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Year: 2017

Swearing helps us battle pain – no matter what language we curse in

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(Conversation) – Swear words have many functions. They can be used for emphasis, for comedic effect, as a shared linguistic tool that strengthens social bonds and maintains relationships, or simply to cause offence and shock. They are words that can be emotionally electrifying. We can express utter horror, disdain, or just frustration through the utterance of a simple four-letter word (or several). But swearing isn’t always associated with negative emotions or unpleasant events. A study by Emma Byrne investigated how swearing on Twitter was used by fans at football games….

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Twitter Japan is Not a Safe Space for Minority Users

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“Stop hate speech!” Poster created by the Japanese Ministry of Justice to address hate speech. (GVO) – The absence of measures to control online hate speech discourages freedom of expression among ethnic minorities in Japan, especially resident Koreans, according to a series of reports published by Kanagawa Shimbun, a regional newspaper. The report details how online hate speech makes non-Japanese residents in the country uncomfortable online. While various city, regional and national efforts have been made to address hate speech, Twitter Japan has been slow to respond, prompting demonstrators to gather on…

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How a Local Bureaucrat Made Millions Amid the Rush to Build a Border Fence

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Texas, United States (ProPublica & TexasTribune) – The feds faced a deadline to finish the first version of a border wall. Godfrey Garza Jr. of Hildalgo County, Texas, made it happen, and made himself a small fortune along the way. Other than Garza, no one seems too happy about that. A decade ago, Congress gave officials at the Department of Homeland Security a year to build 60 miles of fence in the Rio Grande Valley to protect the Texas-Mexico border. They faced determined resistance. Political leaders denounced the border fence as…

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When Companies Deny Climate Science, Their Workers Pay

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US (OtherWords) – After decades spreading misinformation about greenhouse gas emissions’ role as a driver of climate change, the deceptive tactics of the fossil fuel industry are slowly beginning to backfire. In December, for instance, General Electric announced major cuts to its fossil-fuel-heavy power department — and the pain of this unplanned transition is already being felt by the people least responsible for the company’s decisions: its workers. In the last two years, many stories have surfaced on the knowledge major fossil fuel companies like Exxon-Mobil had about the climate impacts of their activities,…

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Eastern European Women ‘Treated Like Animals’ in Pop-Up Brothels

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United Kingdom (Sputnik) – A Derby Bishop has said he is extremely concerned about the public neglecting sex slave and human trafficking issues, with victims infrequently found with mental conditions, pumped full of drugs and nearly losing themselves. Family holiday homes found all over picturesque Derbyshire and the Peak District at large appear to be increasingly used as makeshift brothels, with gangsters luring Eastern European women into criminality on promises to employ them in catering businesses or virtual sex operators online, Right Reverend Dr. Alastair Redfern, 69, who serves as the Bishop of Derby told Derby Telegraph. ‘Criminal networks have been…

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What We Discovered During a Year of Documenting Hate

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(ProPublica) – Hate crimes often fall through the cracks in our justice system, and we’ve only just scratched the surface of understanding why. The days after Election Day last year seemed to bring with them a rise in hate crimes and bias incidents. Reports filled social media and appeared in local news. There were the letters calling for the genocide of Muslims that were sent to Islamic centers from California to Ohio. And the swastikas that were scrawled on buildings around the country. In Florida, “colored” and “whites only” signs were posted over water fountains at…

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Why Washington”s Support For Israel Remains Unconditional

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(SCF) – On December 8 the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, tweeted that Washington “will not be lectured to by countries that lack any credibility when it comes to treating both Israelis and Palestinians fairly” which was an insulting rejection of international reaction to Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. She did not mention the unpalatable fact, reported by the New York Times, that the UN Security Council “has adopted a number of resolutions, dating back 50 years, aimed in part at preventing Israel from claiming sovereignty over all…

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Over 100 new species discovered in Southeast Asia’s Greater Mekong region

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(WWF) – A crocodile lizard that is the inspiration behind an up-and-coming comic strip, a snail-eating turtle discovered in a bustling food market in Thailand, and a horseshoe bat that could fit right into a Star Wars movie…these are just three of the 115 new species discovered by scientists in the Greater Mekong region in 2016. These, together with more than a hundred others such as a beautifully coloured frog found in the limestone karst mountains of Vietnam and two mole species from Cambodia, bring the total number of new species of plants,…

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A Crowdfunding Proposal: UFOs Deserve Better and More Public Investigation

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(Garrison) – Between 2007 and 2012, the New York Times reports, a secret US Department of Defense program received $22 million to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Although it no longer receives dedicated funding, the program apparently continues as a part-time effort pursued by personnel with other duties. Among the public, opinion on UFOs runs the gamut from belief that the whole idea is a product of fevered imaginations to conviction that Earth is frequently visited by extraterrestrial beings possessed of technologies beyond our ken. But all along that spectrum…

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The Forgotten: Half of Puerto Rico Without Power 100 Days After Hurricane Maria

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Puerto Rico (Sputnik) – Half of Puerto Rico is still without power, three months after Hurricane Maria unleashed its wrath on the island, making it the longest blackout in American history. A shortage of supplies is claimed to be at fault for the excruciatingly slow restoration the US island’s electrical grid. “The materials are arriving but at a really slow pace. Sadly, we are hardly working,” said a lineman. “In the meantime, we try to reuse whatever materials that can be found onsite which are rusty and unreliable,” according to the Daily Beast. The lineman was brought…

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