Category Archives: Politics

“Die Taliban machen aus Kindern Attentäter”, sagt Rana.

Die Zeit: Kindernothilfe: ZEIT-ONLINE-Redakteur gewinnt Medienpreis. “Für seine Reportage über eine junge Afghanin ist Karsten Polke-Majewski ausgezeichnet worden. Er verdeutlicht, dass minderjährige Flüchtlinge unzureichend geschützt sind.”

Die Zeit: Flüchtlinge: Wer schützt Rana? “Für die 17-jährige Afghanin Rana war die Flucht in Hamburg nicht zu Ende. 300.000 Flüchtlingskinder sind gekommen, aber es gelingt nicht, sie vor Gewalt zu bewahren.” Von Karsten Polke-Majewski, 8. September 2016.

“Es gibt ein Regelwerk, das solche Zustände, in denen Rana und ihre Familie in Hamburg landen, eigentlich verbietet. Die Vereinten Nationen haben 2012 26 Mindeststandards formuliert, die regeln, wie Kinder in Flüchtlingslagern zu versorgen sind. Sie gelten in den Camps in Mali genauso wie in Äthiopien oder Kolumbien.
Demnach müssen die Behörden alles tun, um Flüchtlinge vor körperlicher und sexueller Gewalt zu schützen. Die Wege in den Unterkünften müssen so gestaltet sein, dass Kinder keine Angst haben, sie zu gehen. Die Kinder sollten Sanitäranlagen alleine benutzen können, damit Jungs nicht mit erwachsenen Männern duschen müssen. Die Vereinten Nationen fordern auch separate Räume, in die sich Kinder zum Spielen oder Ausruhen zurückziehen können.
Doch viele deutsche Behörden wissen nicht einmal, dass es diese Standards überhaupt gibt, beklagen Kinderhilfsorganisationen wie Unicef, Save the Children oder Plan International.”

“I can haz all your votes”

The Economist: Once considered a boon to democracy, social media have started to look like its nemesis.. “An economy based on attention is easily gamed.”

“Facebook and Google account for about 40% of America’s digital content consumption, according to Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research, a data provider[.]
[…]
Adult Americans who use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp spend around 20 hours a month on the three services. Overall, Americans touch their smartphones on average more than 2,600 times a day (the heaviest users easily double that). The population of America farts about 3m times a minute. It likes things on Facebook about 4m times a minute.
The average piece of content is looked at for only a few seconds. But it is the overall paying of attention, not the specific information, that matters. The more people use their addictive-by-design social media, the more attention social-media companies can sell to advertisers—and the more data about the users’ behaviour they can collect for themselves. It is an increasingly lucrative business to be in. On November 1st Facebook posted record quarterly profits, up nearly 80% on the same quarter last year. Combined, Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, control half the world’s digital advertising.”

“Extremely likely” means a probability between 95 and 100%

If baffles me that there are still people denying the human influence on climate even though many studies show that it is extremely likely. I mean, if it is extremely likely that you will sustain serious injuries or die when jumping out of a third floor window, would you take the chances and jump?!

Part of the problem seems to be that many people don’t know enough about statistics, and that some politicians don’t trust the scientific method.

NPR The Two-Way: Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming And Humans Are The Cause.

“It is “extremely likely” that human activities are the “dominant cause” of global warming, according to the the most comprehensive study ever of climate science by U.S. government researchers.
The climate report, obtained by NPR, notes that the past 115 years are “the warmest in the history of modern civilization.” The global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit over that period. Greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture are by far the biggest contributor to warming.
The findings contradict statements by President Trump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role humans play in changing the climate.
“I believe that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in an interview earlier this year. “There’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact.”
That is not consistent with the conclusions of the 600-plus page Climate Science Special Report, which is part of an even larger scientific review known as the fourth National Climate Assessment.
[…]
The report states that the global climate will continue to warm. How much, it says, “will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally.” Without major reductions in emissions, it says, the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit relative to pre-industrial times. Efforts to reduce emissions, it says, would slow the rate of warming.
[…]
The report has been submitted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Trump has yet to choose anyone to run that office; it remains one of the last unfilled senior positions in the White House staff.”

“Mothers die too often because women’s health isn’t valued in the US”

Vox: California decided it was tired of women bleeding to death in childbirth. “The maternal mortality rate in the state is a third of the American average. Here’s why.” By Julia Belluz, Jun 29, 2017.

“[T]here’s been a decline in access to contraception and abortion in many parts of the US, leading to more unplanned, unwanted — and, in some cases, more dangerous — pregnancies.
The opioid epidemic certainly hasn’t made births safer for moms, and health care access remains poor for low-income and minority women, who have among the worst maternal health outcomes.”

Also:

“Large employers in California, including Disney and Apple, as well as insurance payers have recognized that making births safer saves them money. They’ve supported CMQCC by helping pressure hospitals to follow the steps to protect women in the workforce – and avoid incurring unnecessary costs that drive up insurance premiums.”

Emphases mine.

ProPublica and NPR: The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth. By Nina Martin, ProPublica, and Renee Montagne, NPR, May 12, 2017.

“The U.S. has the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world, and 60 percent are preventable. The death of Lauren Bloomstein, a neonatal nurse, in the hospital where she worked illustrates a profound disparity: The health care system focuses on babies but often ignores their mothers.”

ProPublica: Lost Mothers. “An estimated 700 to 900 women in the U.S. died from pregnancy-related causes in 2016. We have identified 134 of them so far.” By Nina Martin, ProPublica, Emma Cillekens and Alessandra Freitas, special to ProPublica, July 17, 2017.

Links via MetaFilter.

“[A] few firings won’t solve the ongoing and underlying problems of objectification and inequality that manifest […] throughout American culture.”

The Atlantic: America’s Sexual-Assault Epidemic. “The Harvey Weinstein scandal rocking Hollywood has now spread throughout the American business world, with a growing list of firings and suspensions among high-profile men.” By Gillian B. White.

“In a sense, the current reckoning with predatory behavior by successful men has come about both because of, and in spite of, the country’s choice of president. […] Yet it’s impossible to contextualize the growing public outcry over sexual assault without considering the short distance, and largely unresolved tension, between Trump’s “you can do anything“ attitude toward women and his subsequent victory over a female candidate. Trump’s repeated denigration of women on the campaign trail, and the fact that he was elected anyway, set the stage for this moment. Viewed in that light, coming forward about experiences of abuse are both an act of personal courage, and a protest against this political moment.”

Link via dangerousmeta.