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POPSRed Cross: How to help – not hinder – Haiti
More: Storage space is scarce in every post-disaster setting. A huge influx of goods needs to be housed somewhere. In Banda Aceh after the Tsunami, health centres had to sacrifice patient’s rooms to store inappropriate drugs. The irony is that the medicines sent in to help people instead reduced the number of sick people who could access treatment… Drugs that are not required, those that have expired or have no expiry date have to be destroyed. Incineration is preferred as this prevents the hazard of land filled medicines contaminating water supplies or drugs being collected and sold on the black market. In Eritrea after the war of independence, seven truckloads of expired aspirin took six months to burn. The real tragedy is the cost of this process. In the Venezuela floods in 2000, seventy percent of donated pharmaceuticals had to be destroyed. To be able to cover this cost, a support line to provide psychological support to the survivors had to be shut down.
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POPSpoem: "What it feels like for [this] Girl." by nko More: … Because sometimes the looks are accompanied by suggestive facial contortions in my direction, sometimes by disgusting words (and I can usually tell when those are going to follow). But they don’t have to, for the look to be scary, or threatening, or simply just a way that I don’t want to be looked at. Am I overly sensitive? If it was nightime on a deserted street, you could see the validity of me, as a young woman, feeling uncomfortable walking by myself. But why are those feelings less valid during the day? What is so scary about the night? Do you think those people who make me feel uncomfortable at night magically disappear during the day? Do you think that they are only obvious monsters, like vampires or some other vulturing creature alive only at night? You don’t think that they also walk the streets during the day, or drive past me, honking the horn, waving their tongues at me as they stop at the red light? …
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POPSpoem: "The Principles of Concealment" by David Wagoner More: … And let you have your moment In the sun as an abstraction gone To pieces, as a surface mottled and dappled Ambiguously by intercepted light Like a man cancelled. But all these efforts Will come to nothing if you move: one gesture May catch all eyes. If you stand Still then, or stay seated If you’re sitting down, or go on lying Down if you’re lying, an easy solution May occur to you, cheek to cheek With the hard facts of inorganic life: That you have no enemy, That no one is hunting you, That all your precautions were a waste Of attention better given to more rewarding Evasions and pursuits. If so, And you take your place again As a distinct departure From your foreground and background, You should know it’s possible For you to feel, after all, At the first step, at the first crack Out of the box, that lethal impact, That private personal blow marking your loss Of the light of day, the companionship Of the night, and the creature comforts of home
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POPSEmotional maturity lags cognitive ability in teens More: Study participants, ranging in age from 10 to 30, completed interviews and questionnaires measuring psychosocial maturity and basic intellectual skills, including verbal fluency and working memory. Maturity was gauged by impulse control, sensation-seeking, resistance to peer pressure, risk perception, and awareness of long-term consequences. Researchers found that certain cognitive abilities reach adult levels by the age of 16, while emotional maturity isn't attained till after 22. The study appears in the October issue of American Psychologist, a journal of the American Psychological Association. The organization previously had described adolescents as being competent to make sound healthcare decisions but too shortsighted and impulsive to warrant capital punishment.
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POPSHigh school senior prevented from graduating because her family was evicted More: The testing debacle compounds an already difficult situation for Rosa and her family. Her mom lost her job as an administrative assistant last April and has been working as a temp ever since, causing the family to fall three months behind on rent. Rosa's family had been homeless more than a decade ago, leading to her being bounced between shelters and four elementary schools before getting accepted into a gifted and talented program in Manhattan. To help ease her family's economic problems, Rosa worked hard to finish all of her credits in 3-1/2 years, and had been on track to graduate this week. She was even accepted into Lincoln Technical Institute and aced the entrance exam, scoring a 490 out of a possible 500 on the English assessment. But she still has no high school diploma.
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POPSTop 10 Worst Drugstore Makeup Products More: We have done several special reports and lists of the best products you can buy at the drugstore, department store, infomercial, spas, and so on. We thought it was time to flip the coin and offer a list of the worst products you should avoid! The list below consists of the worst makeup products at the drugstore. In coming weeks, we’ll feature similar lists alerting you to the worst products at the department store and other sources, covering such categories as skin care, makeup, and hair care. So, without further ado, here are our picks for the worst makeup products at the drugstore, so you know which items to definitely pass on the next time you’re strolling the drugstore cosmetic aisles. By the way, these aren’t the only worst products, there are many others, so we will start doing these types of lists more often just to help keep your skin and makeup looking beautiful all the time and your budget in shape as well.
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POPSBritish newspapers make things up More: I hope American and British readers (and readers throughout the world) will finally wake up to the reality of British journalism: You just cannot believe what you read in British newspapers. I’d further call on my academic colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic never to speak to British reporters. You have absolutely no control over what they say about you and your scientific research. Unfortunately, however, this does not always work. A reporter from the Sunday Times has recently requested an interview with me about one of my papers. Having already learned my lesson in 2006, I completely ignored his email and telephone messages. As a result, no interview took place. But that did not stop him at all. He went ahead and wrote his article, pretending that he had interviewed me and quoting me at length.
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POPSHow objectification silences women - the male glance as a psychological muzzle More: Obviously, this experiment used a fairly artificial scenario. In the real world, social interactions are more complicated and objectification can take place more subtly, with a quick glance rather than a blatantly angled camera. Even so, these behaviours don't go unnoticed. They could be major problems if the same detrimental silencing effect in Saguy's study applies in real-world situations where being vocal is important for success - job interviews, work meetings, networking sessions, classrooms and more. There will always be hardened lechers among us but often, objectification happens without us thinking about it or becoming aware of it. It's time, perhaps, that more of us did. Reference: Saguy et al. 2010. Interacting Like a Body: Objectification Can Lead Women to Narrow Their Presence in Social Interactions. Psychological Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797609357751
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POPSOakland's Mayor Dellums hit with ANOTHER tax lien RESIGN, RON, RESIGN!!! More: Throughout all the turmoil caused by Dellums' shortcomings, he has appeared as someone who views himself as a notch above the common man. He arrives to work in a limousine, lives in a palatial estate in the Oakland hills, travels first-class and has a need for five-star lodging and accommodations wherever he goes, whether it's for city business or for personal reasons. He is by no means, a man of the people at a time when the people of Oakland desperately need one.
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POPS"Yeah, we'll be by some time between 8:00 and 5:00... maybe" More: California Civil Code 1722(b) refers specifically to retailers and merchandise, service or repair. Exceptions include unforeseen or unavoidable circumstances (beyond the control of the retailer) and no one being home during the originally scheduled four-hour window. It must also be shown that work had not yet commenced during said scheduled time… If they fail to show, you may need to call the company for another appointment. At this time, they must grant you a two-hour window appointment… If this does go to a small-claims suit, it will be important to show your records and also provide proof of lost wages. Another thing to keep in mind is that the service provider cannot put something in the contract stating you are waiving your rights under California Civil Code 1722. The court will find this void. This is in accordance with section (d) of the same above-mentioned law.
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POPSRunning Doc: Please limit caffeine the morning of a race! The cases mentioned in the column: * A 33-year-old male running a half-marathon dropped at the 12-mile mark, at 3:10 into his race. The morning of the race, he had drunk two energy drinks and a Starbucks Grande coffee, and used two caffeinated gels. Cardiac catherization revealed a small lesion (less than 20%) but otherwise clean coronaries. * A 42-year-old woman running a marathon dropped at the 24.5-mile mark, 4:10 into her run. She had drunk two large coffees and had three caffeinated gels. Her cardiac cath also showed clean coronaries. * A 26-year-old male also running a marathon dropped at the 25.5-mile mark, 3:25 into his run. He had taken two caffeine pills plus coffee the morning of his race, and also had clean arteries on cardiac cath.
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POPSWhen the house seems too empty More: Here's the thing, really: After you've been married a certain number of years, the person you're married to becomes your life partner. It's not a decision you made, although you thought that's what you were doing at the beginning; it's a thing that happens. It's visceral; it's irreversible. I know that God laughs when you make plans; I know that about half the population will eventually live without their life partner. It's too sad, all of it. And it's not supposed to happen to me. Understand, everything went fine. The doctor was at great pains to tell me that…But loss is loss, real or imagined. My only consolation was that it was a trial run. In the event of real emergency, I would have been instructed to turn my radio to hysterical overreaction. You know what she's doing right now as I type this thing? She's at Sur La Table evaluating foamers. Heh. There was no crisis; there were unexpected things, but they were dealt with. Everyone is fine.
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