse’s assistant. Career and technical education can also improve high school graduation and employment when it is integrated with core subjects and offers work-based learning.
The proposal also calls for allocating $83 million to competitive grants to states. Proposing competitive grants suggests that the administration will look to fund states with the most innovative proposals. This is in contrast to just giving out money based on how many students a state may serve, which is how most of the federal funds for technical education are allocated.
Trump also wants to double fees associated with H1-B visas – visas that allow for the hiring temporary workers from abroad with high skills that are in short supply in the U.S. This hike could raise an additional $100 million or more. The idea here seems to be to use revenue collected from programs that use talent from abroad to invest in educating students here in the United States.

.., the only technical education programs that research has shown lead to improved graduation rates and higher wages are whole-school models.
 https://theconversation.com/trumps-big-bet-on-career-and-technical-education-131558

read more
https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-we-know-about-career-and-technical-education-in-high-school/