human rights
grrlscientist | April 6, 2010tags: How to Combat Modern Slavery, philosophy, morality, ethics, behavior, poverty, culture, slavery, human rights, human values, Kevin Bales, TEDTalks, streaming video
In this moving yet pragmatic talk, Kevin Bales explains the business of modern slavery, a multibillion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground research -- and names the price of freeing every slave on earth right now.
Kevin Bales is the co-founder of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2010tags: Science CAN Answer Moral Questions, philosophy, morality, ethics, behavior, brain, neurobiology, religion, culture, well-being, human rights, human values, Sam Harris, TEDTalks, streaming video
Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
Adored by secularists, feared by the pious, Sam Harris' best-selling books argue that religion is ruinous and, worse, stupid -- and that questioning…
emjohnson | March 11, 2010 Coca-Cola sucks India dry. Image: Carlos Latuff / Wikimedia CommonsThe marketing executive who came up with Coca-Cola's popular slogan in 1908 most likely never expected it would be taken so literally. However, a hundred years ago there probably weren't many who imagined a term like "water wars" could exist in a region that experiences annual monsoons.
On February 25 a complaint was filed in the New York Supreme Court against the The Coca-Cola Company alleging that they knew about and sought to cover up human rights abuses in Guatemala. While that trial gets started,…
emjohnson | March 5, 2010In light of the Oscars this Sunday I thought those of you who missed it would enjoy my review of District 9 (which is up for four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay).
Inexplicably, a UFO appears over one of Earth's remote cities. Hovering a few hundred meters above the terrified citizens, a government mission to board the craft is executed only to find the strange beings living in disease and desperation. A decision is made to save their lives and relocate the aliens to the city's outskirts. In that moment, what seemed to be a compassionate action develops…
revere | January 30, 2010Howard Zinn is gone, now, but he left us plenty. Here is a short piece he wrote a little over ten years ago in Z Magazine (hat tip, SR). It's typical of his style: inspiring, humble, practical, especially in these times:
On Getting Along
Howard Zinn, March, 07 1999
You ask how I manage to stay involved and remain seemingly happy and adjusted to this awful world where the efforts of caring people pale in comparison to those who have power?
It's easy. First, don't let "those who have power" intimidate you. No matter how much power they have they cannot prevent you from living your life,…
emjohnson | January 27, 2010Here at ScienceBlogs we regularly take The Huffington Post down a notch by pointing out such cutting edge lunacy as vaccine denialism or pseudoscientific spiritualism masquerading as health advice. Now the latest in a long list of unsubstantiated crazy is on full display.
Some writer named Eric Michael Johnson, who clearly thinks he's so self important as to include his middle name, has published an article called "Haiti's Political and Economic Earthquake" on the US and World Bank role in maintaining Haiti's poverty.
Since 1990 there have been two US-supported military coups, a series of…
revere | January 18, 2010Martin Luther King's birthday is an official holiday in the US, but King's example of non-violent resistance is not a US idea. So once again we have decided this non-traditional version of We Shall Overcome is appropriate. I've heard and sung this in churches, union halls, in the streets and in concerts for four decades and it inspires wherever and whenever it is sung. This 1996 version features Diana Ross in full concert hall regalia, backed by a symphony orchestra. The venue is Budapest, Hungary and more than one member of the orchestra and the audience were undoubtedly thinking of their…
grrlscientist | January 17, 2010tags: I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King, Jr., MLK, politics, civil rights, history, United States, streaming video
If you live in the USA, then you should know that today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This is my favorite holiday in the States because it celebrates values instead of gross consumerism. It celebrates America's core values of human/civil rights as well as freedom for all (not just for the rich, as is the case now).
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I Have a Dream
August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
[Transcribed from the video]
I am happy to join with you today in…
emjohnson | December 8, 2009What do the following countries have in common?
Bahrain, Burma, China, Iran, Libya, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan
If your answer is that they're some of the most corrupt, authoritarian nations in the world you'd be correct. If you associated them with significant human rights abuses, you would also be spot on. If you learned that they also reject the international convention that bans landmines, chances are you would not be surprised. Joining them, however, is none other than the United States.
In a recent press conference, State…
revere | November 22, 2009Since the way Chinese public health officials traditionally save face is by covering their ass, when I hear things like this I don't automatically believe it:
"With initial efforts of containment, actually we not only reduced the impact of the first wave to China, but we also won time for us to prepare the vaccine" now being given to China's people, [Chen Zhu, China's health minister] said in an interview during the Havana meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research.
After the swine flu first appeared in Mexico last spring, China put Mexican visitors — and people from other countries who…
revere | November 1, 2009When swine flu began there was a hue and cry in some quarters to shut the border to prevent the virus from taking root in the US. It seems fairly clear, now, that by the time we detected the virus, in late April, it had already situated itself in the US -- assuming that it didn't start here in the first place. We don't really know where the jump from pigs to humans occurred, although the best guess is Mexico. Closing the borders would have done no good and would have stranded thousands of students and other tourists in Mexico. Since the US has more world travelers than Mexico, it was in fact…
revere | October 5, 2009In an earlier post I said I opposed mandatory vaccination for adults (but not for children), the one exception being for health care workers because they come in contact with people at high risk. My view then was that if you work in a health care institution and won't get vaccinated against flu, then you shouldn't come to work. Now I am re-evaluating my position as a result of some cogent and pragmatic comments from lawyer-bioethicist George Annas, professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University School of Public Health, and author of "The Rights of Patients." I know…
revere | September 23, 2009People complain that ministers in the cabinet Iran's recently selected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government will say things so outlandish no one else would even think of saying them, but Declan Butler over at the Nature blog, The Great Beyond, begs to differ. Take Iran's Science Minister, Kamran Daneshjou. Daneshjou's credentials had been questioned in an LA Times report in August, but Butler has found that a paper co-authored by Daneshjou contains genuine peer-reviewed science. The only fly in the ointment is that it doesn't seem to be Daneshjou's science:
Large chunks of text, figures…
revere | September 7, 2009Today is a federal holiday in the United States, the one we call "Labor Day." In most countries the labor movement celebrates on May 1 (May Day), but the origin of the US holiday ironically was in Canada where the fight for the nine-hour working day in the 1870s was celebrated at the end of summer. American labor leader Peter J. McGuire saw one of these celebrations and organized the first one in New York in 1882. After US soldiers and marshals put down a peaceful strike at the Pullman plant in bloody fashion in 1894, a fear of escalating labor unrest (the depression of 1893 was in full swing…
revere | June 26, 2009Science may know no borders but scientists have nationalities. Many live within the countries where they have citizenship, while many travel to where they can do more and better science. In the 21st century no nation can afford to squander its scientific talent. But some do it, anyway, either in small ways (failing to support science) or in Big Ways (oppressing free inquiry and free expression). No country is perfect, but some excel in this kind of stupidity. Even before the recent national uprising Iran's government was distinguishing itself in the irrationality and anti-science department (…
revere | June 21, 2009All eyes are on Iran as young people struggle for basic freedoms: to assemble, to speak freely, to participate in civil society regardless of gender. It's a struggle not special to Iran. For some Americans, winning those rights is within recent memory. And when I was a young man, I had contemporaries who didn't live to see it. In the historic Freedom Summer of 1964, 45 five years ago today, three of them -- James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi, Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old white anthropology student from New York, and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old white social…
revere | May 9, 2009Most of us would agree that treating AIDS is not a crime. "Most of us" apparently doesn't include the Iranian judiciary and the Iranian government. We have posted on it several times (here, here, here) but for new readers, here's some background:
Doctor Arash Alaei and Doctor Kamiar Alaei are two Iranian physicians who were detained in June 2008 by Iranian authorities. The physicians, who are brothers, were kept in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for over six months without charges or trial. On December 31, 2008, a one-day, closed-door trial was held, in which the brothers were tried as…
revere | April 19, 2009The US national news is all about American journalist Roxana Saberi who has received an 8 year sentence in an Iranian prison for who knows what. There are plenty of places to read about it (CNN here). There aren't that many places to read about another Iranian miscarriage of justice affecting scientists and doctors, the Alaei brothers:
An Iranian appellate court rejected the appeal of Dr. Kamiar Alaei, an internationally recognized AIDS physician and doctoral student in the University at Albany's School of Public Health.
Alaei and his older brother, Dr. Arash Alaei, also an AIDS doctor, have…
scientificactivist | April 19, 2009Further to the points I wrote about in my previous post on the CIA torture memos, Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority has previously raised another important issue: the complicity of medical professionals in CIA torture:
Reading these memos, it's very clear that there are quite a few CIA employees who are allegedly medical professionals. Those people need to find new professions. I would strongly suggest that you take a few minutes - particularly if you're a doctor or a psychologist - to suggest to your colleagues at the American Medical Association and the American Psychological…
scientificactivist | April 19, 2009Arguably the biggest news story of the week was the release by the Obama Administration of four Justice Department memos from 2002 and 2005 that were used to justify CIA torture of detainees. An analysis by Jeffrey Smith in today's Washington Post tries to explain the context and the mindset that led to the twisted logic found in these memos:
The four Justice Department memos to the CIA's top lawyer that were released last week reflect an effort by Bush administration appointees to create finely tuned justifications for harsh interrogation techniques, all under a blanket of secrecy covering…