Author: southwerk

I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.

Syllabus Content Warning

On By southwerkIn Teaching

Japan-Nuclear-EmergencySyllabus Content Warning

I’d never thought about this until I saw Angus Johnston’s post on his blog, Student Activism. I use the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire as an example of the need for regulation in the business environment. It’s pretty graphic and I warn the class verbally before using it. But this might be better. I could include a warning and then list the documentaries that students could have trouble with.

Mr. Johnston says he could use some feedback on this issue. If you are a teacher, please go to his web site and give your advice.

James Pilant

Content Warnings and College Classes |

The New Republic has a story out mocking and condemning what it describes as a trend toward the use of mandatory “trigger warnings” in college classes.

I don’t have time for a full post on this subject right now, but as I said on Twitter a few moments ago, while I’ve never given a trigger warning by that name, I do make a point of mentioning to  my students at the start of the semester the fact that my courses sometimes address horrific and difficult subjects. Beyond that, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I prepare my students for traumatic material in class, and about how I present that material. Classrooms can be traumatizing environments, and it’s appropriate for professors to consider how to ameliorate that possibility.

After I logged off of Twitter, I got to thinking about whether it would be appropriate for me to address the subject of potentially traumatic subjects in the syllabus, and what an attempt to do so might look like. Here’s what I came up with:

“At times during this semester we may be discussing historical events that may be disturbing, even traumatizing. If you ever feel the need to step outside before or during one of these discussions, either for a short time or for the rest of the class session, you may always do so without academic penalty. If you ever wish to discuss your personal reactions to this material, either with the class or with me afterwards, I welcome such discussion as an appropriate part of our coursework.”

That’s just a very early first draft. I don’t know for sure that I’m going to incorporate this into syllabi going forward, but it’s a whack at the problem at least.

I’m interested to know what y’all think, and to see other examples, if you know of any.

via Content Warnings and College Classes |.

From around the web.

From the web site, Classically Inclined.

http://lizgloyn.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/the-classical-pedagogy-of-trigger-warnings/

So, I was putting together my syllabus for Roman Literature of the Empire recently, which is the half-unit course I’m currently teaching to the first year students. It is going to be awesome – we have Livy, Ovid, Lucan, Petronius and Seneca, so I get to spend some time with my favourite boys talking about my favourite things. However. I had decided that for Ovid, if I was going to get the students to read some of his love poetry, I needed to have a lecture titled Why Ovid Is Problematic.

Why? Because it’s not pedagogically responsible to set students loose on the Amores and the Ars Amatoria without explicitly talking about sexual violence and rape. There is a darker side to our witty, playful poet that does need to be talked about, and students need to be given the tools for thinking about these difficult issues. This is, in part, what my article handling teaching the Metamorphoses in the classroom addresses. I had to think quite carefully about how I structured that lecture and what I do with it – I want to talk about the romanticisation of rape in terms of the Sabine women, the abuse of power as it appears in the two Cypassis poems, the violence against the female body as it appears in the two poems about Corinna’s abortion, and the problems of consent and its absence that some of the Amores pose, which feels like a well-structured progression through the issues posed by this sort of writing with some concrete examples.

I have, of course, yet to face the issues involved in actually preparing the lecture. My problem when I was constructing the syllabus was how to make it clear that the content of this session could be disturbing for survivors of rape. What is the pedagogy of the trigger warning on the syllabus?

The Lottery Scammers Are Back Out In Force!

On By southwerkIn corruption

img5aThe Lottery Scammers Are Back Out In Force!

There is no one in the world the lottery scammers prefer as targets than the elderly. Please be aware that when a lottery calls and identifies you as a winner, that it is against the law to demand any payment to get the money.

James Pilant

Foreign lottery schemes impact elderly customers | Your Postal Blog

Postal Inspectors across the country have observed a sharp increase in the number of scams targeting older Americans in recent years. Seniors are being victimized by foreign lotteries, sweepstakes, and other frauds, and some of these nefarious ploys are carried out through the mail. Jamaica has been a point of origin for many of these scams, and the relentlessness of scam artists is steadily increasing.

In the scam, consumers are told they have won a lottery and asked to mail or wire money upfront to obtain their winnings. These false claims only end up with drained consumer bank accounts as the scammers collect their payday. No legitimate lottery will ask for money up front to collect winnings.

via Foreign lottery schemes impact elderly customers | Your Postal Blog.

From around the web.

From the web site, Internet Scam.

http://internetscam.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/email-lottery-scams/

Just as you thought phishing and vishing are the current trend in Internet scam, this news might surprised you. Email lottery scams are on the rise, and you should be aware of it.

The email lottery scam begins with an email asking your attention that you have just won a lottery, and you need to contact a claims “agent” to collect your winning prize. When you contact the so-called agent by email, you are asked to identify yourself by submitting your personal information as well as copies of your passport and driving license. By doing so, the scammer will have enough information to steal your identity.

Fukushima, Three Years Ago

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility

NuclearPowerPlantFukushima, Three Years Ago

And still the crisis goes on and on. Every few months, new unsettling information comes out. Every few months, new levels of incompetence emerge.

The reactor continues to leak radioactivity.

They can’t fix it.

Should that make you wonder about the future of nuclear power?

Better yet, what kind of business ethics is it that encourages taking these kinds of risks?

James Pilant

Fukushima: Third Anniversary of the Start of the Catastrophe | Eslkevin’s Blog

With the third anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe coming next week, the attempted Giant Lie about the disaster continues–a suppression of information, an effort at dishonesty of historical dimensions.

It involves international entities, especially the International Atomic Energy Agency, national governmental bodies–led in Japan by its current prime minister, the powerful nuclear industry and a “nuclear establishment” of scientists and others with a vested interest in atomic energy.

Deception was integral to the push for nuclear power from its start. Indeed, I opened my first book on nuclear technology, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power, with: “You have not been informed about nuclear power. You have not been told. And that has been done on purpose. Keeping the public in the dark was deemed necessary by the promoters of nuclear power if it was to succeed. Those in government, science and private industry who have been pushing nuclear power realized that if people were given the facts, if they knew the consequences of nuclear power, they would not stand for it.”

via Fukushima: Third Anniversary of the Start of the Catastrophe | Eslkevin’s Blog.

From around the web.

From the web site, Nuclear Energy.

http://nuclearenergyblogassignment.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/lets-say-no/

Based on those potential risks and terrible experiences, I cannot agree nuclear power is the best option for generating electricity. Nowadays, we still cannot control nuclear power steadily. Nuclear power is like a savage beast. If it becomes uncontrollable someday, we do not have the capability to control it. There is no perfect safety. We don’t know how serious problems will happen or when the next accident will appear. We cannot bear more catastrophes. We should decrease reliance on nuclear power. I hope scientists can develop new technology to obtain energy or improve other renewable energy and alternative energy resources, like wind power and solar power. We should learn from history to not repeat failure. For public health and for the safety of the environment, we should keep away from this beast.

The lights of Fukushima Daiichi by night

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Take a look at the future with nuclear power, a dead zone with no people outside a lighted atomic power plant (that doesn’t work).

nelson311's avatarEVACUATE FUKUSHIMA

LET IT SHINE

The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, foreground, shines in the darkness on Feb. 18. The city of Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture, top left, and central Tokyo, stretching from east to west on the horizon, are also seen. (Yusaku Kanagawa)

1689324_10200727962961356_1773136243_n

Seen from an altitude of 13,000 meters at night, the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant shone brightly in a sea of darkness amid the loneliness of the evacuation zone.

The Asahi Shimbun flew its Asuka airplane over the municipalities of Fukushima Prefecture on Feb. 18. The plant was clearly visible because work to deal with the rising volume of contaminated water and to decommission reactors was actively ongoing, even at night.

In stark contrast, near-complete darkness enveloped areas designated as difficult-to-return zones for residents surrounding the plant.

The city of Iwaki in the prefecture and the bright glow of central Tokyo, once the main recipient…

View original post 98 more words

Inequality in America

On By southwerkIn Capitalism
Potemkin Village
Potemkin Village

Inequality in America

Read the numbers below and see just how staggering inequality has become over the past few years. It’s a rigged game and it didn’t have to be this way. Globalization is a force but these changes are the result of tax policies and trade deals not to mention government guarantees for banks and other financial institutions. Manufacturing has become a cheap bargaining chip to open foreign markets to American drug patents and copyright protections for the motion picture industry.

Basic business ethics would suggest that destroying your customer base is both unethical and foolish.

James Pilant

Inequality | Real-World Economics Review Blog

I am preparing a talk on inequality here in America, and so have been re-reading the Piketty and Saez work. Amongst the more eye-opening facts I have come across is the assertion, by Saez, that the surge in the top 1% incomes is so large that the growth of the bottom 99% amounts to only half the average [mean].

Think about that for a moment.

It would be like walking into a room full of people two feet tall with one thirty footer in the corner. The mean average is meaningless in such circumstances. We are all taught that in statistics class, but to come across such an egregious example in a dataset as large as all US tax returns is astonishing.

Not only is this an alarming fact, but to portray it adequately on a chart is difficult to do. The line representing that 1% doesn’t fit well with the 99% because any scale you use cannot easily accommodate such extremes.

When I chat with people about the topic I realize that most have no clue as to how skewed and screwed up the economy now is. Even when they start to comprehend they retreat into a kind of ‘it doesn’t affect me’ denial. The fact seems to be that most people want to cling onto the mythological image of America they carry with them, perhaps because confronting the reality we have made for ourselves means accepting unpleasant and disturbing facts.

Yet they’ve all been hurt by what happened.

via Inequality | Real-World Economics Review Blog.

From around the web.

From the web site, Rethinking Inequality.

http://rethinkinginequality.wordpress.com/

Rising economic inequality in Canada and other advanced industrialized states is a phenomenon much discussed by the media in recent years: indeed, income and wealth inequality have reached historic highs in the U.S. — where the top 1% owns nearly 50% of the wealth — as well as Canada, where the top quintile now controls 70% of the wealth and earns 44% of all employment income.  The precise impact of this rising inequality has become an important subject of study and intense debate among economists, sociologists, social epidemiologists, and urban studies scholars; chief among the possible consequences of inequality they explore are those on public health, economic growth, mobility, levels of social trust, educational opportunity, and crime rates.

Normative reflection on rising economic inequality by moral and political philosophers and theorists has, by contrast, focused on broader, more foundational questions: Which aspects or forms of equality are most important for a just, decent society, and which are comparatively insignificant? Are equal respect and political equality compatible with a high degree of social and economic inequality? And on what grounds might a society strive to reduce inequality, and at what costs to citizens’ social, economic, and political freedoms?

Exposing a Bully is Not Bullying

On By southwerkIn business ethics

My colleague, Paul Kiser, has written an important post about bullying. Please read it, then go to his blog and sign up as a follower. You won’t regret it.

Paul Kiser's avatar3rd From Sol

During this past week much has been written (including myself) about the case of a person in a position of power, Kelly Blazek, the gatekeeper of a Cleveland, Ohio jobs listing for marketing positions, writing a nasty email to a job seeker. Blazek’s language in the email was unyielding in her attempt to embarrass and humiliate the job seeker. Blazek was using her power to bully someone who was in an inferior position.   

Therefore, I was shocked when I read an ‘Opinion‘ on CNN.com by Dr. Peggy Drexler, who wrote that by publicizing the email and seeking attention to the bullying, the job seeker:

“….acted with malice, and caused the older woman significant damage…”

The specific language suggests that Dr. Drexler is encouraging Blazek, the person who was the bully, to sue the victim on the grounds of malice, libel, and/or age discrimination. One might question…

View original post 462 more words

NO ONE IN JAIL YET OVER FUKUSHIMA CRISIS

On By southwerkIn business ethics

How many crimes do you have to commit to go to jail if you are a high official in a corporation?

nelson311's avatarEVACUATE FUKUSHIMA

Hundreds rally in Tokyo against dropped Fukushima crisis charges

by Japan Times

March 1st, 2014

Hundreds rallied Saturday in Tokyo to protest a decision by prosecutors to drop charges over the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, meaning no one has been indicted, let alone punished, nearly three years after a calamity ruled “man-made.”

no charges

Official records do not list anyone as having died as a direct result of radioactive fallout after tsunami unleashed by the 9.0-magnitude quake of March 11, 2011, crashed into the Fukushima No. 1 plant, swamping cooling systems and causing three reactor meltdowns.

Excluded from those records are Fukushima residents who committed suicide owing to fears about the fallout showered on their hometowns, while others died during the evacuation process. Official data released last week showed that 1,656 people have died in the prefecture from stress and other illnesses related to the nuclear crisis.

“There are many victims of the…

View original post 614 more words

Neo-Liberalism Defined

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

 

From around the web.

From the web site, Political Snapshots.

http://politicalsnapshots.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/neo-liberalism-and-the-role-of-government/

Neo-Liberalism and the role of Government.

 

When a government abdicates its responsibility in regulating the economy (as did the U.S. government), capitalist greed accompanied by all sorts of illegal amassing of wealth by the few, at the expense of the majority in society takes place. In other words, policies of neo-liberalism compel governments to abandon regulation of the economy, so that only profit- making becomes the law of the land. Society be damned. The citizen is only a consumer. The government is only a facilitator of business exploitation.

 

A government as a body that has the power to enforce environmental, labor and consumer laws was required by neo-liberal philosophy to abandon its most critical responsibility of social policy to “market forces”. While it is true that Democracy gives ordinary people a significant voice in government, at the end of the day, who makes the policies that the U.S. government pursues, is what matters. When that question is properly answered, then, we will find out who has power in America.

Yamada Cancels Amazon Prime

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility
David Yamada
David Yamada

Yamada Cancels Amazon Prime

David Yamada is a crusader against workplace bullying. I read his blog regularly and this is his latest post. I think you should read it.

I find his rationale for dropping the service to be compelling. Why don’t you go to his site, read the full post and see if you agree?

James Pilant

Why I cancelled my Amazon Prime account « Minding the Workplace

I cancelled my Amazon Prime account earlier this week, and until working conditions for their employees improve, I won’t be shopping there nearly as often as I have previously.

Amazon Prime is a premium membership service that guarantees two-day shipping on almost every item ordered. For frequent customers such as myself, Prime offers easy, dependable, click-and-ship ordering, with hardly any waiting time for delivery.

However, revelations about Amazon’s labor practices have become increasingly disturbing, more specifically the working conditions in its vast merchandise warehouses. For me, the final straw was a recent Salon investigative piece by Simon Head, “Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers,” detailing how the situation is much worse than I imagined …

via Why I cancelled my Amazon Prime account « Minding the Workplace.

From around the web.

From the web site, The Big Idea Bookstore.

http://thebigideapgh.wordpress.com/about-us/whats-wrong-with-amazon/

Cheap books aren’t always a bargain

• Cheap books are really publishers and authors receiving less: this doesn’t support the future of book publishing and quality writing. Amazon can offer “discounts” because they are cutting other costs: taxes, publisher payments, author payments, and safe-labor practices.

• Amazon has strong-armed many publishers into reducing the prices of their books and eBooks. In some instances when publishers have refused, Amazon has removed the “buy” button from the pages of the publishers’ books. This tactic threatens the ability of publishers to survive in an industry with an already low profit margin. (Read more: Books After Amazon)

• Amazon uses “loss leaders” to gain an unfair pricing advantage over their bookselling competition. Selling certain books (or Kindles) at a loss or no profit entices customers to their website to buy big ticket items (often non-book items, like electronics, since books are only a tiny fraction of Amazon’s Walmart-esque business model).

• Amazon refuses to pay taxes in most states, even when they have a physical presence there. By not paying state sales taxes, Amazon gains an advantage in pricing perception over independent bookstores because their prices seem lower by 5 to 8% (the sales tax rate in most states).

Working in an Amazon warehouse literally means working in a sweatshop

• Amazon’s Pennsylvania warehouses get so hot in summer months that Amazon keeps ambulances outside of the buildings to rush employees to the hospital. Employees must keep a brutal production pace even during heat waves or they risk being terminated. (Read more: Inside Amazon’s Warehouse)

How Much Strontium-90? We dont’ know?

On By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility
From the Department of Defense
From the Department of Defense

How Much Strontium-90? We dont’ know?

As I wrote with some foresight years ago, the Fukushima disaster is going to last for decades. As a business ethics disaster, Fukushima gives fracking a good run for its money, and here’s how: We keep finding out new ways that TEPCO screwed up. That’s right, after enormous failures in management, truth telling and just basic competence, all of them staggering, we keep finding new ones.

Read below about the new one and relish their utterly responsible reason – they were real busy. That is precisely one step above “the dog ate my homework.”

We’re talking Strontium 90, an isotope of the element. Our bodies mistake it for calcium and thus incorporates it into our bone structure. And that’s because we all need silvery radioactive metals deposited right next to our bone marrow so that our production of blood cells can be illuminated by the glow.

So, it seems they got real busy and lost track of how much strontium 90 was being released. No big deal. After all, what is it going to do? – Deposit itself in the bones of adults and in particular children giving  them enhanced opportunities for cancer and leukemia?

Nah. Don’t let that kind of thing worry you. After all, these are the kinds of people running nuclear power all over the world. They’re competent, cool, collected, well-educated businessmen. Not flaky environmentalists, no government officials, no liberal arts trained thinkers, just savvy businessmen who understand the real world, the world of competence, of money, the important stuff. Genetic structure? Screw it. It’s not on the balance sheet. Won’t cost the investors a dime, and that’s where the action is, after all.

Remember the free market can solve all problems. Government interference damages the free market and thus produces inefficiencies which cannot be tolerated. So, therefore, these gentlemen at TEPCO are heroes being unfairly stigmatized. We should get out of their way and let market forces naturally solve the problem.

Just look away. Everything will be fine.

James Pilant

Tepco Says Fukushima Radiation ‘Significantly’ Undercounted – Bloomberg

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) is re-analyzing 164 water samples collected last year at the wrecked Fukushima atomic plant because previous readings “significantly undercounted” radiation levels.

The utility known as Tepco said the levels were undercounted due to errors in its testing of beta radiation, which includes strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer. None of the samples were taken from seawater, the company said today in an e-mailed statement.

“These errors occurred during a time when the number of the samplings rapidly increased as the result of a series of events since last April, including groundwater reservoir leakage and a major leak from a storage tank,” according to the statement.

via Tepco Says Fukushima Radiation ‘Significantly’ Undercounted – Bloomberg.

From around the web.

From the web site, Fukushima News Updates.

http://fukushimanewsupdate.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/mitsubishi-corp-mitsubishi-corporation-to-develop-mega-solar-projects-in-iwaki-fukushima/

Mitsubishi Corp : Mitsubishi Corporation to Develop Mega Solar Projects in Iwaki, Fukushima

Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is pleased to announce plans for the construction of a new solar power plant* in Iwaki City, Fukushima. The largest of its kind in the Tohoku region, the 12,000-kilowatt facility is expected to start operating from mid-2014. The project forms part of MC’s overall strategic focus of developing its business in the renewable energies sector.

Known as one of the foremost industrial areas in the region and as well for being a major sightseeing area, Iwaki receives the highest amount of sunlight annually within Tohoku. MC is developing the mega solar project with full support from Nippon Kasei, as well as cooperation from the Fukushima Prefecture and Iwaki City governments. MC is simultaneously developing a 6,000-kilowatt mega solar project at the site of Onahama Petroleum Co., Ltd, a joint venture between MC and Tepco in Iwaki. Together, the two projects will constitute 18,000 kilowatts of solar power generation in total at Onahama.

From around the web.

From the web site, Evacuate Fukushima.

http://evacuatefukushimanow.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/welcome-back-to-tamura-city-%E7%94%B0%E6%9D%91%E5%B8%82-fukushima-%E7%A6%8F%E5%B3%B6%E7%9C%8C/

For the first time since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant three years ago, the government is lifting an evacuation order in a restricted area, allowing residents to return to their homes.

Residents of an eastern strip of the Miyakoji district of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, are being allowed to return as of April 1, the first day of the 2014 fiscal year, government officials said at a meeting Feb. 23. The area lies within 20 kilometers west of where the accident occurred.

One reason the government is rushing to lift evacuation orders for communities affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster is cost. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is being lent money by the government’s Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to compensate evacuees, is required to continue compensation one year after an evacuation order is lifted. Lifting the orders will hasten the end of those payments.

According to the industry ministry, 1.5 trillion yen ($14.63 billion) has been paid in compensation to evacuees from 11 municipalities as of February.

In addition, decontamination costs will snowball if the government tries to achieve its long-term goal of lowering annual airborne radiation doses to 1 millisievert or less in areas where evacuation orders are in place.

A Reconstruction Agency official said it is unclear whether the long-term goal can be achieved even if the government continues decontamination work.

Prior to the Feb. 23 meeting, a senior Reconstruction Agency official asked Kazuyoshi Akaba, a senior vice industry minister, to explain the government’s policy to evacuees “even if it means rising to your full height and standing firm before residents.”

Akaba and Tamura Mayor Yukei Tomitsuka were tasked with explaining the new policy to the residents.

During a previous meeting in October, Tomitsuka had proposed lifting the evacuation order by November, but residents complained, saying too much contamination remained.

Some evacuees requested additional decontamination work because the radiation levels remained above 1 millisievert in some areas. The government promised to deal with residents who are still worried about high radiation levels on a case-by-case basis.

“If this abnormal situation continues, residents will lose attachment to their hometown and the community will collapse,” Tomitsuka has said.