Posted in faith, media, notes on the human condition, politics, tagged abusive, ACLU, Americans, Arizona, ashamed, badly, behave, bill, border, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Catastrophizing, church, civilians, clash, Communist, comparison, comply, consequences, conservatives, controversy, crime, critic, criticisms, cross, debate, dialog, disappointing, dishonest, divided, divisive, documentation, drug war, ego, ethical, ethnocentric. stereotype, exaggeration, fear mongering, Federal, First Amendment, government, governor, higher calling, illegal immigration, intellectually dishonest, irresponsible, issue, Jan Brewer, law enforcement, leaders, liberals, librals, lies, Los Angeles, Lou Dobbs, Michael Smerconish Program, middle ground, misdirect, mislead, moral, narc, Nazi, neo Nazi, on the books, outcomes, personal, polarized, polemic, police, policy, political temperance, poor example, popularity, pragmatic, predators, prediction, profiling, protests, provocative, public interst, race war, racist, raise the bar, rat out, reality check, Robert Krentz, Roman Catholic, Russell Pearce, safety, SB 1070, senator, set example, shame, smear, speech, statesmanship, status, trash talk, truth, turn in, unfair, unforeseen, victims, violence on April 23, 2010 |
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In a move that has sparked controversy nationwide, Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, has successfully promoted a bill that requires state law enforcement, among related jurisdictions, to aid in federal immigration law enforcement. The state senator’s most outspoken critic, Roger Mahony, Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, writes on his blog:
I can’t imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation. Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?
Mahony’s words are provocative — arguably, even, a cheapening comparison to the horrors Communist and Nazi victims experienced. Yet they come on the heels of an audacious personal attack: The Los Angeles Times reports Sen. Pearce told syndicated radio talk show host Michael Smerconish “This guy has a history of protecting and moving predators around in order to avoid detection by the law. He has no room to talk [on the illegal immigration issue].”
Sen. Pearce may be well within the protections of the First Amendment, but he has far overstepped the bounds of responsible speech. Cardinal Mahony, however, has some confession of his own to do: Dredging up a very painful historic reality in contrast to a hypothetical and alarmist outcome.
It’s time for a time-out.
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Posted in health, notes on the human condition, tagged 1957, 35 percent less likely, activities, affect, Ann Arbor, apart, appearances, artificial, attendance, blessings, bonds, Bowling Alone, break, breakdown, caregiver, cave, challenges, charity, chips are down, chronic, church, circumstances, closing, club, commitment, commonalities, community, comparisons, competition, connectedness, connection, consequences, cope, data, development, diagnosis, differences, difficult, dignity, disconnect, displaced, distance between, don't be a stranger, downsized, Easy Street, economic, effect, effort, employees, envy, example, exclude, fair weather, fear, friends, friendships, group, groups, hard times, hardship, hermit, how to, identity, illness, implications, individuals, involvement, isolation, Jennie E. Brand, job, job loss, job market, join, Joneses, keeping up, laid off, layoff, leave, livelihood, lives, lonely, long-term impact, longitudinal, Los Angeles, lose, loss, luck, meeting, membership, mental, miss, model, needs, nonprofit, normalcy, notice, organization, others, out of business, outgroup, participation, people, personal, pride, prime of life, professional, PTA, reach out and touch someone, reciprocal, reconnect, recovery, reestablish, regain, regroup, rejection, religious, relocating, repercussions, researchers, respond, restructuring, retreat, role, safety net, service, sever, shorten, skills, social contract, Social Forces, social lives, social science, socialize, sociologists, spiritual, starting over, study, superficial, support group, team, tough people, tough times, trials, UCLA, unemployed, University of California, University of Michigan, US News and World Report, Wisconsin high school graduates, workforce, youth on July 24, 2009 |
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Don’t be a stranger.
That’s the message of a 45-year-long study according to US News and World Report in “Job Loss Has Long-Term Impact on Social Lives“.
Once someone in the prime of life suffers a layoff or is otherwise displaced from the workforce, community connections — anything from a PTA meeting, charity involvement, sporting team or church attendance — are severed for good at least 35 percent of the time, study results show.
Perhaps this comes as a surprise. It shouldn’t. How many of us have grown distant from someone simply because they left our school, workplace, club or church?
And how many of us, by the same token, have isolated ourselves because we fear that others will judge us when the chips are down?
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Posted in media, technology, tagged 1984, 21st Century, ADD, addiction, ads, advances, adverse, advertising, age, alter, Amazon, analog, Animal Farm, annotations, apathy, ash, assumptions, attention span, back, backbone, backlit, balkanization, Big Brother, BlackBerry thumb, books, brain, burning, business, cap and trade, capacity, carpel tunnel, cell phone, cell phones, censor, censure, Century, change, chaos, children, China, chronic, Circuit City, citizen, claims, clean, coal, competing, complacency, complex, computer, Computer Vision Syndrome, consequences, consumers, contact, content, contracts, control, controversy, copies, copyright, cost, creative control, CRTs, cultural, CVS, data centers, debate, deceptive, deficit, delete, demand, dependency, deprived, development, device, digital divide, dirty, disabilities, disabled, disconnects, disinformation, display, distributed, distrustful, downloaded, duality, dumbing down, e-book, e-reader, ebook, eco-friendly, ecological, editor, education, elbow, electric, electromagnetic, electronic leash, electroshock, EMF, energy, entertainment, ereader, ergnomics, ergonomists, evolution, exchanging, experiences, Eye Fatigue, eyes, eyestrain, Facebook, fatigue, fine print, finger, flat panel monitors, flicker, free, freedom, future, gadget, gatekeeper, generate, generation, George Orwell, globe, grapevine, Green, grids, growth, gullible, hand, hardware, headache, health effects, herd immunity, high technology, history, hoaxes, impacts, information, injury, insomnia, Internet, intrusions, issues, journalism, keyboard, kids, Kindle, LCD, learning, letter, liberty, Libraries, library, life, limiting factors, literature, load, look back, losing, loss, magazines, margins, materiality, media, mentality, mind, model, monitor, musculoskeletal disorders, MySpace, myths, net, networks, neurological, news, newspapers, nostalgia, NYT, occupational, offsets, on demand, operate, optic, orthopedic, Orwellian, overload, ownership, pain, paper, PC, personal, photograph, physical, physiological, pirated, planet, plugged in, pollution, power, practice, predecessors, price, printed, privacy, production lines, productivity, programming, progress, publisher, rates, reading, realities, reality, recycle, refresh rate, repetitive strain, response time, responsible, rights, risk factors, RSI, rumors, sacrifice, screen, sense of place, sentimental, sever farm, shared, shift, sites, sleep, smokestack, snapshot, social, social capital, society, sociology, software, Sony, static, stunt, systems, tactile, talking, tangible, tech, teens, television, texting, threatens, time capsule, touch, tradeoffs, trains, transform, trends, turn of the Century, unauthorized, unsustainable, usage, video, view, virtual, Walter Cronkite, wary, watching, web, white space, word, world, wrist, written on July 19, 2009 |
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Amazon’s electronic reading device known as Kindle is not exactly as “Green” as it is cracked up to be, but now we have another reason to reconsider the merits of paper-based reading: Censorship.
Kindle users may not have anticipated it, but Amazon can recall an e-book purchase at the push of a virtual button. Need those annotations for a book report? If your digital reading material is recalled, Amazon removes those too.
Tough luck.
Amazon claims they are working to amend a hasty retraction process that resulted when an allegedly unauthorized source made available a number of e-books to which the lawful copyright holder objected, reports the New York Times in “Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices“. Refunds for the illicitly encoded material are on the way, but the questions have only begun. And well they should.
In an ongoing series on the transformative impact of high tech, the Social Critic aims to explore the lesser known consequences of the virtual world. In this instance, we find a stark reminder that in the digital universe the price of “virtual” amounts to easy come, easy go. You can’t share an e-book. You can’t recycle an e-book reader — at least not in the Green manner one might have hoped [see "GreenSmart vs. GreenDumb"]. And you can’t take for granted that you “own” anything in the virtual realm in the same physical manner it is possible to own DVDs, books, magazines, newspapers and the like.
What this article doesn’t touch upon is disturbing in its own right: The questionable health effects, particularly on the eyes and brain, of exchanging the tangible for an imperceptibly flickering digital view screen. Over time, exposure may blunt brain development in children, promote sleep and attention disorders, lead to career-limiting repetitive strain injuries to the spine, elbows, wrists or fingers — or more commonly still, eyestrain and headaches — all while aiming electromagnetic radiation at our craniums (of which cell phones and CRT monitors are among the worst EMF offenders). None of this, however, takes into account the fastest growing concern of all: the controversial notion of Internet addiction. Until recently, in fact, China took a very heavy-handed approach to digital addicts: electroshock therapy.
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