Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 1011
August 19, 2015
Donald Trump cited as potential influence in brutal attack on homeless Hispanic man
The Leader brothers were heading home after a Red Sox game when they approached a 58-year-old homeless man who was in a sleeping bag near the JFK/UMass T station. The brothers allegedly urinated on the man, punched him multiple times, and struck him with a metal pole. [...] The victim suffered a broken nose and bruises to his head and torso was taken to Boston Medical Center.According to the police report filed in court, “Scott also stated Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported” and complained that he was only being arrested "because white people always are and never the minorities.” The brothers, 38 and 30, have both pled not guilty. This week, Trump released his highly anticipated anti-immigration plan after kicking off his presidential campaign with charges that Mexican immigrants are "criminals" and "rapists." Trump's plan called for the deportation of all undocumented immigrants, the building of a massive wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and the revocation of birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S.
Fashion’s toxic rules: Cara Delivingne’s just the latest to push back against super-thin, highly-sexualized ideal
Ben Carson takes immigration debate to insane new low, floats drone strikes at border
This is a problem. It's a huge problem. And we've allowed it to become a political football, instead of solving it. Could we seal the border? Of course. We have all kinds of technology, including dronesCarson, who has surged into second place only to Trump in a recent poll, criticized Trump's plan to deport undocumented immigrants and build a massive wall at the border as expensive and unrealistic but did agree with the GOP frontrunner on at least one aspect of his extreme anti-immigration platform -- the need to revoke birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. “I know the 14th Amendment has been brought up recently, about anchor babies—and it doesn’t make any sense to me that people could come in here, have a baby and that baby becomes an American citizen,” Carson said at a Phoenix rally in front of 6,000 supporters Tuesday evening. "There are many countries in the world where they simply have recognized that and don’t allow that to occur."
Watch 70 horrific instances of Fox News sexism in under 6 minutes
Treatment-resistant “super lice” have taken over 25 U.S. states
Lice populations in the states in pink have developed a high level of resistance to some of the most common treatments (Kyong Yoon, Ph.D.).
"We are the first group to collect lice samples from a large number of populations across the U.S.," explained Kyong Yoon, a researcher withwith Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, in a statement. "What we found was that 104 out of the 109 lice populations we tested had high levels of gene mutations, which have been linked to resistance to pyrethroids" -- a family of insecticides that include permethrin, the active ingredient in many common head lice treatments. Michigan, for some reason that's yet to be worked out, was the only the state whose lice populations remained easy to vanquish. An estimated 6 to 12 million lice infestations occur each year in the U.S., according to the CDC, and that's only in children between the ages of 3 to 11. So the threat of "super lice" is certainly a worrisome one -- although Yoon is quick to point out while gross and annoying and itchy, the pests fortunately don't spread disease. And there do exist other chemicals that can still effectively fight head lice -- they just require a prescription. Of course, if we start over-using those drugs as well, there's no promising that we'll be able to keep staying one step ahead.
The terrifying unanswered questions of the Ashley Madison hack
My bank cards keep getting hacked. It feels like every six months or so, I'll get a call or an email and my bank will tell me that my card has been "compromised." One time, someone used my card to pay a gas bill in Kentucky. I think another time it was some place in Texas. The last couple of times, the bank hasn't even told me what the specific problem was—just that some unknown entity reached into my account and tried to steal my money.
My response has mostly been to shrug my shoulders and get on with my life. I always get the money back, so it's no harm done, I suppose. The fact that my bank account—which, last I checked, was pretty important to me!—gets broken into all the time has not been especially troubling to me. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Everyone's had to deal with their card getting hacked. It's just the way things are now.
If I'd turned up in 1995 and told everyone that, two decades later, we would all regard such repeated assaults on our finances as a relatively trivial inconvenience, I'd have been thrown into a padded cell. But it's the truth. As a society, we have decided that the pleasures and conveniences of technology far outweigh the risks inherent in handing over vast quantities of private information to mostly unaccountable entities. We live in a world where entering your Social Security number into some random website's form is treated with the same level of introspection as giving your name when you're ordering takeout.
Essentially, we've all decided we don't really care—or that it's too difficult to do anything about it—and there's been little to change that feeling. The Edward Snowden revelations were hugely significant, but they didn't make us alter our behavior very much. (My own biggest response was to put a piece of tape over my computer's built-in camera.) The hacking of Target and Sony didn't give anybody much pause either.
The news that hackers have released a gigantic trove of data from the servers of infidelity enthusiasts Ashley Madison provides us with another chance to see how we really feel about this brave new world of ours. It's easy to laugh off this particular hack—the users of a super-skeezy website whose motto is "Life is short. Have an affair" do not immediately elicit sympathy—but that would be a mistake. Feeling untroubled about such a massive breach of privacy is as misguided as thinking that government surveillance is only a problem if you've "done something wrong." The point isn't the morality of the players; it's our loss of control over our lives. We can't function without the internet, so does everyone's tolerance of privacy invasion mean that the standards around our expectation of privacy have been lowered?
The hack raises all sorts of questions for the media. Should journalists comb through the files to see if there are any public figures in there? It was mostly defensible when they looked through the Sony files after they'd been dumped online, but what about something this personal? Some organizations are already posting about some of the revelations. Even though I can see a public interest defense of this, is this the kind of world we want to live in? If the media shows that hackers will be rewarded in this way, how will that impact future invasions of privacy?
News outlets have to do some work on answering these questions, because they're not going away. Hacking is the present and the future. For one, our governments are hacking us around the clock. Activists are likely to respond in kind, seeking to use hacking as a form of civil disobedience. What are reporters to do when one of those activists brings them information gleaned through such activity? What about when corporations are the target? What's a tabloid going to do when a hacker uncovers hidden evidence that a celebrity's been cheating?
And that's just one side of the equation. It's easy to foresee a situation when some unsavory hackers target journalists too. Reporters could find themselves blackmailed or threatened. What's a news organization going to do in that case?
There are obviously no easy answers to any of this. The media should not be in the business of suppressing information, but everybody has lines that they draw. Where are the lines now? It seems clear that nobody has the faintest clue, but both the media and the broader public are going to have to try and figure this stuff out. Today, it's Ashley Madison. Tomorrow, it's us. What are we going to do?
My bank cards keep getting hacked. It feels like every six months or so, I'll get a call or an email and my bank will tell me that my card has been "compromised." One time, someone used my card to pay a gas bill in Kentucky. I think another time it was some place in Texas. The last couple of times, the bank hasn't even told me what the specific problem was—just that some unknown entity reached into my account and tried to steal my money.
My response has mostly been to shrug my shoulders and get on with my life. I always get the money back, so it's no harm done, I suppose. The fact that my bank account—which, last I checked, was pretty important to me!—gets broken into all the time has not been especially troubling to me. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Everyone's had to deal with their card getting hacked. It's just the way things are now.
If I'd turned up in 1995 and told everyone that, two decades later, we would all regard such repeated assaults on our finances as a relatively trivial inconvenience, I'd have been thrown into a padded cell. But it's the truth. As a society, we have decided that the pleasures and conveniences of technology far outweigh the risks inherent in handing over vast quantities of private information to mostly unaccountable entities. We live in a world where entering your Social Security number into some random website's form is treated with the same level of introspection as giving your name when you're ordering takeout.
Essentially, we've all decided we don't really care—or that it's too difficult to do anything about it—and there's been little to change that feeling. The Edward Snowden revelations were hugely significant, but they didn't make us alter our behavior very much. (My own biggest response was to put a piece of tape over my computer's built-in camera.) The hacking of Target and Sony didn't give anybody much pause either.
The news that hackers have released a gigantic trove of data from the servers of infidelity enthusiasts Ashley Madison provides us with another chance to see how we really feel about this brave new world of ours. It's easy to laugh off this particular hack—the users of a super-skeezy website whose motto is "Life is short. Have an affair" do not immediately elicit sympathy—but that would be a mistake. Feeling untroubled about such a massive breach of privacy is as misguided as thinking that government surveillance is only a problem if you've "done something wrong." The point isn't the morality of the players; it's our loss of control over our lives. We can't function without the internet, so does everyone's tolerance of privacy invasion mean that the standards around our expectation of privacy have been lowered?
The hack raises all sorts of questions for the media. Should journalists comb through the files to see if there are any public figures in there? It was mostly defensible when they looked through the Sony files after they'd been dumped online, but what about something this personal? Some organizations are already posting about some of the revelations. Even though I can see a public interest defense of this, is this the kind of world we want to live in? If the media shows that hackers will be rewarded in this way, how will that impact future invasions of privacy?
News outlets have to do some work on answering these questions, because they're not going away. Hacking is the present and the future. For one, our governments are hacking us around the clock. Activists are likely to respond in kind, seeking to use hacking as a form of civil disobedience. What are reporters to do when one of those activists brings them information gleaned through such activity? What about when corporations are the target? What's a tabloid going to do when a hacker uncovers hidden evidence that a celebrity's been cheating?
And that's just one side of the equation. It's easy to foresee a situation when some unsavory hackers target journalists too. Reporters could find themselves blackmailed or threatened. What's a news organization going to do in that case?
There are obviously no easy answers to any of this. The media should not be in the business of suppressing information, but everybody has lines that they draw. Where are the lines now? It seems clear that nobody has the faintest clue, but both the media and the broader public are going to have to try and figure this stuff out. Today, it's Ashley Madison. Tomorrow, it's us. What are we going to do?
My bank cards keep getting hacked. It feels like every six months or so, I'll get a call or an email and my bank will tell me that my card has been "compromised." One time, someone used my card to pay a gas bill in Kentucky. I think another time it was some place in Texas. The last couple of times, the bank hasn't even told me what the specific problem was—just that some unknown entity reached into my account and tried to steal my money.
My response has mostly been to shrug my shoulders and get on with my life. I always get the money back, so it's no harm done, I suppose. The fact that my bank account—which, last I checked, was pretty important to me!—gets broken into all the time has not been especially troubling to me. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Everyone's had to deal with their card getting hacked. It's just the way things are now.
If I'd turned up in 1995 and told everyone that, two decades later, we would all regard such repeated assaults on our finances as a relatively trivial inconvenience, I'd have been thrown into a padded cell. But it's the truth. As a society, we have decided that the pleasures and conveniences of technology far outweigh the risks inherent in handing over vast quantities of private information to mostly unaccountable entities. We live in a world where entering your Social Security number into some random website's form is treated with the same level of introspection as giving your name when you're ordering takeout.
Essentially, we've all decided we don't really care—or that it's too difficult to do anything about it—and there's been little to change that feeling. The Edward Snowden revelations were hugely significant, but they didn't make us alter our behavior very much. (My own biggest response was to put a piece of tape over my computer's built-in camera.) The hacking of Target and Sony didn't give anybody much pause either.
The news that hackers have released a gigantic trove of data from the servers of infidelity enthusiasts Ashley Madison provides us with another chance to see how we really feel about this brave new world of ours. It's easy to laugh off this particular hack—the users of a super-skeezy website whose motto is "Life is short. Have an affair" do not immediately elicit sympathy—but that would be a mistake. Feeling untroubled about such a massive breach of privacy is as misguided as thinking that government surveillance is only a problem if you've "done something wrong." The point isn't the morality of the players; it's our loss of control over our lives. We can't function without the internet, so does everyone's tolerance of privacy invasion mean that the standards around our expectation of privacy have been lowered?
The hack raises all sorts of questions for the media. Should journalists comb through the files to see if there are any public figures in there? It was mostly defensible when they looked through the Sony files after they'd been dumped online, but what about something this personal? Some organizations are already posting about some of the revelations. Even though I can see a public interest defense of this, is this the kind of world we want to live in? If the media shows that hackers will be rewarded in this way, how will that impact future invasions of privacy?
News outlets have to do some work on answering these questions, because they're not going away. Hacking is the present and the future. For one, our governments are hacking us around the clock. Activists are likely to respond in kind, seeking to use hacking as a form of civil disobedience. What are reporters to do when one of those activists brings them information gleaned through such activity? What about when corporations are the target? What's a tabloid going to do when a hacker uncovers hidden evidence that a celebrity's been cheating?
And that's just one side of the equation. It's easy to foresee a situation when some unsavory hackers target journalists too. Reporters could find themselves blackmailed or threatened. What's a news organization going to do in that case?
There are obviously no easy answers to any of this. The media should not be in the business of suppressing information, but everybody has lines that they draw. Where are the lines now? It seems clear that nobody has the faintest clue, but both the media and the broader public are going to have to try and figure this stuff out. Today, it's Ashley Madison. Tomorrow, it's us. What are we going to do?
August 18, 2015
Jared “From Subway” Fogle expected to plead guilty on child pornography charges
“Dr. Dre straddled me and beat me mercilessly”: Dee Barnes rejects “revisionist history” of “Straight Outta Compton” in powerful essay
I wasn’t in the studio to hear them record their disgusting, misogynistic views on women in songs like “A Bitch Iz a Bitch,” “Findum, Fuckum & Flee,” “One Less Bitch,” and perhaps most offensively, “She Swallowed It.” (On that track, MC Ren brags about violating at 14-year-old girl: “Oh shit it’s the preacher’s daughter! / And she’s only 14 and a ho / But the bitch sucks dick like a specialized pro.”) I heard the material like everybody else, when I was listening to the albums, and I was shocked. Maybe that was their point. Maybe they said a lot of that stuff for the shock value. There were always other girls around, like Michel’le and Rose, and we never heard them talk like that. We never heard them say, “Bitch, get over here and suck my dick.” In their minds, only certain women were “like that,” and I’ve never presented myself like that, so I never gave them a reason to call me names.Then Barnes filmed a segment of "Pump It Up!" featuring Ice Cube, who had quit the group, insulting other members of N.W.A. while he was filming "Boyz N the Hood" — in perhaps the most telling detail, "Straight Outta Compton" director F. Gary Gray was her camera operator that day. She says after the clip aired, that was Andre "Dr. Dre" Young's motivation for "straddl[ing] me and beat[ing] me mercilessly on the floor of the women’s restroom at the Po Na Na Souk nightclub in 1991." She describes Young's attack on her vividly: "I was on my back and [his] knee was in my chest" and "he smashed my head against the wall."
[W]hen Dre was trying to choke me on the floor of the women’s room in Po Na Na Souk, a thought flashed through my head: “Oh my god. He’s trying to kill me.” He had me trapped in that bathroom; he held the door closed with his leg. It was surreal. “Is this happening?” I thought.In clear, reflective and empathetic prose, Barnes acknowledges the oppressive racism at the hands of police that galvanized N.W.A.'s "activistic core," but refuses to excuse the musicians when they channeled their frustrations into misogynistic language or violence: "There is a direct connection between the oppression of black men and the violence perpetrated by black men against black women. It is a cycle of victimization and reenactment of violence that is rooted in racism and perpetuated by patriarchy." Young pleaded no contest to the criminal charge and settled a civil lawsuit from Barnes, which she says, contrary to popular belief which had her collecting millions, was for less than $1 million. And Barnes says ultimately, the fall-out was greater even than the migraines she continues to suffer: "I was blacklisted. Nobody wants to work with me. They don’t want to affect their relationship with Dre." Read the entire essay at Gawker.
