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Purging In Florida

Posted on July 1, 2012 in Articles

The Article: World War II Vet Caught Up In Florida’s Voter Purge Controversy by Greg Allen in NPR.

The Text: Bill Internicola, a 91-yar-old World War II veteran, was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., and now lives in Florida’s Broward County. He recently received a letter from county elections officials asking him to show proof he was a U.S. citizen or be removed from the voting rolls.

Internicola says he was “flabbergasted.”

“To me, it’s like an insult,” he says. “They sent me a form to fill out. And I filled out the form and I sent it back to them with a copy of my discharge paper and a copy of my tour of duty in the ETO, which is the European Theater of Operations.”

A Losing Battle For Science

Posted on June 30, 2012 in Articles

The Article: How Science Lost a PR War and We Lost a Lyme Disease Vaccine by Michael Berne in Vice.

The Text: I have no idea where you live, but here in my current home state of Maryland we have ticks just, like, materializing out of thin air. Merely seeing a spot of grass in the distance makes you tuck your pants into your socks and reach for the Deep Woods Off. That is because ticks are among the worst things going in nature — their whole thing is to shove their wretched little faces into your flesh and suck and suck until they either get fat with blood and fall off, or are found and tweezed. Finding one latched onto your ankle like some kind of pimple-insect hybid elicits an entirely unique kind of shudder.

Ticks also carry Lyme disease, a potentially disabling bacterial infection that’s on the rise and will likely continue to rise (2009 saw 30,000 cases in the U.S.). And tick-wise — and Lyme disease-wise — this season threatens to be brutal. You might want to get vaccinated. . . except the vaccine was yanked from the market by its manufacturer in 2002.

In 1998, GlaxoSmithKline released a vaccine. It was made from a protein found on the surface of the Lyme disease bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi; you get a dose and it triggers antibodies, which, rather than killing the bacteria, travelled into the tick itself, knocking out the bacteria at its source before it can enter the body. As far as vaccine mechanisms go, it’s pretty clever and one-of-a-kind. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before things to go downhill.

A Cure For The Common Tea Party?

Posted on June 29, 2012 in Articles

The Article: The Cure For The Tea Party? by Steve Kornacki in Salon.

The Text: The “top two” primary system California debuted yesterday takes some getting used to, but it could be a helpful tool for combating the biggest single problem in Washington: Republican extremism.

In the Tea Party-era, the congressional GOP has pursued a legislative strategy that rejects any compromise and exploits every available legislative tool and loophole to obstruct the other party’s agenda and engage in partisan warfare. As Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann argue in their new book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” this conduct might be acceptable in a parliamentary system, but in Congress it inevitably leads to disaster – like last summer’s debt ceiling standoff, which led to the first-ever credit downgrade for the United States.

The GOP’s embrace of extremism is fueled by the far-right absolutists who make it to Congress by winning primaries in safely Republican districts (where there’s no general election penalty for extremism) and by the survival instincts of other Republican lawmakers, who choose to conceal their pragmatic urges for fear of becoming the right’s next primary victim. Those dynamics have only been reinforced by this year’s primary season, which has featured several high-profile upsets of Republican “establishment” politicians.

The Anti-Walmart

Posted on June 28, 2012 in Articles

The Article: How Costco Became The Anti-Walmart by Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times.

The Text: JIM SINEGAL, the chief executive of Costco Wholesale, the nation’s fifth-largest retailer, had all the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old in a candy store as he tore open the container of one of his favorite new products: granola snack mix. “You got to try this; it’s delicious,” he said. “And just $9.99 for 38 ounces.”

Some 60 feet away, inside Costco’s cavernous warehouse store here in the company’s hometown, Mr. Sinegal became positively exuberant about the 87-inch-long Natuzzi brown leather sofas. “This is just $799.99,” he said. “It’s terrific quality. Most other places you’d have to pay $1,500, even $2,000.”

But the pièce de résistance, the item he most wanted to crow about, was Costco’s private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts. “Look, these are just $12.99,” he said, while lifting a crisp blue button-down. “At Nordstrom or Macy’s, this is a $45, $50 shirt.”

A Guys’ Demise

Posted on June 27, 2012 in Articles

The Article: The Demise Of Guys by Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan in CNN.com.

The Text: – Is the overuse of video games and pervasiveness of online porn causing the demise of guys?

Increasingly, researchers say yes, as young men become hooked on arousal, sacrificing their schoolwork and relationships in the pursuit of getting a tech-based buzz.

Every compulsive gambler, alcoholic or drug addict will tell you that they want increasingly more of a game or drink or drug in order to get the same quality of buzz.