Tag Archives: Salon.com

Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Memories & History, Science & Health

This 25-year-old sci-fi disaster movie is still lauded by scientists — here’s why | Salon.com

Salon spoke with scientists who praised “Deep Impact” — and with others who helped make it

By Matthew Rozsa, Staff Writer, Published May 6, 2023 10:00AM (EDT)

Morgan Freeman giving a speech at The White House in a scene from the film ‘Deep Impact’, 1998. (Paramount Pictures/Getty Images)

In anticipation of the 25-year-anniversary of “Deep Impact,” Dr. Clark R. Chapman and his wife Y Chapman decided to rewatch the classic sci-fi disaster flick. Dr. Chapman is uniquely qualified to assess the movie’s merits: “Deep Impact” is about a comet the size of Mount Everest that is heading on a collision course with Earth, and Chapman is a planetary scientist for the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit which protects Earth from comets, asteroids and other near-Earth Objects (NEOs).

Perhaps unusual for a big-budget sci-fi flick, Dr. Chapman strongly approved of the film’s science, and both he and Y — an environmental activist and artist who donates to the B612 Foundation — said that as a work of art they “highly rate the movie’s production and creativity. It treats a number of characters in sufficiently intimate detail that viewers get to ‘know’ them.”

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item…

Source: This 25-year-old sci-fi disaster movie is still lauded by scientists — here’s why | Salon.com

Current Affairs, Food & Drink, Memories & History, Politics

“Equity within the whole restaurant”: The problem with the tipped wage | Salon.com

“We’re the only industry where half of the workforce has to rely on a customer’s goodwill”

By Maggie Hennessy, Published September 18, 2022 5:30PM (EDT)

The staff at Lazy Betty at work (Andrew Thomas Lee)

Even though he came up in professional kitchens starting as a line cook, Ron Hsu didn’t internalize the implicit inequity and racism of the tipped wage system until he became a restaurant owner, in 2019. The Atlanta-based chef/owner of award-winning tasting menu restaurant Lazy Betty, along with Asian-Southern Juniper Cafe and the forthcoming chef-driven pizzeria Humble Pie decided instead to institute the federal minimum wage and a service-charge model at his restaurants. 

It’s come with pushback — not just from some customers but from waitstaff reluctant to embrace change or loath to face confrontation with skeptical consumers. But he’s determined to be part of the — oft-maddeningly slow — change in what he sees as a deeply problematic system. 

Source: https://www.salon.com/2022/09/18/equity-within-the-whole-restaurant-the-problem-with-the-tipped-wage/

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Love & Relationships, Politics, Religion & Spirit, Science & Health, Times They Are A-Changing

American boys and men are suffering — and our culture doesn’t know how to talk about it | Salon.com

Author Richard Reeves explains why he thinks terms like “toxic masculinity” are “profoundly unhelpful”

By Mary Elizabeth Williams, Senior Writer, Published September 16th, 2022, 4:00PM (EDT)

Sad Boy (Getty Images / Sian Cox / EyeEm)

Our men and boys are in trouble. In the U.S., nearly four times more likely than women to die by suicide. They have more emergency department visits and deaths due to overdoses.

They are less likely to receive treatment for mental health issues. They have a lower rate of participation in the workforce. They are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and autism. They are more likely than females to drop out of high school, and the ones who do go on to college are less likely than their female peers to graduate. They are barraged with constant and conflicting messages about what it means to be a man, and the consequences of failing to live up to other people’s ideas about modern masculinity can be severe. And all of this is difficult to talk about because the simultaneous culture of misogyny and the war on women’s rights is so intense, it has created a zero sum game expectation around our basic humanity.

But acknowledging the crisis in males takes nothing from the ground women are fighting to gain. And accepting that gender is only one element in a social strata that is also incredibly unbalanced around race and class is the only useful way forward for all of us.

In his provocative new book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard V. Reeves peels back the misconceptions that are holding back meaningful gender equity, shows how both liberals and conservatives have made existing divides even worse, and offers simple, practical solutions for a brighter, more balanced future for all of us and our kids.

Source: https://www.salon.com/2022/09/16/american-boys-and-men-are-suffering-and-our-culture-doesnt-know-how-to-talk-about-it/

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Memories & History, Politics

From book stacks to psychosis and food stamps, librarians confront a new workplace | Salon.com

As America’s social safety net decays, librarians are feeling less safe doing their jobs

By Rachel Scheier, Published August 24, 2022 8:15AM (EDT)

Stack Of Books On Table In Library (Getty Images/Rachan Panya/EyeEm)

For nearly two decades, Lisa Dunseth loved her job at San Francisco’s main public library, particularly her final seven years in the rare books department.

But like many librarians, she saw plenty of chaos. Patrons racked by untreated mental illness or high on drugs sometimes spit on library staffers or overdosed in the bathrooms. She remembers a co-worker being punched in the face on his way back from a lunch break. One afternoon in 2017, a man jumped to his death from the library’s fifth-floor balcony.

Dunseth retired the following year at age 61, making an early exit from a nearly 40-year career.

“The public library should be a sanctuary for everyone,” she said. The problem was she and many of her colleagues no longer felt safe doing their jobs.

Via: Library Link of the Day, http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/  (archive, rss, subscribe options)

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item…

Source: https://www.salon.com/2022/08/24/from-book-stacks-to-psychosis-and-stamps-librarians-confront-a-new-workplace_partner/

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Politics

EXCLUSIVE: Now the far right is coming for college too — with taxpayer-funded “classical education” | Salon.com

Republicans are channeling tax dollars to right-wing institutes at colleges across the nation. What’s the endgame?

By Kathryn Joyce, Published May 31, 2022 6:00AM (EDT)

Statue of Socrates, the philosopher (Getty Images/vasiliki)

Last fall, when professors at Flagler College, a private liberal arts school in St. Augustine, Florida, gathered for a faculty senate meeting, they learned that the college administration had worked with their local legislator to propose a new academic center on campus, the Flagler College Institute for Classical Education.

To administrators, it was an exciting prospect: the chance to receive $5 million from the state to shore up their “first year seminar,” a universal core curriculum for incoming freshmen intended to help students, particularly first-generation students, prepare for the rigors of college.

But some faculty members felt concerned, reading between the lines in a state that has become ground zero for the nation’s education debates — where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump-style Republican with his eyes on the White House, has imposed gag orders and mandates on K-12 schools and described universities as “hotbeds of stale ideology” and “indoctrination factories.”

Source: EXCLUSIVE: Now the far right is coming for college too — with taxpayer-funded “classical education” | Salon.com