WWMLKD?
April 29, 2009 at 3:47 pm (Uncategorized)
Cashing in on Martin Luther King Jr.
By Jonathan Turley
The King family has long been criticized for insisting on payment for the use of their father’s name, image, speeches and virtually anything that they can claim for themselves or their foundation. The family reached a new low this week when it was revealed that they had been paid more than $800,000 by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation for the use of King’s image and words on the planned King memorial on Washington’s Mall.
For many years, the family has insisted that although King may have been called the nation’s prophet, he is their property. Of course, it is the profits, and not the prophet himself, that has led them regularly to court to fight over royalties and control.
April 29, 2009 at 5:06 am (Uncategorized)
http://bp0.blogger.com/_f5QOsChTHI8/SCmPGAehisI/AAAAAAAABq0/rvx53A3bIkw/s1600-h/tell_me_something.jpg
My Latest Article
April 23, 2009 at 4:07 pm (Clips)
Swipe Ethics
how animal rights factor into every meal plan
By Jenn Mayer
John Jay Dining Hall serves over 13,000 meals a week. But how many diners stop to consider the rights of the animals they’re consuming?
On a campus with students known for their political activism and penchant for complaining about everything, digs on the food at John Jay are common. Still, Columbians rarely take a critical look at the cafeteria’s animal rights policies. According to a survey conducted by PETA2 (the student version of PETA), 97 percent of 18- to 22-year-olds believe that animals should not be treated cruelly or made to suffer. So why aren’t more people aware of John Jay’s animal rights track record?
See the Connection?
April 19, 2009 at 4:41 pm (Uncategorized)
To me, it makes perfect sense that this PostSecret secret is on a postcard from Costa Rica. 
Hugo and Bo are BFFLS
April 19, 2009 at 6:07 am (Politics)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he expects to send an ambassador back to Washington soon.
Mr Chavez expelled the US envoy to Caracas in September in “solidarity” with Bolivia. The US reciprocated.
In response, the US state department says it “will now work” toward returning its ambassador to Venezuela.
The announcements came at a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, where US President Barack Obama received a warm welcome from Latin American leaders.
Last September’s diplomatic dispute arose over an alleged US plot against Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Mr Chavez was a fierce critic of the United States under former President George W Bush, accusing Washington of plotting to assassinate him.
Book gift
But in a sign of warming ties, Mr Obama shook hands with President Chavez at the summit, and accepted a book from the Venezuelan leader.
Although they had already shaken hands when they met on Friday, Mr Chavez greeted him again on Saturday, this time pressing on him a book.
In taking the gift, Mr Obama assumed it was a book by Mr Chavez himself, he said later.
However, it was a Spanish-language copy of The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, a book by Eduardo Galeano chronicling exploitation in the region.
You Mean People Don’t Want to Watch Cribs during a Recession?
April 18, 2009 at 11:54 pm (Uncategorized)
Make Room, Cynics; MTV Wants to Do Some Good
By Tim Arango
Four buddies set off across the country in an R.V., video camera in tow, to knock items off their “100 things to do before I die” list: kiss the Stanley Cup, get a tattoo, grow a mustache.
With plenty of high jinks and adolescent humor, “The Buried Life” seems like the perfect MTV reality show, except for one unexpected twist. At each stop the group helps deserving locals with their own wishes. In Idaho, for example, they took eight children with brain cancer on a shopping spree at Toys “R” Us.
Meet MTV for the era of Obama. After years of celebrating wealth, celebrity and the vapid excesses of youth, MTV is trying to gloss its escapist entertainment with a veneer of positive social messages.
This Makes Me Feel Good About My Future
April 15, 2009 at 4:19 pm (Uncategorized)
Smiles Predict Marriage Success
By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer
If you want to know whether your marriage will survive, look at your spouse’s yearbook photos.
Psychologists have found that how much people smile in old photographs can predict their later success in marriage.
In one test, the researchers looked at people’s college yearbook photos, and rated their smile intensity from 1 to 10. None of the people who fell within the top 10 percent of smile strength had divorced, while within the bottom 10 percent of smilers, almost one in four had had a marriage that ended, the researchers say. (Scoring was based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)
In a second trial, the research team asked people over age 65 to provide photos from their childhood (the average age in the pictures was 10 years old). The researchers scored each person’s smile, and found that only 11 percent of the biggest smilers had been divorced, while 31 percent of the frowners had experienced a broken marriage.
Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.
While the connection is striking, the researchers stress that they can’t conclude anything about the cause of the correlation.
“Maybe smiling represents a positive disposition towards life,” said study leader Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana. “Or maybe smiling people attract other happier people, and the combination may lead to a greater likelihood of a long-lasting marriage. We don’t really know for sure what’s causing it.”
Hertenstein said he has considered other explanations, such as the possibility that people who smile more often tend to attract more friends, and a larger support network makes it easier to keep a marriage healthy. Or it could be that people who smile when a photographer tells them to are more likely to have obedient personalities, which could make marriage easier.
