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cbabe
cbabe's Journal
cbabe's Journal
March 7, 2024
UK academic’s Wikipedia project raises profile of women around the world
Lucy Moore has created a page for at least one woman from every country in the world for the online encyclopedia
Robyn Vinter North of England correspondent
@robynvinter
Tue 5 Mar 2024 09.21 EST
A UK academic who has completed a project creating a Wikipedia page for a woman in every country in the world is calling for more women to contribute to the world’s largest encyclopedia.
Lucy Moore, an archaeologist and curator who also works as an unpaid carer, began the mammoth project in 2021 from her sofa in Leeds, completing it last week – “unsurprisingly, perhaps, I got really stuck on Vatican City”.
She has now written biographies of 532 women since 2019, when she first became a Wikipedia editor, including scientists, monarchs, activists, writers and women whose faces are well known but their stories are not, such as Sharbat Gula, the refugee with striking green eyes pictured in the famous Afghan Girl portrait from 1984.
Less than 20% of the biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women, although this is an improvement on 16% in 2014, when “a range of different editors started to get together and say, ‘Actually, we really need to change this’,” said Moore.
…more…
UK academic's Wikipedia project raises profile of women around the world
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/05/uk-academics-wikipedia-project-raises-profile-of-women-around-the-world?ref=upstract.comUK academic’s Wikipedia project raises profile of women around the world
Lucy Moore has created a page for at least one woman from every country in the world for the online encyclopedia
Robyn Vinter North of England correspondent
@robynvinter
Tue 5 Mar 2024 09.21 EST
A UK academic who has completed a project creating a Wikipedia page for a woman in every country in the world is calling for more women to contribute to the world’s largest encyclopedia.
Lucy Moore, an archaeologist and curator who also works as an unpaid carer, began the mammoth project in 2021 from her sofa in Leeds, completing it last week – “unsurprisingly, perhaps, I got really stuck on Vatican City”.
She has now written biographies of 532 women since 2019, when she first became a Wikipedia editor, including scientists, monarchs, activists, writers and women whose faces are well known but their stories are not, such as Sharbat Gula, the refugee with striking green eyes pictured in the famous Afghan Girl portrait from 1984.
Less than 20% of the biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women, although this is an improvement on 16% in 2014, when “a range of different editors started to get together and say, ‘Actually, we really need to change this’,” said Moore.
…more…
March 7, 2024
‘Hey, I grew that’: the Native American school that’s decolonizing foodways
In the Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation, teens learn about nutrition and build tribal sovereignty by farming for their school and community
by Kate Nelson
Thu 7 Mar 2024 07.00 EST
Before joining her school’s gardening program this year, 14-year-old Emilie Lyons had never encountered an eggplant. She is a freshman at Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation public school, which serves more than 600 students on the Omaha reservation in Macy, Nebraska. When she brought the vegetable home, she and her dad looked up recipes for how to prepare the peculiar purple nightshade and were surprised by how tasty it was.
…
Macy is considered a food desert, with no grocery store and just a gas station serving the north-eastern Nebraska town of approximately 1,000 residents. The village also has some of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the state. To address these overlapping issues, the Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation’s farm-to-school initiative began as a state-funded Jobs for America’s Graduates (Jag) program, designed to equip youth with employable skills and improve their success in education and their future careers. It was the students’ idea to develop a community garden where they’d log their work hours.
Three years in, the summertime program employs about 50 teens, who grow and harvest more than 25,000 plants each season, including cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, sunflowers, pumpkins, beans, corn, squash and, yes, eggplant. They prepare and preserve that produce in the school’s culinary department to be served in the cafeteria’s fresh salad bar, sold at the local farmers’ market or dished up at a new cafe in town (Macy’s first). There’s also an outdoor classroom on campus, where naturalists, elders and other knowledge keepers impart traditional Indigenous knowledge.
“This was my first experience gardening,” said Lyons. “At first, I did it for the money, but I actually really enjoyed doing the activities with my friends. It was a very powerful experience to plant a seed, care for it, watch it grow, then put these food products up at the farmers’ market. When my friends and I walk by the salad bar in the cafeteria, I’ll point something out to them and say: ‘Hey, I grew that in the garden.’”
…more… many kids don’t have birth certificates…many are homeless… opening bank accounts… also heat and bee stings… money and food in the community…
'Hey, I grew that': the Native American school that's decolonizing foodways
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/07/native-american-school-decolonizing-foodways‘Hey, I grew that’: the Native American school that’s decolonizing foodways
In the Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation, teens learn about nutrition and build tribal sovereignty by farming for their school and community
by Kate Nelson
Thu 7 Mar 2024 07.00 EST
Before joining her school’s gardening program this year, 14-year-old Emilie Lyons had never encountered an eggplant. She is a freshman at Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation public school, which serves more than 600 students on the Omaha reservation in Macy, Nebraska. When she brought the vegetable home, she and her dad looked up recipes for how to prepare the peculiar purple nightshade and were surprised by how tasty it was.
…
Macy is considered a food desert, with no grocery store and just a gas station serving the north-eastern Nebraska town of approximately 1,000 residents. The village also has some of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the state. To address these overlapping issues, the Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation’s farm-to-school initiative began as a state-funded Jobs for America’s Graduates (Jag) program, designed to equip youth with employable skills and improve their success in education and their future careers. It was the students’ idea to develop a community garden where they’d log their work hours.
Three years in, the summertime program employs about 50 teens, who grow and harvest more than 25,000 plants each season, including cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, sunflowers, pumpkins, beans, corn, squash and, yes, eggplant. They prepare and preserve that produce in the school’s culinary department to be served in the cafeteria’s fresh salad bar, sold at the local farmers’ market or dished up at a new cafe in town (Macy’s first). There’s also an outdoor classroom on campus, where naturalists, elders and other knowledge keepers impart traditional Indigenous knowledge.
“This was my first experience gardening,” said Lyons. “At first, I did it for the money, but I actually really enjoyed doing the activities with my friends. It was a very powerful experience to plant a seed, care for it, watch it grow, then put these food products up at the farmers’ market. When my friends and I walk by the salad bar in the cafeteria, I’ll point something out to them and say: ‘Hey, I grew that in the garden.’”
…more… many kids don’t have birth certificates…many are homeless… opening bank accounts… also heat and bee stings… money and food in the community…
March 6, 2024
And the winner for best book that inspired a best picture nominee is …
From Oppenheimer to Poor Things, many of this year’s Oscar frontrunners started life as books, including comprehensive works of nonfiction and a madcap, faux Victorian memoir
Kate McCusker
Wed 6 Mar 2024 09.36 EST
A 721-page biography about the father of the atomic bomb, a send-up of the publishing industry’s simplification of black lives and a Glaswegian tale of an adult woman with an infant’s brain: the books that inspired this year’s best picture Oscar nominees are as varied as the films they spawned. Leading us to ask: if there was a golden statuette for “best book that inspired a best picture nominee”, what would the contenders be?
…
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Journalist David Grann’s 2017 investigation into the murder of wealthy Osage Native Americans for their oil rights is a remarkable book. While Martin Scorsese’s epic three-and-a-half-hour film adaptation focuses on the first two sections of it, Grann’s investigation goes further, exploring how a sinister conspiracy in 1920s Oklahoma led to “the world’s richest people per capita becoming the world’s most murdered”.
…
The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
The Zone of Interest seems misplaced among the nominees for best adapted screenplay given that it shares little more than a title with Martin Amis’s novel. That it deserves a place among the best picture shortlist, though, is unequivocal. In stark contrast to Jonathan Glazer’s stark adaptation, Amis’s 14th novel is often classed as a black comedy – though with its mise en scène of the “popping, splatting, hissing” of an Auschwitz murder meadow, you’d be forgiven for failing to see the funny side. The book toggles between three perspectives: that of camp commandant Paul Doll (modelled on real life Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, on whose domestic life Glazer’s film focuses), Angelus Thomsen, an SS-Obersturmführer intent on having an affair with Doll’s wife, and Szmul Zacharias, a member of the camp’s Sonderkommando, the prisoner work unit responsible for extracting gassed prisoners’ “goldstopped teeth with pliers and chisels” and grinding their ashes. Though they share nothing in the way of plot, the central theme of Amis’ masterful novel echoes down through Glazer’s equally indelible film: “Who are you? You don’t know. Then you come to the Zone of Interest, and it tells you who you are.”
…more…
And the winner for best book that inspired a best picture nominee is ...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/06/and-the-winner-for-best-book-that-inspired-a-best-picture-nominee-is-And the winner for best book that inspired a best picture nominee is …
From Oppenheimer to Poor Things, many of this year’s Oscar frontrunners started life as books, including comprehensive works of nonfiction and a madcap, faux Victorian memoir
Kate McCusker
Wed 6 Mar 2024 09.36 EST
A 721-page biography about the father of the atomic bomb, a send-up of the publishing industry’s simplification of black lives and a Glaswegian tale of an adult woman with an infant’s brain: the books that inspired this year’s best picture Oscar nominees are as varied as the films they spawned. Leading us to ask: if there was a golden statuette for “best book that inspired a best picture nominee”, what would the contenders be?
…
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Journalist David Grann’s 2017 investigation into the murder of wealthy Osage Native Americans for their oil rights is a remarkable book. While Martin Scorsese’s epic three-and-a-half-hour film adaptation focuses on the first two sections of it, Grann’s investigation goes further, exploring how a sinister conspiracy in 1920s Oklahoma led to “the world’s richest people per capita becoming the world’s most murdered”.
…
The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
The Zone of Interest seems misplaced among the nominees for best adapted screenplay given that it shares little more than a title with Martin Amis’s novel. That it deserves a place among the best picture shortlist, though, is unequivocal. In stark contrast to Jonathan Glazer’s stark adaptation, Amis’s 14th novel is often classed as a black comedy – though with its mise en scène of the “popping, splatting, hissing” of an Auschwitz murder meadow, you’d be forgiven for failing to see the funny side. The book toggles between three perspectives: that of camp commandant Paul Doll (modelled on real life Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, on whose domestic life Glazer’s film focuses), Angelus Thomsen, an SS-Obersturmführer intent on having an affair with Doll’s wife, and Szmul Zacharias, a member of the camp’s Sonderkommando, the prisoner work unit responsible for extracting gassed prisoners’ “goldstopped teeth with pliers and chisels” and grinding their ashes. Though they share nothing in the way of plot, the central theme of Amis’ masterful novel echoes down through Glazer’s equally indelible film: “Who are you? You don’t know. Then you come to the Zone of Interest, and it tells you who you are.”
…more…
March 2, 2024
Revealed: the names linked to ClothOff, the deepfake pornography app
Exclusive: Guardian investigation for podcast series Black Box reveals names connected to app that generated nonconsensual images of underage girls around the world
Prologue: the collision – podcast
Michael Safi and Alex Atack in Almendralejo, Spain, and Joshua Kelly in London
Thu 29 Feb 2024 14.28 EST
The first Miriam al-Adib learned of the pictures was when she returned home from a business trip. “Mum,” said her daughter. “I want to show you something.”
The girl, 14, opened her phone to show an explicit image of herself. “It’s a shock when you see it,” said Adib, a gynaecologist in the southern Spanish town of Almendralejo and a mother of four daughters. “The image is completely realistic … If I didn’t know my daughter’s body, I would have thought that image was real.”
…
State prosecutors are considering charges against some of the children,
who created the images using an app downloaded from the internet. But they had been unable to identify the people who developed the app, who prosecutors suspect are based somewhere in eastern Europe, they said.
…
In the year since the app was launched, the people running ClothOff have carefully guarded their anonymity, digitally distorting their voices to answer media questions and, in one case, using AI to generate an entirely fake person who they claimed was their CEO.
…more… names and money trail… worldwide spread…
A fuller account of this story will be published in an episode of Black Box to be released next Thursday.
Do you know more about this story? Contact michael.safi@theguardian.com
(Literally exposing children to violence while hiding themselves. Plus teaching young boys this is all ok. Despicable.)
Revealed: the names linked to ClothOff, the deepfake pornography app
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/29/clothoff-deepfake-ai-pornography-app-names-linked-revealedRevealed: the names linked to ClothOff, the deepfake pornography app
Exclusive: Guardian investigation for podcast series Black Box reveals names connected to app that generated nonconsensual images of underage girls around the world
Prologue: the collision – podcast
Michael Safi and Alex Atack in Almendralejo, Spain, and Joshua Kelly in London
Thu 29 Feb 2024 14.28 EST
The first Miriam al-Adib learned of the pictures was when she returned home from a business trip. “Mum,” said her daughter. “I want to show you something.”
The girl, 14, opened her phone to show an explicit image of herself. “It’s a shock when you see it,” said Adib, a gynaecologist in the southern Spanish town of Almendralejo and a mother of four daughters. “The image is completely realistic … If I didn’t know my daughter’s body, I would have thought that image was real.”
…
State prosecutors are considering charges against some of the children,
who created the images using an app downloaded from the internet. But they had been unable to identify the people who developed the app, who prosecutors suspect are based somewhere in eastern Europe, they said.
…
In the year since the app was launched, the people running ClothOff have carefully guarded their anonymity, digitally distorting their voices to answer media questions and, in one case, using AI to generate an entirely fake person who they claimed was their CEO.
…more… names and money trail… worldwide spread…
A fuller account of this story will be published in an episode of Black Box to be released next Thursday.
Do you know more about this story? Contact michael.safi@theguardian.com
(Literally exposing children to violence while hiding themselves. Plus teaching young boys this is all ok. Despicable.)
March 2, 2024
Emma Stevens - Blackbird by The Beatles sung in Mi'kmaq
Her grandfather helped her with the translation. Paul McCartney honored her. Beautiful story.
https://m.
March 1, 2024
Texas farmers claim company sold them PFAS-contaminated sludge that killed livestock
Two ranches also allege biosolids with ‘forever chemicals’ ruined crops, polluted drinking water and left their properties worthless
Tom Perkins
Fri 1 Mar 2024 06.00 EST
A Texas county has launched a first-of-its-kind criminal investigation into waste management giant Synagro over PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge it is selling to Texas farmers as a cheap alternative to fertilizer.
Two small Texas ranches at the center of that case have also filed a federal lawsuit against Synagro, alleging the company knew its sludge was contaminated but still sold it. Sludge spread on a nearby field sickened the farmers, killed livestock, polluted drinking water, contaminated beef later sold to the public and left their properties worthless, the complaint alleges.
…
The farms’ drinking water was found to be contaminated at levels over 65m times higher than the federal health advisory for PFOS, one kind of PFAS compound, a Guardian calculation indicates, and meat was as much as 250,000 times above safe levels, the lawsuit alleges.
…
Soon after, virtually all fish died in a pond from which the family ate what it caught. Testing showed catfish with PFOS levels in their blood as high as 74,000 ppt for PFOS – a level 30,000 times above the dosage at which humans may get sick from consuming. Around 10 cows and several horses on one farm have died without explanation since the sludge was spread. Testing of a stillborn calf liver found levels as high as 613,000 ppt. Among other health issues farmers say they have experienced since the sludge was spread are high blood pressure, respiratory problems, cardiac issues, generalized pain, skin irritations and one farmer grew a mass on her thoracic spine that threatens to leave her paralyzed.
…more…
It did happen here. Quincy, Washington, 2001.
https://www.goodreads.com › book › show › 255456.Fateful_Harvest
Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Glob… - Goodreads
"Fateful Harvest" proved to be both interesting and disturbing. Author Duff Wilson's nomination for a Pulitzer Prize for
Texas farmers claim company sold them PFAS-contaminated sludge that killed livestock
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/01/texas-farmers-pfas-killed-livestockTexas farmers claim company sold them PFAS-contaminated sludge that killed livestock
Two ranches also allege biosolids with ‘forever chemicals’ ruined crops, polluted drinking water and left their properties worthless
Tom Perkins
Fri 1 Mar 2024 06.00 EST
A Texas county has launched a first-of-its-kind criminal investigation into waste management giant Synagro over PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge it is selling to Texas farmers as a cheap alternative to fertilizer.
Two small Texas ranches at the center of that case have also filed a federal lawsuit against Synagro, alleging the company knew its sludge was contaminated but still sold it. Sludge spread on a nearby field sickened the farmers, killed livestock, polluted drinking water, contaminated beef later sold to the public and left their properties worthless, the complaint alleges.
…
The farms’ drinking water was found to be contaminated at levels over 65m times higher than the federal health advisory for PFOS, one kind of PFAS compound, a Guardian calculation indicates, and meat was as much as 250,000 times above safe levels, the lawsuit alleges.
…
Soon after, virtually all fish died in a pond from which the family ate what it caught. Testing showed catfish with PFOS levels in their blood as high as 74,000 ppt for PFOS – a level 30,000 times above the dosage at which humans may get sick from consuming. Around 10 cows and several horses on one farm have died without explanation since the sludge was spread. Testing of a stillborn calf liver found levels as high as 613,000 ppt. Among other health issues farmers say they have experienced since the sludge was spread are high blood pressure, respiratory problems, cardiac issues, generalized pain, skin irritations and one farmer grew a mass on her thoracic spine that threatens to leave her paralyzed.
…more…
It did happen here. Quincy, Washington, 2001.
https://www.goodreads.com › book › show › 255456.Fateful_Harvest
Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Glob… - Goodreads
"Fateful Harvest" proved to be both interesting and disturbing. Author Duff Wilson's nomination for a Pulitzer Prize for
March 1, 2024
Utah Legislature expands ability of clergy members to report child abuse
Utah Legislature expands ability of clergy members to report child abuse
BY HANNAH SCHOENBAUM
Updated 4:28 PM PST, February 29, 2024
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah faith leaders who learn about ongoing child abuse from a perpetrator during a religious confession will be able to alert police without fear of legal ramifications under a bill that received final legislative approval Thursday in the state Senate.
The measure extends to clergy members the same legal protections that exist for mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect, such as doctors, teachers or therapists. It passed the Senate in a 26-0 vote after receiving similarly unanimous approval in the House earlier this month. It now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Spencer Cox.
State law in Utah, where the vast majority of lawmakers belong to the locally headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, exempts clergy of all denominations from a requirement to report child abuse if they learn about the crime in a confessional setting. Certain communications to clergy are considered privileged under the law, meaning neither the clergy member nor the person who confessed can be forced to testify in court about the contents of the conversation.
While the bill does not remove the legal loophole known as clergy-penitent privilege, Rep. Anthony Loubet said it provides new protections that could incentivize clergy members to come forward. State law already requires clergy members who learn about abuse from any source other than the perpetrator to tell authorities.
…more…
February 29, 2024
Fox
https://m.
Dolphins
https://m.
Lemurs
https://m.
Happy leap year day! Yours?
Kangaroos
https://m.
Fox
https://m.
Dolphins
https://m.
Lemurs
https://m.
February 29, 2024
Older US adults should get another COVID-19 shot, health officials recommend
Story by MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer • 21h
NEW YORK (AP) — Older U.S. adults should roll up their sleeves for another COVID-19 shot, even if they got a booster in the fall, U.S. health officials said Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Americans 65 and older should get another dose of the updated vaccine that became available in September — if at least four months has passed since their last shot. In making the recommendation, the agency endorsed guidance proposed by an expert advisory panel earlier in the day.
…more…
Older US adults should get another COVID-19 shot, health officials recommend
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/older-us-adults-should-get-another-covid-19-shot-health-officials-recommend/ar-BB1j3WqXOlder US adults should get another COVID-19 shot, health officials recommend
Story by MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer • 21h
NEW YORK (AP) — Older U.S. adults should roll up their sleeves for another COVID-19 shot, even if they got a booster in the fall, U.S. health officials said Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Americans 65 and older should get another dose of the updated vaccine that became available in September — if at least four months has passed since their last shot. In making the recommendation, the agency endorsed guidance proposed by an expert advisory panel earlier in the day.
…more…
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