the (liberal) floridian

“When you go to sleep at night, know that the world...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:49:17 -0400

“When you go to sleep at night, know that the world outside your window isn’t nearly as dangerous or violent as the world inside your TV.”

Definitely worth watching.

humansofnewyork:

In October I gave a TEDx talk at Columbia College. It just came online today. Essence of the talk is how our worldview is negatively affected by good stories.

"On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:27:27 -0400

“On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.
(…)
Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”

- Angelina Jolie, My Medical Choice, NYT

Getting Organized

Tue, 14 May 2013 20:30:44 -0400

I just watched the alarming video What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which reminded me of a recent conversation I had with a total stranger about my many neglected interests (specifically, playing the saxophone). Between the two, I ended up thinking up the many ways I waste/lose time throughout the day.

Cutting to the chase: I feel increasingly frustrated with the way I consume news and information. I’m so disorganized - casually scrolling my twitter and facebook feeds, consuming random articles, then feeling annoyed that I didn’t read something more substantial.

This post is about establishing areas of interest and corresponding news sources. Rather than consume whatever the internet throws my way, my goal is to set aside time each day to read the news from a trusted group of writers and publications.

Here’s my list, by topic.

General News, Politics

NPR (by default - I listen on my commute)
New York Times (goal: read the daily front page)

Environment

Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin, New York Times
Inside Climate News
Climate Adaptation, Michael Cote

Race, Racial Justice

Code Switch, NPR

Florida

To be honest, there is no way I have time to read through all of these sites on a daily basis. I’ll consider covering 1-2 topics each day a success. The other aspect of this challenge is to waste less of my down time with mindless scrolling (tumblr, that includes you!)

I’ll report back in a few weeks on how this goes.

Hallway of trees (at Killens Pond State Park)

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:11:14 -0400

Hallway of trees (at Killens Pond State Park)

"But what feels like celebration can also carry with it the undertone of condescension. Amid the hood..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:39:38 -0400

“But what feels like celebration can also carry with it the undertone of condescension. Amid the hood backdrop — the gnarled teeth, the dirty white tee, the slang, the shout-out to McDonald’s — we miss the fact that Charles Ramsey is perfectly lucid and intelligent.”

- —-Gene Demby, Are We Laughing with Charles Ramsay?, NPR

Demby makes excellent points. This really hit home for me in reference to black Internet celebrities like Ramsey and Antoine Dodds: “They’re actually not the type of people we’re used to seeing or hearing at all.” And that is not a good thing.

[h/t theSmithian]

Over the weekend, I attended the Sunlight Foundation’s...

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:55:47 -0400

Over the weekend, I attended the Sunlight Foundation’s Transparency Camp, an annual un-conference of assorted political, legal and data people. My experience working in the Florida Legislature in 2011 was what originally spurred my interest in government transparency.

I came to Tcamp13 ready to talk and think about improving public awareness of governmental issues, finding ways to decrease corruption, etc.

What I wasn’t as prepared for was the world of open data. This video is a helpful summary of an awesome group of people: tech people who know how to code/hack/whatever, and put their skills to use by publicizing and analyzing huge sets of data from the government.

Tcamp13 was an amazing learning experience - I met lots of smart people who are trying to solve important problems. I was also introduced to some cool new tools that I can apply to my own work. Definitely planning to be back next year!

—-

P.S. At the closing session of the conference, people passed around the mic and made commitments to data projects they were going to join or start as a result of Tcamp. I didn’t actually grab a mic, but in my mind I had an idea. After a session on Money in Politics and a long conversation with a guy from Followthemoney.org, I came away with the goal of creating a website dedicated to tracking political money in Florida. I think if financial campaign data was presented in a way that’s easy to visualize, voters would use it as a resource when making political decisions. Anyways, I’m putting this in writing now with the hope that I will reread this blog post and hold myself accountable!

History made in #Delaware! The scene on the Senate floor after...

Tue, 07 May 2013 17:13:55 -0400

History made in #Delaware! The scene on the Senate floor after passing same-sex marriage. #netDE #DE4M @EqualityDE (at Delaware Capitol Building • Legislative Hall)

NPR’s Planet Money has launched a Kickstarter project. For...

Thu, 02 May 2013 21:49:16 -0400

NPR’s Planet Money has launched a Kickstarter project. For $25, you can receive a custom t-shirt that tells the story of its own creation. The Planet Money team is following every little detail of fabric production, sewing, shipping, and whatever else goes into a t-shirt.

As you can see, the shirt design has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I think my favorite part of the project is this explanation:

We thought about the design of our t-shirt like an apparel company would. What feelings, we asked ourselves, do we want the design to evoke? Well, we answered ourselves, as journalists we’re always striving to cover the potentially frightening world of finance and economics in an accessible and fun way. And so we want our t-shirt to feel accessible and fun as well. What, we concluded, is more accessible and fun than a squirrel hoisting a martini glass!

Also, it’s a visual pun — a reference to the phrase “animal spirits” made famous by the economist John Maynard Keynes.

In the 1930s, Keynes wrote that most of our decisions “can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.”

The International Women’s Health Coalition launched a...

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:57:17 -0400

The International Women’s Health Coalition launched a 50-day online advocacy campaign calling on John Kerry, the State Department and the White House to continue to make women’s empowerment a U.S. foreign policy priority. While Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was a vocal advocate for the rights of women and girls worldwide, and we need to maintain that strong level of advocacy.

It looks like they are asking individuals to tweet with the hashtags #usa4girls and #usa4women. There are focus themes for each week - check out a calendar and sample tweets here.

I’m sure John Kerry cares about this issue, but Hillary Clinton was such an awesome voice for women’s empowerment. I think it’s really important that he takes notice and carries on the fight.

Notes on "Pipelines, Pulitzers and Independent Online Journalism"

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:31:28 -0400

Last week, Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin hosted a Google hangout with the Inside Climate News team, who won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. ICN’s winning project is titled The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of, and it chronicles a 2010 spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, along with the broader issues of pipeline regulation in the United States.

I watched the hangout during a lunch break and (embarrassingly) forgot about it, until I just now uncovered a piece of paper with my notes. These are the moments that stood out to me from the discussion:

Susan White, ICN Executive Editor:

We operate with the same journalistic standards I learned in college…You do not have an agenda, you stick to the facts…There is no difference, except we are online.

There is technology available to make pipelines much safer - why not do it?

David Sassoon, ICN Founder & Publisher:

It’s a question of what impact journalism can have on serving the public interest.

Lisa Song, ICN Reporter:

When I talked to some environmental groups about [the Dilbit spill], they didn’t seem interested. They are focused on getting Obama to reject the Keystone XL.

Obviously a lot of ground was covered. If you’ve got 40 minutes, watching the whole discussion is well worth it.

The Florida Legislature & Medicaid.

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:31:46 -0400

The Florida Legislature & Medicaid.

The Connected States of America, by Xiaoji Chen at MIT. The map...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:58:00 -0400

The Connected States of America, by Xiaoji Chen at MIT. The map identifies regions of the country based on frequent phone calls. Chen describes the regions as “emerging communities … defined by human networks.”

Robert Krulwich did a blog post on the ways Americans are connected, and how that can be used to look at our relationships. In addition to phone conversations, he also has detailed maps of financial transactions and the defined regions they create.

Read this book, immediately! I just finished tearing through it...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:53:25 -0400

Read this book, immediately! I just finished tearing through it at breakneck speed. Where’d You Go, Bernadette is one of those wonderful novels that immediately hook you into the story and you basically can’t put it down.

So, thank you, Maria Semple, for a great novel. Now I’m on to read her previous book, This One is Mine.

Recent Read: Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki I heard...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:01:20 -0400

Recent Read: Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki

I heard about this book a few weeks ago, when author Sheeren El Feki was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air. I was intrigued by the interplay of sexuality and Islam in the Middle East, especially in the context of women’s equality.

El Feki is Egyptian, so her analysis focuses on Cairo and its surrounding communities, though she also visits and discusses Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc.

The book is unquestionably well written and researched, providing insights into the social structures of the different countries and the impact of the Arab Spring.

A few things I learned:

The tradition of marriage remains incredibly strong in Egypt. Young people have been getting married later in recent decades (mid-20s), which El Feki attributes to hard economic times - marriage is expensive, and young men want a steady job before they want a wife. Despite this shift, young men and women are still overwhelmingly in favor of marriage. They want to get married, even if only to keep their family happy. Women reference their lack of individual rights as a motivator - often, the only way to escape their father’s authority is through a husband.
Family is everything: individuals feel incredible loyalty to their families, and parents expect strict obedience from their children. Fathers sell their daughters into “summer marriages” (prostitution) to raise money for the family; gay men suppress their romantic relationships in order to hide the truth from their siblings and parents. Family strength is seen as a traditional value, but it also holds back young people from expressing themselves and finding happiness
The key to promoting sexual safety is under the guise of “disease prevention”. Governments of Islamic nations don’t want to acknowledge that young men and women are having sex before marriage, so institutions are reluctant to run campaigns about having safe sex. If the overall message is about stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STIs, governments can be more flexible.
Female genital mutilation is still a huge problem in Egypt. I was shocked - right in downtown Cairo, mothers are still bringing their preteen daughters to “get clipped”. Progress is being made, but there is a long way to go before FGM becomes taboo.

Sex and the Citadel is such a wealth of information, I definitely recommend reading for yourself. My summary doesn’t do it justice.

BBC Journalists Pose as London School of Economics Students, Enter North Korea Covertly

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:21:00 -0400

A friend of mine, David M, attends the London School of Economics. This email was just sent out to all students:

The School wishes to alert all staff and students to a serious development which may affect them personally in future. This relates to the conduct of the BBC in respect of a Panorama programme entitled North Korea Undercover, which is dueto be shown next Monday evening, 15 April.

The programme has been produced using as cover a visit to North Korea which took place from 23-30 March 2013 in the name of the Grimshaw Club, a student society at LSE. The School authorities had no advance knowledge of the trip or of its planning.

The visiting party included Mr John Sweeney, Mr Alexander Niakaris and Ms Tomiko Sweeney. In advance of the trip it was not known to the rest of the party that they were three journalists working for or with the BBC. Their purpose, posing as tourists, was to film and record covertly during the visit in order to produce the Panorama programme.

LSE’s chief concerns are twofold. First, at no point prior to the trip was it made clear to the students that a BBC team of three had planned to use the trip as cover for a major documentary to be shown on Panorama. BBC staff have admitted that the group was deliberately misled as to the involvement of the BBC in the visit. The line used was that “a journalist” would join the visit. BBC staff have argued that this lack of frankness in denying the genuine members of the group the full details was done for their own benefit in the event of discovery and interrogation by North Korean authorities. It is LSE’s view that the students were not given enough information to enable informed consent, yet were given enough to put them in serious danger if the subterfuge had been uncovered prior to their departure from North Korea.

BBC staff asserted in a meeting with LSE management on 9 April 2013 that the BBC had undertaken its own risk assessment in advance of the trip, which had been approved at the highest level. LSE believes that a reasonable assessor of risk, or indeed any parent contemplating their child’s involvement in such an exercise, could only have concluded that the risks taken were unacceptable.

Our second major concern relates to information that came to light after the meeting on 9 April. This is that John Sweeney gained entry to North Korea by posing as a PhD student. The North Korean authorities allege that he described his occupation for entry control purposes as “LSE student, PhD in History” and gave his address as that of LSE - including a specific office room number which is actually used by a genuine member of LSE staff. Students report that the North Korean guides during the visit repeatedly addressed him as “Professor” and that he actively went along with that. John Sweeney graduated from LSE in 1980 with a BSc in Government. He is not an LSE student. If he has a PhD in History (or anything else), it is not from LSE. He does not work for the LSE.

We have no information about how Mr Niakaris or Ms Sweeney may have described themselves in order to gain entry to North Korea, but no description of them as current LSE students or staff can have been accurate.

While this particular trip was run in the name of a student society, the nature of LSE’s teaching and research means that aspects of North Korea are legitimate objects of study in several of our academic disciplines. Indeed, LSE academics work on aspects of many politically sensitive parts of the world, including by travel to those locations. It is vital that their integrity is taken for granted and their academic freedom preserved. The BBC’s actions may do serious damage to LSE’s reputation for academic integrity and may have seriously compromised the future ability of LSE students and staff to undertake legitimate study of North Korea, and very possibly of other countries where suspicion of independent academic work runs high.

Finally, LSE is aware of grave concerns about the actions of the BBC raised by at least two students who took part in the visit and the parents of one.

In light of all of the above, the Chairman of LSE asked the BBC on 10 April to withdraw the planned programme and issue a full apology to LSE for the actions of BBC staff in using the School and its good reputation as a means of deception. This endangered the students and could endanger academics in the future.

LSE deeply regrets that, earlier this afternoon, the Director-General of the BBC has refused the Chairman’s request.

LSE is fully supportive of the principle of investigative journalism in the public interest, and applauds the work of journalists in dangerous parts of the world. We cannot, however, condone the use of our name, or the use of our students, as cover for such activities.

The School stands ready to discuss with any student or member of staff who so wishes how best to address the possible difficulties which the actions of the BBC may entail for them in future.

Another LSE student then commented on my friend’s facebook:

As Trips Manger for the Grimshaw Club, please be aware that we dispute LSE’s account and that it was not, in fact, an official Grimshaw trip and participants were aware of the circumstances. A more formal response to follow.

UPDATE:

The Grimshaw Club issued a statement on facebook:

Dear all,

We were surprised that LSE sent out an email about the North Korea trip before asking us to clarify our involvement in it. We would like at this time to clarify the Grimshaw Club’s role in this trip.

We had no organisational responsibilities with this trip, and no Grimshaw resources or branding were used for this trip. An LSE alum told us about the trip and we advertised as it an opportunity to our mailing list and our Facebook page that may be of interest to our members; but we at no point had any organisational involvement with the trip. In other words, there was no institutional involvement on our part whatsoever and the trip participants were aware of that.

The Grimshaw Committee

An Act of Political Malpractice

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:48:00 -0400

Ruth Marcus published a Washington Post editorial on Obama’s Kamala Harris debacle that summed up my thoughts perfectly.

Marcus states that she could easily write two very different columns about the situation. The first would be titled “Classic Feminist High Dudgeon”:

This column would discuss the continuing, albeit more subtle, discrimination against women in the workplace. It would explain how, even if unintentionally, Obama’s reference to Harris’s attractiveness is demeaning — that it serves, in the apologetic words of White House press secretary Jay Carney, “to diminish the attorney general’s professional accomplishments and her capabilities.”

The second, opposite column would be called “Contrarian Persnickety”:

…bemoaning the tyranny of political correctness in which male politicians and executives shy away from making even the most innocuous remarks (…) [Obama] didn’t concentrate solely on Harris’s looks — he remarked on them in the context of her overall capabilities.

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” the president said at the fundraiser heard round the world. “She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.”

Here is the essence of what Marcus has to say, taking the complex middle ground rather than the outer edges of the spectrum described above:

While it is true — and an interesting insight into the premium the president places on physical appearance — that Obama routinely refers to male Cabinet secretaries and other officials as “good-looking guys,” it is also irrelevant. Such compliments, yes even in 2013, carry different resonance when applied to women.

Check out the editorial responses, too. Funny and sad all at once.

Easter package finally received. My Dad understands the...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:06:38 -0400

Easter package finally received. My Dad understands the important things in life. #chocolate

I found where the cherry blossoms are hiding! #DC (at...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 11:49:04 -0400

I found where the cherry blossoms are hiding! #DC (at Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle))

Updates on the BP Oil Spill Trial

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:40:26 -0400

The trial for the BP oil spill began in late February, and has continued due to the lack of an out-of-court settlement. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is presiding; there is no jury.

This week, Barbier dismissed all claims against Cameron International, the Houston-based company that built the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig. BP designed and selected the components of the blowout preventer, and Cameron built it to exact specifications.

The remaining defendants at the trial are BP, Transocean (owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig) and Halliburton (the cement contractor). Barbier previously dismissed all claims against M-I, the drilling fluids contractor for BP. [source]

—-

Meanwhile, Judge Barbier will also hear a request from BP for an order to block potentially billions of dollars in settlement payouts to businesses that claimed losses caused by the oil spill. Settlement terms for the payouts are interpreted by court-appointed claims administrator Patrick Juneau. BP is arguing that Juneau has made unfair decisions. [source]

—-

Research at the University of South Florida has discovered a massive die-off of foraminifera, the tiny organisms that are the base of marine food chains in the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers analyzed core samples from the bottom of the Gulf:

They found a large, dark clump of sediment from the time of the 2010 disaster. The amount registered as 300 times the normal amount of oil-based particles found on the bottom.

The die-off impacts the health of food chains, and there is a possibility the oil traces could cause genetic changes in fish populations such as red snapper. [source]

Florida Bright Futures: Not looking too bright (more than half of Black and Hispanic students would no longer be eligible)

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:13:51 -0400

In 1997, the Florida Legislature created the Bright Futures scholarship program in an effort to prevent brain drain. Florida’s best and brightest high school students were leaving the state for better options, and the goal of Bright Futures was to give them a reason to stay: college, for free.

Eligibility is based on GPA and SAT/ACT scores, with a three-tier award system: Florida Academic Scholars, Florida Medallion Scholars and Florida Gold Seal Vocational Scholars.

The program was hugely popular, growing significantly each year:

The problem was, it became too successful. Bright Futures is funded by the Florida Lottery, and revenues weren’t keeping up with costs. Furthermore, Florida’s universities wanted to raise tuition in order to compete nationally in the rankings for academics, research, etc.

I attended University of Florida from 2008-2012. My high school GPA and SAT score qualified me for the Florida Academic Scholars, the top tier BF scholarship. This was described to me as a “100% tuition scholarship” by my high school guidance counselor. However, the scholarship only covered 100% for my first year of college. For my other three years at UF, my tuition costs steadily rose each semester - I paid over $1,000 each of my senior year semesters, which is a lot considering I was told I received a scholarship that would cover all of my college tuition.

Check out the other half of the chart - the incredible rising costs:

Two major shifts have occurred for BF: (1) the Florida Legislature has raised eligibility requirements (2) college tuition costs have increased, while Bright Futures award amounts have decreased.

This year, new eligibility standards have been approved and are slated to go into effect on July 1st. Currently, to qualify for the lowest tier scholarship, students need a 1020 SAT or 22 ACT and 3.0 GPA. The new standards would require an 1170 SAT or 26 ACT and 3.0 GPA. Students also have to complete 30, 75 or 100 community service hours for the respective scholarship tier.

A University of South Florida analysis found that the new standards would make Bright Futures scholarships significantly less available to minority students. From State Impact Florida:

According to the analysis, 87 percent of Hispanic freshmen met the current standards. About one-third would qualify under the new standards.

About half of black freshmen qualified for scholarship in 2012. Just one in eight would qualify under the new standards.

Less than one-quarter of the freshmen enrolling at Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Florida A&M University, Florida Gulf Coast University and the University of West Florida would be eligible under the new standards.

No question about it, these changes would make Florida colleges and universities less affordable for minority students, and therefore less accessible. That is bad - but can we blame Bright Futures? BF was never about diversity. (Other programs, such as Florida Opportunity Scholars, are focused on low-income and minority students. And those programs probably need way more funding than current levels.)

I absolutely think Florida needs to focus on getting qualified low-income high school students into our colleges and universities, but let’s not turn Bright Futures into something it’s not.

The best part of Bright Futures is it’s incredible appeal. I could have gone to better-ranked, more prestigious schools in other states, but I ultimately couldn’t pass up that “100% tuition covered” scholarship offer. Now the offers have become so diluted, I don’t think they have the same effect for high-achieving high school seniors. If we want a real merit scholarship that retains the best and brightest, I think the eligibility standards (and the award amounts) should go up even more.

(Sources: State Impact, FSFA)