Leettaschmidt

Amid the disturbing rise in attacks on Asian Americans since March 2020 is a troubling category of these assaults: Black people are also attacking Asian Americans.

White people are the main perpetrators of anti-Asian racism. But in February 2021, a Black person pushed an elderly Asian man to the ground in San Francisco; the man later died from his injuries. In another video, from New York City on March 29, 2021, a Black person pushes and beats an Asian American woman on the sidewalk in front of a doorway while onlookers observe the attack, then close their door on the woman without intervening or providing aid.

As the current president of the Association for Asian American Studies and as an ethnic studies and critical race studies professor who specializes in Asian American culture, I wanted to address the climate of anti-Asian racism I was seeing at the start of the pandemic. So in April 2020, I created a PowerPoint slide deck about anti-Asian racism that my employer, the University of Colorado Boulder, turned into a website. That led to approximately 50 interviews, workshops, talks and panel presentations that I’ve done on anti-Asian racism, specifically in the time of COVID-19.

The point I’ve made through all of those experiences is that anti-Asian racism has the same source as anti-Black racism: white supremacy. So when a Black person attacks an Asian person, the encounter is fueled perhaps by racism, but very specifically by white supremacy. White supremacy does not require a white person to perpetuate it.

It’s not just white people

White supremacy is an ideology, a pattern of values and beliefs that are ingrained in nearly every system and institution in the U.S. It is a belief that to be white is to be human and invested with inalienable universal rights and that to be not-white means you are less than human – a disposable object for others to abuse and misuse.

The dehumanization of Asian people by U.S. society is driven by white supremacy and not by any Black person who may or may not hate Asians.

During the pandemic, “yellow peril” rhetoric that blamed China for COVID-19 led to a 150% rise in anti-Asian harassment incidents reported to police in 2020. In particular, East Asian Americans or anyone who appeared to be of East Asian heritage or descent became targets for the misplaced anger of people blaming Chinese people or those they thought looked Chinese, even if they were of other ethnic backgrounds, like Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, Burmese, Thai or Filipino.

A fear of disease

White supremacy as the root of racism can be seen in the Latino man in Texas stabbing a Burmese family in March 2020, claiming he did so because they were Chinese and bringing the coronavirus into the U.S. Though the suspect may have mental health problems, his belief that this family posed a threat is driven by the white supremacist ideas of Chinese people being to blame for COVID-19.

This same rhetoric of blaming anyone perceived to be Chinese for COVID-19 and attacking them has been found in countless reports of harassment, including one by a Vietnamese American woman who was spat at by a white man as she tried to enter a grocery store in March 2021. Four days later, video footage showed a 76-year-old Chinese woman who was punched in the face by a 39-year-old white man, on the same day that a white man killed eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta.

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Stories of individual harassment and violence perpetrated against Asian Americans by white assailants don’t always get the same attention as the viral videos of Black aggression toward Asians.

But underlying all these incidents is white supremacy, just as white supremacy is responsible for Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes: White supremacy made Floyd into a Black male threat rather than a human being.

Understanding the depth and reach of this ideology of racism can be challenging, but doing so brings each person, and the nation as a whole, closer to addressing systemic inequity. It’s not Black people whom Asian Americans need to fear. It’s white supremacy.

Jennifer Ho is affiliated with the Association for Asian American Studies.

When a man consults a doctor about pain, he will hope to be taken seriously: to convince the doctor that the pain is real, and a problem that needs addressing. The experience is different for women, who may suspect that gender stereotypes could lead their doctor to conclude they’re not in as much pain as they say they are.

Unfortunately, this suspicion is valid. Evidence suggests that healthcare staff routinely underestimate patients’ pain, and particularly women’s pain, based on a number of biases and beliefs that have little to do with their actual testimony.

Now, a new study has found gender stereotypes are particularly decisive in the estimation of patients’ pain. Because of the false belief that women are oversensitive to pain, and express or exaggerate it more easily, healthcare staff, both men and women, often discount women’s verbal reports and nonverbal behaviour expressing pain.

Not only do they tend to underestimate women’s pain but, on the basis of their underestimate, they often under-treat pain – and even recommend psychological rather than analgesic treatment to women.

Gendered pain

The new study ingeniously separates potential sources of observer bias in underestimating women’s pain: beliefs about women’s sensitivity to pain (“pain threshold”), about their willingness to report it, and their capacity to endure it (“pain tolerance”) – all, of course, compared to men as the norm or ideal.

Researchers used brief video clips of real patients undergoing painful examinations, with supporting information about patients’ ratings of their own pain, and a quantification of their pain expression.

Male and female lay participants watched a selection of these videos and, after each, recorded the patient’s sex, estimated their pain on a numerical scale, and rated their pain expressiveness too.

Compared with the patient’s own rating of their pain, observers of both genders consistently underestimated women’s pain and overestimated men’s pain. When men and women showed exactly the same amount of pain in their facial expression, women were thought to be in less pain than men.

An additional experiment showed that stereotypes drove these judgements: men’s pain was estimated higher by those who believed that the typical man endured pain better than the typical woman, and women’s pain was estimated lower by those who thought that women were more willing to report pain than men.

Consistent findings

The gender effect in pain estimation is surprisingly strong. In 2016, a study in my lab examined whether clinicians’ pain estimations were affected by patients’ depression history and their “trustworthiness” – an automatic judgement we make of other people’s faces.

What emerged was a strong underestimation of women’s pain, again by participants of both sexes. If women were perceived to be untrustworthy, this further disadvantaged them – but untrustworthiness had little effect on estimates of men’s pain.

Read more: Five everyday myths that make it hard to understand pain

These stereotypes do not necessarily help men, and serious studies of men’s pain are rare. While men’s pain may be estimated by clinicians closer to their pain self-ratings, being less than stoical can attract adverse judgements of being unmanly or weak, while the expectation of stoicism may encourage men to present symptoms to medical scrutiny later than they should.

Judging pain

Pain expression is complex: though partly hard-wired by evolution, it is affected by many personal factors, including your personal history of pain and your social context. The observer’s task of interpreting pain expression is also complex, modulated by their personal qualities, by social context, and by broader factors, such as gender, age and cultural norms.

Read more: Why the way healthcare professionals measure patient pain might soon be changing

Several studies of young children show that while boys and girls playing together have similar numbers of accidents (falls, collisions, conflicts) that might cause pain, and express their distress largely similarly, girls may be offered more physical comfort than boys.

Although findings are not entirely consistent, and may be mediated by girls expressing distress more vocally, they do demonstrate that gender stereotypes about pain may take root early in our lives. And in these cases, differences in judgement may lie more in observers’ responses to the children than in any differences in behaviour from the children themselves.

The gender bias effect even holds when observers are watching the same expression of pain. In one simple experiment, observers watched a video of a five year old having blood drawn from a finger, expressing pain. Observers for whom the child was described as “Samuel” rated the child’s pain higher than those for whom the same child was described as “Samantha”.

Further, participants believed that girls were more sensitive to pain, and were more willing to show it. Given how frequent minor painful incidents are for small children, as is the parental or other adult response, this is a surprisingly neglected area of enquiry.

Pain bias

Unfortunately, the pain expression database upon which many pain experiments are conducted consists mainly of middle-aged Canadian Caucasians. This provides little opportunity to explore another very consistent bias in pain assessment and treatment: discounting of the pain of black and Asian or other non-white patients, leading, in research studies, to shocking shortcomings in treatment.

There is much to be done by clinicians to abolish the inequalities in pain care – and many more inequalities, based on false stereotypes, to be unearthed through research. But this latest study, confirming that gender stereotypes inform our estimation of others’ pain, should help healthcare staff reflect on the social and personal bias they may bring to their practice.

Amanda C de C Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Millions of gallons of water laced with fertilizer ingredients are being pumped into Florida’s Tampa Bay from a leaking reservoir at an abandoned phosphate plant at Piney Point. As the water spreads into the bay, it carries phosphorus and nitrogen – nutrients that under the right conditions can fuel dangerous algae blooms that can suffocate sea grass beds and kill fish, dolphins and manatees.

It’s the kind of risk no one wants to see, but officials believed the other options were worse.

About 300 homes sit downstream from the 480-million-gallon reservoir, which began leaking in late March 2021. State officials determined that pumping out the water was the only way to prevent the reservoir’s walls from collapsing. They decided the safest location for all that water would be out through Port Manatee and into the bay.

Florida’s coast is dotted with fragile marine sanctuaries and sea grass beds that help nurture the state’s thriving marine and tourism economy. Those near Port Manatee now face a risk of algal blooms over the next few weeks. Once algae blooms get started, little can be done to clean them up.

The phosphate mining industry around Tampa is just one source of nutrients that can fuel dangerous algae blooms, which I study as a marine biologist. The sugarcane industry, cattle ranches, dairy farms and citrus groves all release nutrients that often flow into rivers and eventually into bays and the ocean. Sewage is another problem – Miami and Fort Lauderdale, for example, have old sewage treatment systems with frequent pipe breaks that leak sewage into canals and coastal waters.

All can fuel harmful algal blooms that harm marine life and people. Overall, blooms are getting worse locally and globally.

The problem with algae blooms

Just down the coast from Port Manatee, the next three counties to the south have had algae blooms in recent weeks, including red tide, which produces a neurotoxin that feels like pepper spray if you breathe it in. Karenia brevis, a dinoflagellate, is the organism in red tide and produces the toxin.

This part of Florida’s Gulf Coast is a hot spot for red tide, often fueled by agricultural runoff. A persistent red tide in 2017 and 2018 killed at least 177 manatees and left a trail of dead fish along the coast and into Tampa Bay. If the coastal currents carry today’s red tide father north and into Tampa Bay, the toxic algae could thrive on the nutrients from Piney Point.

Even blooms that are not toxic are still dangerous to ecosystems. They cloud the water, cutting off light and killing the plants below. A large enough bloom can also reduce oxygen in the water. A lack of oxygen can kill off everything in the water, including the fish.

This part of Florida has extensive sea grass meadows, about 2.2 million acres (8.9 billion square meters) in all, which are important habitat for lots of species and serve as nurseries for shrimp, crabs and fish. Scientists have argued that sea grass is also a major carbon sink – the grass sucks up carbon and pumps it down into the sediments.

Once the nutrients are in a large body of water, there isn’t much that can be done to stop algae growth. Killing the algae would only release the nutrients again, putting the bay back where it started. Algae blooms can remain a problem for years, finally declining when a predator population develops to eats them, a viral disease spreads through the bloom or strong currents and mixing disperse the bloom.

Agriculture runoff poses risks to marine life

The phosphate mining industry around Tampa is a large source of nutrient-rich waste. On average, more than 5 tons of phosphogypsum waste are produced for every ton of phosphoric acid created for fertilizer. In Florida, that adds up to over 1 billion tons of radioactive waste material that can’t be used, so it’s stacked up and turned into reservoirs like the one now leaking at Piney Point.

The reservoirs are obvious in satellite photos of the region, and they can be highly acidic. To get the phosphate out of the minerals, the industry uses sulfuric acid, and it leaves behind a highly acid wastewater. There have been at least two cases where it ate through the limestone below a reservoir, creating huge sinkholes hundreds of feet deep and draining wastewater into the aquifer.

Since saltwater had previously been pumped into the Piney Point reservoir, acidity is less of an issue. That’s because the seawater would buffer the pH. There is some radioactivity, but only slightly above regulatory standards, according to state Department of Environmental Protection, and probably not much of a health hazard.

But the nutrients are a risk. In 2004, water releases from the Piney Point reservoir contributed to an algae bloom in Bishop Harbor, just south of the current release site. In 2011, it released over 170 million gallons into Bishop Harbor again after a liner broke.

Another significant source of algae-feeding nutrients is agriculture, particularly cattle ranching and the sugarcane industry. Nutrient runoff from cattle ranches and dairy farms north of Lake Okeechobee end up in the lake. South of the lake, much of the northern third of the Everglades was converted to sugarcane farms, and those fields back-pumped runoff into the lake for decades until the state started cracking down in the 1980s. Their legacy nutrients are still in the lake.

The nutrient-rich water in the lake then pours down the Caloosahatchee River and into the Gulf of Mexico near Fort Myers, south of Tampa. That’s likely feeding the current red tide off the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River.

When water from the Everglades region’s agriculture is pumped south instead, huge blooms tend to appear in Florida Bay at the southern tip of the state. Some scientists believe it may be damaging coral reefs there, though there’s debate about it. During times that flow of water from the farms increased, reefs throughout the Florida Keys have been harmed. Those reefs have become overgrown with algae.

With the current red tide, the coastal currents have carried it north as far as Sarasota already. If they carry it farther north, it will run into the Piney Point area.

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Larry Brand has received funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, National Park Service, Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research, Army Corps of Engineers, Florida Department of Health, Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management, Cove Point Foundation, and Hoover Foundation.

I saw a meme online recently that struck a chord in me.

A man asks the question: How should we treat others?

And the answer: There are no others.

I’ve spoken about oneness and connection a lot over the last 15 years. We all come from the same Source, we are all loving tendrils of Source consciousness, what happens to one of us happens to all of us.

We are not separate, though we may appear to be here on Earth. On the other side, we are each a note in the song of the Universe. Everyone matters.

I’ve also talked about the idea that Source drops us off on this planet like a parent takes their child to the playground. “Have fun, and don’t hurt other people” is the commandment we lay upon our children when they enter the playground.

As it turns out, this concept is found in nearly all religions and major belief systems going back to ancient times.

“Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

“An it harm none, do as thou wilt.”

“Love they neighbor like yourself.”

“One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma.”

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

“Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.”

This is the whole of the law. Live the way you want to live and don’t hurt other people in the process.

This week, take a very mindful approach to your actions. See if you are treating others in a way you would not want to be treated and instead actively seek to treat others the way you enjoy being treated. See what happens.

Imagine what would happen if we all remembered to treat others like there are no others, like we are all in this together, because we are. Whatever we put into this world is what we get back. Consciously place your actions upon others and do no harm.

The mass rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has led to concerns from some people that can be described as rational: What are the side effects? How effective will the shot be? And then there are those who are worried that the vaccine will brand people with the “mark of the beast” as described in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

The mark of the beast – a cryptic mark in Revelation which indicates allegiance to Satan – has been invoked by fringe Christian figures throughout the pandemic in reference to what they deem to be the evil of masks and vaccines. It ranges from the seemingly metaphorical likening of vaccine passports by a Republican House representative to something like “Biden’s mark of the beast” to the more literal interpretation that those getting a vaccine would be marked as followers of Satan.

It is tempting to dismiss such beliefs out of hand. After all, it is a fringe idea promoted by conspiracy theorists. But the idea has gained enough traction that some medical establishments have felt the need to address it head on. Minneapolis-based Hennepin Healthcare, for example, states in an online fact sheet that “the COVID-19 vaccines do not contain … The Mark of the Beast.”

As a scholar of early Christian literature, I would note that the mark of the beast in Revelation has throughout history been misunderstood as referring to various events and phenomena. Its connection to the COVID-19 vaccine is but the latest example of such misunderstanding.

Moreover, I argue that the mark in Revelation is best understood in the first-century context in which it was used, as a polemic against the Roman Empire.

Reading Revelation with first-century eyes

The Book of Revelation is a complicated text. Written toward the end of the first century by an author who calls himself John, the text is filled with symbolic imagery that has mystified readers for centuries.

Using visions of angels and demons, death and destruction, John tells a story of an ongoing cosmic battle between good and evil that will end with good triumphing eventually. The beast and its mark are both understood by this author to be evil, and they are some of the most well-known and most misunderstood parts of his story.

In Revelation 13, John describes the beast as having seven heads and 10 horns, a leopard’s body, the feet of a bear and a lion’s mouth. The beast in this text is powerful, Satanic and is an object of worship.

There is also a second beast that promotes worship of the first. The most notable thing about the second beast is that it causes people to receive a mark on their forehead or right hand with “the name of the beast or the number of its name.”

John concludes this chapter with a riddle: “Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.” (Rev 13:18).

The beast and the empire

Throughout history, this number has been used to demonize phenomena that readers are either wary of or don’t fully understand. It should come as no surprise, then, that some have tried to connect the COVID-19 vaccine to the mark in a similar way.

This interpretation is problematic, however, and for two reasons: First, the COVID-19 vaccines are modern phenomena that the author of Revelation and his earliest readers would have no familiarity with. Second, there is another explanation for the beast and its number that makes far more sense historically.

Many biblical scholars maintain that the first beast is a symbolic representation of first-century Roman emperors. In this reading, each head would represent one emperor. While there is some debate in scholarship on which specific emperors the author of Revelation is alluding to, there is fairly widespread agreement that Emperor Nero is one of them.

This conclusion is drawn not only from other references to Nero in Revelation, but also from his reputation in the first century for persecuting Christians in Rome.

In A.D. 64, when Nero was emperor, a great fire took hold in Rome and burned for nearly a week. Roman historians Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Tacitus claim that Nero himself was the one responsible for igniting the blaze, Tacitus adds that Nero attempted to free himself of blame by placing guilt on the Christians living in the city.

Nero’s number

There are a number of other points in Revelation where the author seems to allude to Nero. There is a possible reference to the great fire of Rome later in the text, for example, in Revelation 17:16. John’s description of one of the beast’s heads being “wounded” may likewise be a reference to Nero’s death, which Suetonius describes as a self-inflicted stab to the neck.

But perhaps the clearest reference to Nero in Revelation is the infamous “666,” the number of the beast that constitutes the beast’s mark.

Past, not future

Although there has been much speculation over the number’s significance in the past, there is a growing body of scholars who believe it to be a direct reference to Nero.

There is a well-known practice in the ancient world called “gematria,” in which letters are assigned numerical values. This allows authors to refer to individuals by using “the number of their name,” rather than their actual name. And biblical scholars have long noted that in Hebrew characters, the numerical value of Nero’s formal title – Caesar Nero – is 666.

This, along with the other allusions to Nero in Revelation, leaves little doubt, I argue, as to who the author is referencing with this number.

There is, however, one piece of this riddle left, and that is what exactly the mark of the beast in Revelation is. Given the symbolic nature of the book as a whole, the reference to being marked on the forehead or hand is likely not something to be taken at face value.

More important is John’s claim that no one would be able to buy or sell anything without having the mark that bears the name of the beast. So, what does one need to buy and sell that would also have the name of the beast on it? One possible answer to that question is money – and we have numerous examples in the archaeological record of Roman coinage that bears the name Caesar Nero.

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One of the reasons that Revelation is often confusing to those trying to interpret the book today is that they frequently are trained to see it as a book about the future, when in fact it is primarily a book about the past. Clearly, John and his first-century readers would have been able to know the answer to “What is the mark of the beast?” in their first-century context. Otherwise the text wouldn’t have made much sense to anyone when it was first written.

In other words: when John gives his “number of the beast” riddle to readers in the first century, he anticipates that it is a riddle they will be equipped to solve in the first century.

While some may have lingering questions about COVID-19 vaccines, the question of whether those vaccines are linked to the mark of the beast shouldn’t be one of them.

Eric M. Vanden Eykel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

When a rosary was made for King Henry VIII in 1509, it was hand-carved in intricate detail by a master artisan. By contrast, many of the rosaries around today are made from the same plastic that goes into mass-produced objects such as children’s toys or water bottles.

It doesn’t matter much to the faithful; for devoted Catholics, praying with plastic is just as good as praying with a great work of art.

But it does pose a dilemma for us. As librarians at the University of Dayton’s Marian Library, we help curate a collection of religious artifacts that, depending on how you count it, numbers in the hundreds of thousands. It includes postage stamps, wine labels, books, statues and rosaries. Many of the items are Catholic and have been gifted to the library by charitable individuals looking to do the right thing with a family heirloom or the collection of a recently deceased loved one. Donations could include anything from medieval manuscripts to a car air freshener featuring Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In many cases, donations are welcome. But we struggle with what to do when donations duplicate items we already have, or if the gifted item is not of particular value. And this happens frequently, especially with mass-produced items such as rosaries or cheap plastic statues.

Mass-produced cards

Another example is the holy card. Holy cards or prayer cards are in many ways the religious equivalent to baseball trading cards – they even attract the same type of fanatical collecting. The front usually includes an image of a saint or a religious scene, while the back often has a particular prayer, or the biography of the saint. Early examples of holy cards might be printed on silk or colored by hand. Some can look a bit like the fanciest Valentine’s Day card, with lace borders and room for personal messages.

With advances in printing processes, mass production of holy cards accelerated in the 19th century and continues today, with millions being produced each year. Today, you can purchase 100 new holy cards for less than US$20, and they’re common to pick up at funerals, baptisms or special Masses.

With the mass production and wide distribution of items like holy cards and rosary beads, donations to our collection can multiply quickly. Most months we receive unsolicited gifts of mass-produced materials in the mail. And we are not alone – other libraries, archives and museums likewise receive such gifts.

A widely used guide for running a Catholic church by liturgical scholar G. Thomas Ryan suggests that objects no longer needed should be donated to an archive or museum. But often institutions are short on both staff to process the gifts and space to house them.

Anything can be blessed

Our first step with an unwanted donation is to try to return it to the donor. But that is not always possible when materials appear anonymously or the donor does not want them back.

Someone who has driven several hours to deposit Grandma’s statues unannounced often just wants to drive away unencumbered. So, we look for good homes for items when possible, such as local Catholic schools or parishes.

When regifting isn’t an option, we are presented with a problem. While some unwanted nonreligious donations to libraries might be able to go straight into the trash, that is not an option with many religious objects. As a result, we have needed to investigate the correct way to dispose of religious objects.

According to canon law of the Catholic Church, certain types of especially sacred material, such as holy water and holy oil, must be treated with care and disposed of in specific ways.

The law explains that “sacred objects, set aside for divine worship by dedication or blessing, are to be treated with reverence.” But the law does not explicitly define which objects count as sacred.

Catholic convention is that discarding objects such as statues, rosaries or the palms from Palm Sunday should be by means of respectful burning or burial. But this is not normal practice for most libraries, and the burning of books and artwork has worrying associations with censorship or even war crimes.

But in Catholicism, it would be more scandalous to throw certain religious objects in the trash or sell them for a profit than it would be to burn or bury them, even if no one wants them and they do not fit in our collection.

In addition to protocols around specific types of object, many other Catholic artifacts could be considered sacred depending on how they have been used. This is especially the case if they have been prayed with or blessed.

It can be impossible for us as librarians to know the history of how an object has been used by previous owners – especially if passed to us from a third party. Any holy card, statue or painting could have been blessed as an image and therefore designated as sacred.

In addition to blessings for objects designated for sacred purposes, the Catholic Church literally has a “blessing of anything,” meaning any object could have been blessed by a priest. While this does not necessarily render an object sacred, it does indicate the freedom with which blessings are distributed.

Burn after reading room?

So what are curators supposed to do, given the ongoing mass production, wide distribution and frequent donation of such objects?

The best solution we have found is to remember that intention matters. Our intentions as stewards of these items are good: We communicate up front that not all donations can be accepted, and we try to find new homes for objects that do not belong in the Marian Library – whether by offering items for free to the community or communicating with another library that might be a better fit.

Disposal would be a last resort. To date, we have yet to have a prayerful, respectful fire to destroy duplicate holy cards – but we are not ruling it out.

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A recent article by Holly Else & Richard Van Noorden in Nature looks at a growing issue in the field of research: Paper mills.

The article highlights the work of Elizabeth Bik and other, pseudonymous, researchers that have identified more than 1,400 published papers that were potentially linked to paper mills. Of those, most have not been changed with only 370 being retracted and expression of concern added to 45 more.

According to the article, the issue is especially pronounced at Chinese hospitals, where physicians are often required to publish research to get promoted but are too busy to perform any actual research. This has resulted in a marked increase of paper submissions from the country, up fifty-fold from just two decades ago.

However, the problem is not limited to just China. According to Catriona Fennell, the head of publishing services at Elsevier, there is evidence of such paper mills operating out of Iran and Russia as well.

At a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) forum in September, Bik spoke about the issue and said that the issue required publishers to be more aggressive when reviewing papers, including asking for raw data from those seeking publication.

However, Bik acknowledges that those steps are not foolproof and may lead to something of an arms race where journals work to find ways to detect and stop the publication of fake science and the paper mills continuously step up their game to get around those measures.

Though this may seem like an odd problem for the world of academic publishing, it’s far from new. As far back as 2007 there were efforts to track this industry and it grew rapidly, reaching $150 million by 2009. However, the recent work indicates that, not only is it a growing industry, but that many such papers are slipping through the cracks and getting published, including in reputable journals.

Worst of all, it dovetails with another well-known problem to ensure that fake science will always have a home.

Fake Journals, Fake Papers

The issue of paper mills isn’t an isolated phenomenon. For years, academic publishing has been battling the issue of predatory journals, which are fake journals that will agree to publish almost anything… for a fee.

These journals are often very sneaky and have official-sounding names, sometimes going as far as to steal another journal’s name and URL

The reason that these businesses exist is quite simple: Many would-be researchers are desperate to publish. Many schools, hospitals and research groups require proof of regular publication in order to obtain promotions or even just maintain their current position.

This has led to the mantra of “Publish or Perish“, which pushes academics to publish as frequently as possible, ideally with higher impact journals.

However, the desire of employers to constantly see publication does not always line up with the realities of research itself. This has prompted researchers to take a variety of approaches including breaking up one large project into multiple papers, adding coauthors to help colleagues and even seeking publication of the same research in multiple journals (duplication).

In short, the motivation right now to focus on the quantity of research, not the quality. That, in turn, opened the door for predatory journals and paper mills alike. This leads to a war that publishers must fight on two fronts: One against predatory journals and the other against paper mills.

Unfortunately, it’s likely that the scope of both issues are widely underestimated at this time. We only know the fake papers and the predatory journals we’ve detected and it’s almost certain there many more of both we don’t know about.

To make matters worse, as Bik pointed out, as processes improve for detecting fake science, so will the processes for producing fake science. This is not a war that’s going to be won any time soon, if ever.

Bottom Line

When people think of paper mills, they usually envision students paying for an essay or, at worst a thesis or dissertation. Very little consideration is given to the fact that researchers working in the field might be similarly tempted.

However, it makes perfect sense. The pressures that exist while one is a student don’t magically go away after graduation. If one stays in academia, they will face continuous pressures to put out new work and many will lack the time, confidence, skills, interest, etc. to do it.

As long as academics are forced to work in a publish or perish environment, this issue will not go away. If anything, it will only grow as the field becomes increasingly competitive. Though there’s been a lot of good work to reduce the effectiveness of paper mills and predatory journals, without reducing the demand for them, those efforts will likely be in vain long term.

Simply put, we must find new ways to grade researchers that reduce or eliminate the publish or perish environment. As long as that exists, there will always be a perverse incentive that will drive some to take unethical shortcuts that are dangerous to the progress of their fields.

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The evidence of a link between processed meat and cancer is now strong enough for some organisations to recommend not eating any. There’s also increasing evidence of a link between processed meat and type 2 diabetes. And now, a new study has added to the list of woes for lovers of processed meat by linking it to an increased risk of dementia. But this latest association may not be quite so convincing.

The new study, from the University of Leeds, used data from the UK Biobank, which is a biomedical database containing detailed genetic and health information from nearly half a million people, aged 40 to 69. The researchers measured how frequently participants reported consuming processed and unprocessed meat, and then monitored cases of dementia over an eight-year period.

During this period, 2,896 participants developed dementia. The researchers calculated that eating 25g of processed meat per day – the equivalent of one rasher of bacon – was associated with a 44% increased risk of dementia. And for those who developed dementia, processed meat was associated with a 52% increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease - the main cause of dementia. By contrast, they found that consuming 50g a day of unprocessed red meat such as beef, pork, or veal was protective, and was associated with reducing the risk of dementia by 19% compared to people eating meat up to once a week.

To find opposite health effects for processed meat and unprocessed meat is unusual, especially given that many studies show that both processed meat and red meat increase cancer risk. So what might be going on here?

Studies that examine an association between the consumption of a specific food and an increased risk of a disease are not proving that there is a causal link. Many factors are linked to an increased risk of dementia, and only a small selection of these can be evaluated in any one study. This makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about what may be the cause for an observed effect.

The Leeds study used a broad definition of processed meats. It not only included ham, bacon and sausages, but also more highly processed meat products, such as meat pies, kebabs, burgers and chicken nuggets. It’s likely that people who consume these highly processed meat products will also have a taste for other highly processed foods, such as crisps or cakes, that are part of the typical western diet.

So highly processed meat products may simply be a representative marker for an unhealthy diet and it may be this, rather than bacon, ham or sausages, that is increasing the dementia risk. Research shows an unhealthy western diet is linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s thought that the adverse effects of a poor diet on the gut microbiota (the community of trillions of microbes in our gut which help us maintain our wellbeing) are linked with neurological disorders, including dementia.

Read more: Your gut microbiome may be linked to dementia, Parkinson's disease and MS

Also, the degree to which the meat was cooked was not considered in this study. A high cooking temperature can increase meat’s negative impact on health. Most processed meats, such as sausages and bacon, are cooked at high temperatures until brown. This browning is an indicator that toxic compounds, called advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), have formed on the surface of the meat. AGEs cause neuro-inflammation in the brain. And in animal models and human studies this is strongly linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

In a survey of 549 foods, fried bacon had by far the highest levels of AGEs. Although levels were high in steak, they were still ten times lower than for bacon. Levels of AGEs were lower still in other red meats (although still high compared to most other foods) and depended on how the meats were cooked. Because the way people eat meat varies so much, it’s perhaps not surprising that at the moment there is no clear consensus as to whether or not there is a link between eating meat and decreased cognitive function.

One of the distinguishing features of the participants in the Leeds study who developed dementia was that they were more likely to be men. Although dementia is overall more common in women, among those under 65 it’s more common in men. A main cause for this so-called early onset dementia is thought to be traumatic brain injury, which occurs more in men living in regions of socioeconomic deprivation. The relatively young age of the study’s participants means that most of those with dementia would be classed as having early onset dementia, but brain injury was not assessed as a possible cause in this study.

As well as eating more processed meats, the participants in the study who developed dementia were also more likely to be economically deprived, less educated, smokers, less physically active, more likely to have a history of stroke, and a family history of dementia. Perhaps this is the more important finding from the study.

A high consumption of highly processed meats may simply be a representative marker of a less healthy lifestyle overall - something a single study cannot address in any detail. If so, then public health campaigns that address these broader issues are crucial for people from deprived backgrounds, to help reduce their overall risk of dementia. Merely reducing their consumption of bacon butties is likely to have far less effect.

I am the author of two books on the Mediterranean diet: The Mediterranean Diet: Health and Science (2011) and More Healthy Years - Why a Mediterranean Diet is best for you and for the planet (2020).

Around 1.5 million women in the UK suffer from endometriosis, a painful and debilitating condition that can affect every aspect of a person’s life. The condition causes tissue similar to the lining of the womb to grow elsewhere – including in the ovaries and fallopian tubes – and can result in severe pelvic or period pain.

Treatments for endometriosis include painkillers, hormone medicines and contraceptives, and surgery (laparoscopy and hysterectomy). But some women find these ineffective and abandon medical treatment or seek alternative therapies. In the UK, women also wait an average of eight years for a diagnosis.

Although a recent small trial of a potential new endometriosis treatment has left researchers feeling hopeful, there is still no cure for this condition – and treatments have progressed little since the condition was first recognised in the 1920s. Here are three reasons endometriosis care has been slow to improve.

1. Endometriosis is not a priority condition

Investment in research on endometriosis, and women’s reproductive health generally, remains low compared with conditions such as diabetes, which are similarly prevalent but affect both men and women.

An All Party Parliamentary Group inquiry into endometriosis care found that there have been no significant treatment breakthroughs because endometriosis research hasn’t been a priority. Worse, it means we still don’t fully understand what causes the disease, making it difficult to develop a cure.

Women with symptoms must first see a GP to receive a referral to specialist care for diagnosis and surgical treatment. But more than half of women have to visit a GP more than ten times before they are referred to a specialist. The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence urge GPs to better prioritise endometriosis for further investigation to quicken diagnoses.

2. Endometriosis is poorly understood

Few people know what endometriosis is. A recent study I co-authored shows only 8% of teenage girls in the UK know about endometriosis. By comparison, 39% know about Parkinson’s disease, even though Parkinson’s affects about a tenth the number of people as endometriosis.

Our study also revealed 27% of teenage girls were unsure if their period was “normal”. This is important, as many adults with endometriosis didn’t seek medical help when they were younger because they thought their symptoms – like excessive period pain or heavy menstrual bleeding – were typical. It’s argued that if young women know what typical periods look like, they’ll be better able to identify signs of endometriosis and seek care earlier. This may also quicken their diagnosis.

Research also shows stigma around discussing menstruation prevents some women from talking about endometriosis symptoms, even with doctors. Further, stigmatisation of menstruation in society as a whole means researchers and doctors are less interested in pursuing endometriosis as a speciality area, hampering strides in improving care.

Endometriosis is also often mistakenly thought of as solely a menstrual health condition. There are non-menstruation related symptoms that even some health professionals are not adequately familiar with, including painful urination or bowel movements, non-period related pelvic pain, painful intercourse and fatigue. This means clinicians often misdiagnose endometriosis.

Endometriosis also does not conform neatly to biomedical models of disease, meaning disease extent doesn’t always equate to symptom severity. Some women with endometriosis may have few symptoms, but have extensive “endo” (tissue), whereas others may experience severe pain, but have a small amount of endo tissue. In such cases, some women report they’ve been told by doctors that their symptoms cannot be “that bad”, with their accounts seen as less credible than what is detected by currently available measures. This means endometriosis can be misunderstood by health professionals.

3. Sufferers’ accounts have been dismissed for decades

In 2001, a colleague of mine interviewed women who suffered from endometriosis. She found that health professionals trivialised endometriosis symptoms as “typical period pain”.

Nearly two decades on, our research found women still feel disbelieved and desperate for relief from their symptoms. GPs confirm women come to them “ready for battle”, expecting not to be believed or made to feel that “it’s all in their head”.

Even the previously mentioned endometriosis inquiry revealed nothing new about the dismissal of endometriosis sufferers’ accounts. This was a missed opportunity to examine how to tackle this problem. It also didn’t adequately include the experiences of people of colour and the LGBTQ+ community. Both communities that, based on existing health inequalities evidence, are more likely to have their symptoms poorly treated. In healthcare, gender biases mean women’s pain isn’t investigated as seriously as men’s. A recent Yale study even showed girls’ pain is taken less seriously than boys’.

The struggle to have endometriosis accounts believed is part of a larger, systematic dismissal of women’s experiences of their bodies. Recent discussions about women’s experiences of sexual harrassment, or Meghan Markle’s account of racial bias in the media are both examples of women needing to fight to have their story believed. And when health professionals don’t take women’s accounts seriously, it may mean diagnosis delays and ineffective treatments.

Taking endometriosis sufferers’ accounts seriously is the linchpin to improving care. For the long-overdue improvements to endometriosis treatment, diagnosis and care to happen, we need to believe and prioritise the words of endometriosis sufferers. Greater awareness and understanding of the condition will help.

Annalise Weckesser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Picture the United States struggling to deal with a deadly pandemic.

State and local officials enact a slate of social-distancing measures, gathering bans, closure orders and mask mandates in an effort to stem the tide of cases and deaths.

The public responds with widespread compliance mixed with more than a hint of grumbling, pushback and even outright defiance. As the days turn into weeks turn into months, the strictures become harder to tolerate.

Theater and dance hall owners complain about their financial losses.

Clergy bemoan church closures while offices, factories and in some cases even saloons are allowed to remain open.

Officials argue whether children are safer in classrooms or at home.

Many citizens refuse to don face masks while in public, some complaining that they’re uncomfortable and others arguing that the government has no right to infringe on their civil liberties.

As familiar as it all may sound in 2021, these are real descriptions of the U.S. during the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic. In my research as a historian of medicine, I’ve seen again and again the many ways our current pandemic has mirrored the one experienced by our forebears a century ago.

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year, many people want to know when life will go back to how it was before the coronavirus. History, of course, isn’t an exact template for what the future holds. But the way Americans emerged from the earlier pandemic could suggest what post-pandemic life will be like this time around.

Sick and tired, ready for pandemic’s end

Like COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic hit hard and fast, going from a handful of reported cases in a few cities to a nationwide outbreak within a few weeks. Many communities issued several rounds of various closure orders – corresponding to the ebbs and flows of their epidemics – in an attempt to keep the disease in check.

These social-distancing orders worked to reduce cases and deaths. Just as today, however, they often proved difficult to maintain. By the late autumn, just weeks after the social-distancing orders went into effect, the pandemic seemed to be coming to an end as the number of new infections declined.

People clamored to return to their normal lives. Businesses pressed officials to be allowed to reopen. Believing the pandemic was over, state and local authorities began rescinding public health edicts. The nation turned its efforts to addressing the devastation influenza had wrought.

For the friends, families and co-workers of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had died, post-pandemic life was filled with sadness and grief. Many of those still recovering from their bouts with the malady required support and care as they recuperated.

At a time when there was no federal or state safety net, charitable organizations sprang into action to provide resources for families who had lost their breadwinners, or to take in the countless children left orphaned by the disease.

For the vast majority of Americans, though, life after the pandemic seemed to be a headlong rush to normalcy. Starved for weeks of their nights on the town, sporting events, religious services, classroom interactions and family gatherings, many were eager to return to their old lives.

Taking their cues from officials who had – somewhat prematurely – declared an end to the pandemic, Americans overwhelmingly hurried to return to their pre-pandemic routines. They packed into movie theaters and dance halls, crowded in stores and shops, and gathered with friends and family.

Officials had warned the nation that cases and deaths likely would continue for months to come. The burden of public health, however, now rested not on policy but rather on individual responsibility.

Predictably, the pandemic wore on, stretching into a third deadly wave that lasted through the spring of 1919, with a fourth wave hitting in the winter of 1920. Some officials blamed the resurgence on careless Americans. Others downplayed the new cases or turned their attention to more routine public health matters, including other diseases, restaurant inspections and sanitation.

Despite the persistence of the pandemic, influenza quickly became old news. Once a regular feature of front pages, reportage rapidly dwindled to small, sporadic clippings buried in the backs of the nation’s newspapers. The nation carried on, inured to the toll the pandemic had taken and the deaths yet to come. People were largely unwilling to return to socially and economically disruptive public health measures.

It’s hard to hang in there

Our predecessors might be forgiven for not staying the course longer. First, the nation was eager to celebrate the recent end of World War I, an event that perhaps loomed larger in the lives of Americans than even the pandemic.

Second, death from disease was a much larger part of life in the early 20th century, and scourges such as diphtheria, measles, tuberculosis, typhoid, whooping cough, scarlet fever and pneumonia each routinely killed tens of thousands of Americans every year. Moreover, neither the cause nor the epidemiology of influenza was well understood, and many experts remained unconvinced that social distancing measures had any measurable impact.

Finally, there were no effective flu vaccines to rescue the world from the ravages of the disease. In fact, the influenza virus would not be discovered for another 15 years, and a safe and effective vaccine was not available for the general population until 1945. Given the limited information they had and the tools at their disposal, Americans perhaps endured the public health restrictions for as long as they reasonably could.

A century later, and a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is understandable that people now are all too eager to return to their old lives. The end of this pandemic inevitably will come, as it has with every previous one humankind has experienced.

If we have anything to learn from the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as our experience thus far with COVID-19, however, it is that a premature return to pre-pandemic life risks more cases and more deaths.

And today’s Americans have significant advantages over those of a century ago. We have a much better understanding of virology and epidemiology. We know that social distancing and masking work to help save lives. Most critically, we have multiple safe and effective vaccines that are being deployed, with the pace of vaccinations increasingly weekly.

Sticking with all these coronavirus-fighting factors or easing off on them could mean the difference between a new disease surge and a quicker end to the pandemic. COVID-19 is much more transmissible than influenza, and several troubling SARS-CoV-2 variants are already spreading around the globe. The deadly third wave of influenza in 1919 shows what can happen when people prematurely relax their guard.

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J. Alexander Navarro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Back in 2019, Techdirt wrote about a fascinating case involving a bogus CC license on a 3D scan of a 3000-year-old bust of Nefertiti. The person at the heart of the saga was the artist and open access activist Cosmo Wenman. His web site has some background on what he calls his "freedom of information projects":

For more than a decade, museums around the world have been making high-quality 3D scans of important sculptures and ancient artifacts. Many institutions freely share those 3D scans with the public, allowing us to view, copy, adapt, and experiment with the underlying works in ways that have never before been possible. But some keep their scans out of public view, and I've been trying to help them see the light.

Following his success in liberating the 3D scan of Nefertiti, Wenman is now trying to do the same with 3D scans of the works of the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Many of these scans have been created by the Musée Rodin in Paris. There is a long and entertaining article (in the original French and an English translation - pdf) about Wenman's pursuit of the 3D scans, and of the Musée Rodin's refusal to share them. Wenman took an interesting tack, claiming that the museum's 3D scans were documents subject to France's freedom of information (FOIA) laws. It worked:

In late 2018 I sent a formal demand to Musée Rodin for access to all its 3D scans, citing French freedom of information laws. When the museum refused to comply, I brought the matter before the French government.

In June of 2019 the French government agency that oversees FOIA matters announced its first-of-its-kind opinion, in my favor; 3D scans produced by French national museums are in fact administrative documents and are subject to public disclosure. Musée Rodin is required by law to give the public access to its 3D scans of Rodin's works.

Another victory for Wenman, then, but rather a hollow one. Despite the French government agency's ruling, Musée Rodin continues to withhold the 3D scans. Wenman went on to file a suit against the museum in the Administrative Tribunal of Paris. Wenman wants the court to compel the museum to comply with the law, and to impose "significant" financial penalties for any delay. After more than a year with no response, the court directed the museum to present a defense. At the time of writing, Wenman is still waiting. However, given the unequivocal nature of the rulings against the Musée Rodin, he is confident:

Musée Rodin is going to fight, but I expect to win. The outcome will affect every national museum in France, inform policies at institutions around the world, and have interesting effects on the art market.

I’m shooting for a victory for open access, and freedom and innovation in the arts.

The knock-on effects of one person's dogged pursuit of a few computer files could have a major impact on the wider availability of 3D scans of sculptures and ancient artifacts -- a real win for the public domain.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

As state legislators consider hundreds of bills on election policies this spring, false claims of voter fraud are being repeated as justification for proposals to claw back recent advances that have made voting easier for Americans.

In debates about election policy, making it easier to vote and election integrity are frequently presented as opposing goals. Increasing one, it is argued, means decreasing the other.

The 2020 elections saw many states expand voting by mail, the use of ballot drop-off boxes and other procedures. In the end, turnout was high, and both the U.S. Justice Department, under Trump Attorney General William Barr, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with a host of other election and security officials, stated that the elections were secure.

Changes in election policy can either make it easier or harder to vote by adding or removing hurdles to participation. For example, state bills most commonly introduced by Democrats aim to expand the number of people voting by increasing early voting periods, allowing more people the right to vote absentee or restoring the voting rights of people who completed a felony sentence. Implementing automatic voter registration – that is, registering citizens to vote from existing government data, as many wealthy democracies do – is a particularly common reform proposal.

In contrast to an emphasis on making voting easier, Republican proposals tend to prioritize restrictions on mail-in voting, early voting and the discretion local election officials used in 2020 to increase turnout while protecting voters from the pandemic. Republicans claim these changes are needed to protect election integrity, another central value for fair elections.

Ultimate stress test

Civil rights groups are alarmed as many bills under consideration by states include significant restrictions on voting. The more extreme provisions in some Republican proposals are even leading to conflict within the party and between legislators and the officials who run elections. Proponents of these bills claim that they will increase election integrity and that “restoring confidence in American elections is a national priority.”

But the COVID-19 pandemic created the ultimate stress test for U.S. election integrity last year. And election officials’ success under that test demonstrates that the often-claimed trade-off between election integrity and reasonable measures to make it easier for people to vote is, in fact, largely false.

For instance, early voting and voting by mail are targeted for restrictions in many states, even though both reforms are popular with the public, worked securely in 2020 and have been expanded in many states for years without increases in fraud. Likewise, the collection of absentee ballots – a necessity for some voters – can be implemented securely with appropriate safety measures.

Making voting harder

According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, as of mid-February, there were more than 250 bills in 43 states, many with provisions that would make it harder to vote. In “trifecta” states – the 38 states where a single party controls both legislative chambers as well as the governorship – these bills are making rapid progress.

For instance, in Iowa, a new law typical of this group of bills passed along party lines in March. It reduces the time allowed for early voting and prevents the counting of mail-in ballots that are posted before Election Day but arrive after Election Day. It also limits the number of ballot drop boxes and cuts polling place hours on Election Day. The law also strips county election officials of much of the discretion they used in 2020 that led to wildly successful mail-in balloting efforts.

The bipartisan Iowa State Association of County Auditors opposed the bill, claiming it threatened Iowa’s “deserved reputation for fair, efficient and smooth elections.” The day after it was signed by the state’s Republican governor, a local civil rights group filed a lawsuit claiming the changes will hamper voting by minority citizens and those who are elderly, have a disability or have low incomes.

In Georgia, a bill sponsored by Republicans in the state Senate would severely limit who can request an absentee ballot and limit weekend voting. It so disgusted the party’s own lieutenant governor – who is a staunch supporter of absentee voting – and several GOP state senators that they either left or were conspicuously absent from the Senate when the bill was debated.

In addition, an election policy task force established by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger criticized the legislature for poor consideration of election policy last week, stating that “There is a need for responsible elections policymaking to be deliberate and evidence-based, not rushed.”

Expanding or restricting access

Rhetorically, the integrity of elections can refer to a great many things. However, over the past many years, election integrity has become a code word for hypervigilance over voter fraud. Despite mountains of evidence that fraud by voters is extremely rare, state legislators are pushing restrictive policies such as requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, requiring identification when voting and limiting absentee voting.

After election officials successfully overcame the hurdles the pandemic threw at them – such as increasing drop-box locations for safe balloting or making absentee ballots readily available – many state Republican legislators claimed those modifications resulted in or risked election manipulation.

However, some Republicans are bucking the trend in their party and are drawing on the lessons from the successful administration of elections in 2020. In Kentucky, bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled state House passed a bill that would implement three days of early voting and maintain an online system for requesting absentee ballots, although only for some voters, first used during the pandemic.

More voting, more integrity

There are situations in which making it easier to vote can increase election integrity.

For instance, roughly 25% of adult citizens will change their address in a 24-month period, and this mobility can affect the accuracy and completeness of voter registration lists. However, overzealously removing names from the registration rolls when officials believe a voter may have moved can mistakenly remove valid registrations and disproportionately harm minority voters.

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Perhaps the best way to ensure the integrity of registration lists is to simply expand voter registration services. During the 2018 election cycle, more than half of all voter registration applications were updates to existing records. Unfortunately, many states still violate the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law mandating that states offer voter registration services through various government agencies.

Ensuring the integrity of registration lists and making registration easier could go hand in hand, but only if states implement this federal law fairly.

Simply put, tightening rules to prevent astronomically rare events of fraud is likely to cause far more harm than good. The 2020 general election demonstrated that policies expanding access to the ballot – including ones targeted for elimination by some bills that states are considering this spring – can be implemented securely, even under highly stressful conditions.

Douglas R. Hess has received research funds to study voter registration access and has volunteered for the Democratic Party.

The problem of misinformation isn’t going away. Internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken some steps to curb its spread and say they are working on doing more. But no method yet introduced has been completely successful at removing all misleading content from social media. The best defense, then, is self-defense.

Misleading or outright false information – broadly called “misinformation” – can come from websites pretending to be news outlets, political propaganda or “pseudo-profound” reports that seem meaningful but are not. Disinformation is a type of misinformation that is deliberately generated to maliciously mislead people. Disinformation is intentionally shared, knowing it is false, but misinformation can be shared by people who don’t know it’s not true, especially because people often share links online without thinking.

Emerging psychology research has revealed some tactics that can help protect our society from misinformation. Here are seven strategies you can use to avoid being misled, and to prevent yourself – and others – from spreading inaccuracies.

1. Educate yourself

The best inoculation against what the World Health Organization is calling the “infodemic” is to understand the tricks that agents of disinformation are using to try to manipulate you.

One strategy is called “prebunking” – a type of debunking that happens before you hear myths and lies. Research has shown that familiarizing yourself with the tricks of the disinformation trade can help you recognize false stories when you encounter them, making you less susceptible to those tricks.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed an online game called “Bad News,” which their studies have shown can improve players’ identification of falsehoods.

In addition to the game, you can also learn more about how internet and social media platforms work, so you better understand the tools available to people seeking to manipulate you. You can also learn more about scientific research and standards of evidence, which can help you be less susceptible to lies and misleading statements about health-related and scientific topics.

2. Recognize your vulnerabilities

The prebunking approach works for people across the political spectrum, but it turns out that people who underestimate their biases are actually more vulnerable to being misled than people who acknowledge their biases.

Research has found people are more susceptible to misinformation that aligns with their preexisting views. This is called “confirmation bias,” because a person is biased toward believing information that confirms what they already believe.

The lesson is to be particularly critical of information from groups or people with whom you agree or find yourself aligned – whether politically, religiously, or by ethnicity or nationality. Remind yourself to look for other points of view, and other sources with information on the same topic.

It is especially important to be honest with yourself about what your biases are. Many people assume others are biased, but believe they themselves are not – and imagine that others are more likely to share misinformation than they themselves are.

3. Consider the source

Media outlets have a range of biases. The Media Bias Chart describes which outlets are most and least partisan as well as how reliable they are at reporting facts.

You can play an online game called “Fakey” to see how susceptible you are to different ways news is presented online.

When consuming news, make sure you know how trustworthy the source is – or whether it’s not trustworthy at all. Double-check stories from other sources with low biases and high fact ratings to find out who – and what – you can actually trust, rather than just what your gut tells you.

Also, be aware that some disinformation agents make fake sites that look like real news sources – so make sure you’re conscious of which site you are actually visiting. Engaging in this level of thinking about your own thinking has been shown to improve your ability to tell fact from fiction.

4. Take a pause

When most people go online, especially on social media, they’re there for entertainment, connection or even distraction. Accuracy isn’t always high on the priority list. Yet few want to be a liar, and the costs of sharing misinformation can be high – to individuals, their relationships and society as a whole. Before you decide to share something, take a moment to remind yourself of the value you place on truth and accuracy.

Thinking “is what I am sharing true?” can help you stop the spread of misinformation and will encourage you to look beyond the headline and potentially fact-check before sharing.

Even if you don’t think specifically about accuracy, just taking a pause before sharing can give you a chance for your mind to catch up with your emotions. Ask yourself whether you really want to share it, and if so, why. Think about what the potential consequences of sharing it might be.

Research shows that most misinformation is shared quickly and without much thought. The impulse to share without thinking can even be more powerful than partisan sharing tendencies. Take your time. There is no hurry. You are not a breaking-news organization upon whom thousands depend for immediate information.

5. Be aware of your emotions

People often share things because of their gut reactions, rather than the conclusions of critical thinking. In a recent study, researchers found that people who viewed their social media feed while in an emotional mindset were significantly more likely to share misinformation than those who went in with a more rational state of mind.

Anger and anxiety, in particular, make people more vulnerable to falling for misinformation.

6. If you see something, say something

Stand up to misinformation publicly. It may feel uncomfortable to challenge your friends online, especially if you fear conflict. The person to whom you respond with a link to a Snopes post or other fact-checking site may not appreciate being called out.

But evidence shows that explicitly critiquing the specific reasoning in the post and providing counterevidence like a link about how it is fake is an effective technique.

Even short-format refutations – like “this isn’t true” – are more effective than saying nothing. Humor – though not ridicule of the person – can work, too. When actual people correct misinformation online, it can be as effective, if not more so, as when a social media company labels something as questionable.

People trust other humans more than algorithms and bots, especially those in our own social circles. That’s particularly true if you have expertise in the subject or are a close connection with the person who shared it.

An additional benefit is that public debunking notifies other viewers that they may want to look more closely before choosing to share it themselves. So even if you don’t discourage the original poster, you are discouraging others.

7. If you see someone else stand up, stand with them

If you see someone else has posted that a story is false, don’t say “well, they beat me to it so I don’t need to.” When more people chime in on a post as being false, it signals that sharing misinformation is frowned upon by the group more generally.

Stand with those who stand up. If you don’t and something gets shared over and over, that reinforces people’s beliefs that it is OK to share misinformation – because everyone else is doing it, and only a few, if any, are objecting.

Allowing misinformation to spread also makes it more likely that even more people will start to believe it – because people come to believe things they hear repeatedly, even if they know at first they’re not true.

There is no perfect solution. Some misinformation is harder to counter than others, and some countering tactics are more effective at different times or for different people. But you can go a long way toward protecting yourself and those in your social networks from confusion, deception and falsehood.

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H. Colleen Sinclair receives funding from the Department of Defense.

Spanish-speaking faculty members from USF’s College of Public Health busted myths and broke down information related to COVID-19 vaccines in a virtual panel directed at a Hispanic audience.

The College of Public Health’s 90-minute session Tuesday evening kicked off a series of public virtual events focused on topics such as clearing up misinformation on vaccines, the economic impact of the pandemic and how the pandemic has affected domestic violence incidents.

Dates for the other sessions will be announced in the coming days, according to Arlene Calvo, associate professor in the College of Public Health.

The first session titled “Hablemos de la Vacuna del COVID-19” or “Let’s Talk About the COVID-19 Vaccine” focused on facts about available vaccines and was streamed on Zoom and the college’s Facebook page. It was held entirely in Spanish. The main message of this session was, “Get vaccinated.”

Alongside Calvo, doctors Ricardo Izurieta, Dinorah Martínez-Tyson, Abraham Salinas, Miguel Reina and Ismael Hoare participated in the panel discussion, during which the types of vaccines, their importance to get COVID-19 immunity and the measures vaccinated people should have were covered.

Attendees had to answer poll questions such as “Would you get vaccinated if you had the chance to?” or “Does the vaccine have secondary effects?” that would tell the panelists how much the audience knew about a subject. Members of the public could also ask their own questions in Zoom’s Q&A feature.

The Hispanic population has been one of the communities most affected by the pandemic and the deadly consequences of the virus. Compared to white non-Hispanic people, Latino or Hispanic populations have 1.3 times more cases of coronavirus, 3.1 times more hospitalization cases and 2.3 times the death rate, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Calvo said this is one of the reasons they wanted to share accurate information with the community.

“What has caught our attention in all of this is the amount of misinformation that we see on social media,” Calvo said.

“It has been identified that social media sites in Spanish are monitored much less than those in English. So the Spanish-speaking population, in some way, has been targeted to receive misinformation about a lot of topics that do not have a scientific basis.”

One topic related to misinformation discussed among the panelists was the use of home remedies such as teas, which are commonly used in Latin cultures to treat illnesses. Salinas said even if he respects the use of those because they are part of many people’s beliefs, homemade remedies cannot replace the vaccine.

“It is important to say that you can continue drinking your tea or whatever remedy you are using that is not harmful, but you still need the vaccine,” Salinas said. “Because none of those [homemade remedies] have prevented the illness or have actually decreased its mortality.”

One of the questions the doctors heard in their communities they were eager to address was about the differences and effectiveness of each type of vaccine.

At the beginning of the panel, Izurieta spoke briefly about how the vaccines worked in a person’s immune system. When responding to which one was the best, the answer was unanimous — the first one a person can get.

Reina said all of the vaccines that have been authorized for human use are effective against COVID-19 and prevent hospitalizations and mortality as a result of the virus. The ones discussed in the panel included the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and AstraZeneca vaccines.

“The important thing is that we have access to the vaccine so once a person does have it, that is the vaccine that will be most effective for them,” Reina said. “Because they have access to the vaccine at that moment and they should not waste the chance of receiving the protection that the vaccine gives.”

To reinforce their message of how important vaccinations are, Izurieta recounted some of his personal experiences in which he’s seen firsthand the effects of other vaccines and called them a “miracle” in the history of public health.

“In my childhood, when I attended high school and even college, I always had a classmate … with [post-polio symptoms] that had to walk with crutches,” Izurieta said. “In primary school we changed the soccer rules … and we put my friend who had crutches as the goalkeeper and he defended the goal with them.

“Now when I go into a class to teach [at USF] or in other countries, I think [about how great vaccines are] because now I don’t see any students with [post-polio symptoms].”

After getting vaccinated, the doctors emphasized the importance of continuing with preventive measures such as wearing masks and maintaining physical distance.

Calvo said it was common for people to believe they don’t have to protect themselves against the virus anymore once they get their doses. Salinas called this the “Superman effect” and explained that with the virus changing so much, people should continue being careful.

“I have heard the comment ‘I am going to get the vaccine and I am going to go to so many places and I do not need the mask anymore’ but the … [COVID-19 variants are evolving],” Salinas said.

“We know that the current vaccines protect against the current variants, but the situation has not resolved yet … We shouldn’t let our guards down. That would be a mistake.”

The doctors also explained that secondary effects such as arm pain, fever or chills were normal after receiving the doses. At the end of the panel, Martínez-Tyson shared resources the public could use to know where they can get vaccinated or where they can ask for appointments. She asked the community to follow the guidelines and keep their hopes up.

“We see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Martinez-Tyson said. “We are almost there, but not yet, so it is important to stay patient. The vaccines will be more frequently available as more are distributed and there will be more in the [vaccination sites] so be patient, don’t lose hope, we are almost there.”

The Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler recently had a very interesting article about how Amazon won't allow the ebooks it publishes to be lent out from libraries. As someone who regularly borrows ebooks from my local libraries, I find this disappointing -- especially since, as Fowler notes, Amazon really is the company that made ebooks popular. But, when it comes to libraries, Amazon won't let libraries lend those ebooks out:

When authors sign up with a publisher, it decides how to distribute their work. With other big publishers, selling e-books and audiobooks to libraries is part of the mix — that’s why you’re able to digitally check out bestsellers like Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land.” Amazon is the only big publisher that flat-out blocks library digital collections. Search your local library’s website, and you won’t find recent e-books by Amazon authors Kaling, Dean Koontz or Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Nor will you find downloadable audiobooks for Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime,” Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Michael Pollan’s “Caffeine.”

I've seen a lot of people responding to this article with anger towards Amazon, which is understandable. I do hope Amazon changes this policy. But there's a much bigger culprit here: our broken copyright laws. In the physical world, this kind of thing isn't a problem. If a library wants to lend out a book, it doesn't need the publisher's permission. It can just buy a copy and start lending it out. Fowler's correct that a publisher does get to decide how it wants to distribute a work, but with physical books, there's the important first sale doctrine, which lets anyone who buys a book go on and resell it. And that meant that in the past, libraries have never needed "permission" to lend out a book. They just needed to buy it.

Unfortunately, courts seem to take a dim view of the first sale doctrine when it comes to digital goods.

However, a few years back, some very smart librarians and copyright professors and experts got together and created a system called Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), which aimed to (1) rectify this massive gap in public access to knowledge while (2) remaining on the correct side of copyright law. In its most basic form, CDL, involves libraries buying physical copies of books (as they did in the past), scanning those books (which has already been ruled to be fair use for libraries) and then lending out that digital copy only if they had the matching physical copy on the shelf. As the libraries and copyright experts correctly note, it's difficult to argue that this is any different than lending out the copy of the book that they bought.

But, of course, publishers have always hated libraries' ability to lend out books in the first place -- and have been itching to use the power of copyright to block that. Already, they charge libraries insanely high prices for ebooks to lend, and put ridiculous limits on how those books can be lent.

So, no surprise, last year, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, the publishers sued the Internet Archive, arguing that its Open Library project, which runs based on the CDL principles, violated copyright law. And, incredibly, a ton of people have cheered on this nonsense lawsuit -- even those who hate Amazon.

Yet, if you really want to stop Amazon from being able to block libraries from lending out ebooks, there's a simple answer: fix copyright law. Make it clear that Controlled Digital Lending is legal. Or, go even further and say that the First Sale Doctrine also applies to digital goods, as it absolutely should.

This Sunday Morning segment from last month looks at how Bob Ross just keeps getting more well known, especially during social isolation. People are turning to him not only to learn how to paint, Bob Ross style, but also for the quirkiness, calmness, and positivity that he brings to these troubled times. — Read the rest

Faced with a 15.3% budget cut, the Tampa campus library faculty and staff are increasing their operations so access to thousands of academic journals is not permanently lost.

Thousands of journal subscriptions will not be renewed for the 2021-22 school year to meet the requirement of cutting over $1 million in library funds, slowing the immediacy students and faculty can access them. The cuts were made as part of a universitywide budget cut of 8.5% due to the financial constraints posed by the pandemic across the state.

The library has both recurring and non-recurring expenditures, Todd Chavez, dean of the USF Libraries, said. Non-recurring expenditures include books and other forms of media permanently owned by the library once they are purchased. However, the 15.3% reduction has to come out of the library’s recurring budget, which includes staff and faculty salaries and subscription-based media such as academic journals.

“We’re doing everything we can to avoid laying off personnel and losing faculty,” Chavez said. “We have sacrificed some vacant positions that we had planned to hire into … we gave up a little bit of our operational expenses, and then the rest of the library cuts, 79%, are going to be against the collections budget.”

The collections are composed of approximately 82,000 academic journals covering all disciplines, according to Chavez. The budget for the collections is currently $5.4 million and a little over $1 million of that needs to be cut.

“We’ve got a very huge process underway because in order to take a cut like this, you literally have to look at everything,” he said. “You can’t say ‘I’m only going to look at this’ or ‘I’m only going to look at that’ in order to get what is over a million dollars out of a budget that’s $5.4 million. You have to look at everything.”

When deciding which journals will not be renewed, the library faculty and staff began evaluating each resource on eight data points in November and have continued these efforts through March. Some of the evaluative data points include the cost of the journal, how often the journal is used, the cost per usage and personal access, which is how much of the journal’s content the library owns.

“If there are 30 volume issues, do we own all 30? Does it have only four issues and we only own two? That’s how we do an ownership assessment,” Chavez said.

The library faculty and staff also look at the journals’ rankings in Scopus and SciVal, which are online databases that host journals and provide details and abstracts about each one. They also check to see how many faculty members at USF have cited the journal or how many are authors in the journal.

The last variable checked to decide upon renewal is the amount of open accessibility the journal has, according to Chavez.

“So a lot of journals, particularly science journals, have started doing this. I would call it a service to the community of providing big portions of their title list,” he said. “For example, one of them I looked at the other day was a journal in geology, that journal has been published since the early 1900s. We don’t own all that because we weren’t here at that time. [From] 1995 or 1997 to 2020, we own that, but they actually provide free access to all of the journal one year back. So they won’t provide you with 2021 content [if you don’t subscribe], but they will provide you with 2020 back.

“So that’s a very high open accessibility rating, whereas other journals have zero open access, or we might own very little of it, so that would lower its value.”

For most of the journals that the library faculty and staff do not renew, Chavez said the previous issues will still be retained.

“One of the things we stress is that not renewing something does not mean we no longer have access,” Chavez said. “Maybe the journal started publishing in 2000 and we dropped our subscription in 2020, we still have everything from 2000 to 2020, we don’t lose that. There are some rare cases where we actually lose access, but in the overwhelming majority, whatever we pay for we keep.

“We just lose access to current and future content, but if budgets improve in a year, we can resubscribe, and we can buy the latest issues.”

Chavez said even if the library decides not to renew a journal subscription, students, faculty and staff will still be able to get their hands on it in some way because the library is working to expand its operations in other departments.

The library will be expanding the interlibrary loan service, a free service the library uses that borrows materials from other libraries, and the document delivery service, which is when a faculty member or student requests a document and the library buys it and delivers it to them.

“We’ve reallocated personnel to take care of [document delivery and interlibrary loan services], so we’re prepared for the reduction in the collections. It’s not what we want to do, and it’s not the kind of thing that an academic library would normally see as a positive direction to move in, but we have a plan to meet the needs,” Chavez said.

While students, faculty and staff will still be able to access all materials through the interlibrary loan service and the document delivery service, the major difference is in the immediacy with which that will take place, according to Chavez.

“We’ve done studies by looking at papers that have been written by our faculty and peer reviewed journals. We’ve looked at their reference lists and their citation lists and we estimate that between 70% and 75% of all the materials that they seamlessly use today, they will continue to be able to access after this reduction,” he said.

“So that means that somewhere between 25% and 30% may not be accessible immediately to them but it’s all available to them through interlibrary loan or document delivery, it just introduces a delay in the process.”

In an effort to maximize the efforts of the interlibrary loan and document delivery services as well as minimize the impacts of the collections cuts, the Tampa campus library’s Resource Sharing Department will extend its hours.

It is currently open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and beginning in fall the department will be open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with the possibility of extending all the way to 11 p.m. if necessary.

Although the collections cuts are going to have some impact on university, Chavez said the library faculty and staff are aiming to lessen this impact as much as possible.

“Faculty are dependent on our collections to get their job done and students are dependent on our collections to get their degree completed so we’re going to continue to deliver those collections, it’s just that we might do it in a different way,” Chavez said.

At least 160 Confederate symbols were removed from public spaces across the United States in 2020, according to the the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, has removed a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from the Richmond Statehouse and is trying to take down others seen as offensive by an increasing numbers of Americans, including those whose ancestors were enslaved.

Texas has largely declined to participate in this nationwide reckoning with the symbols of the Old South. Instead, local officials are doubling down on their Confederate monuments.

Republican State Sen. Brandon Creighton, who represents the city of Conroe, near Houston, says he will file a bill this legislative session to protect historical monuments from efforts to remove them.

Meanwhile, officials in rural Walker County, Texas, voted unanimously in December to keep a marker to “Confederate Patriots” on the county courthouse lawn in Huntsville. The vote followed an eight-month citizen campaign calling for the removal of the monument, which was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1956.

Walker County Commissioners explained their Dec. 21 decision only by saying that the monument “does not belong to us,” suggesting it is a piece of local history.

Yet Walker County is hundreds of miles from any major Civil War battlefield. And the county’s most famous resident, Sam Houston, a Texas hero, ardently opposed the Confederacy.

So rejecting the Confederacy is Texas history, too.

A proud Southerner who opposed secession

Sam Houston was the most important political figure in Texas before the Civil War. The modern city of Houston is named for him, as is the university in Huntsville, Texas, where we teach American history.

Born in Virginia, Houston moved to the Mexican state of Texas in 1832. A veteran of the War of 1812, Houston was soon appointed commander of the Texas Army and helped secure Texas’ independence at the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto. He went on to serve two nonconsecutive terms as president of the independent Republic of Texas.

Later, Houston was the state’s Democratic governor when secession became a serious subject of discussion in the South.

In 1860, following Abraham Lincoln’s election, white leaders in Huntsville wrote to Houston seeking his advice. Houston counseled them in a letter written on Nov. 14, 1860, to remain vigilant in their defense of American constitutional values “when the country is agitated and revolution threatened.” He urged the group not to get “carried away by the impulse of the moment.”

There were natural bonds between Houston and Southern secessionists: All were white male slave owners who openly endorsed white supremacy. But Houston saw slavery as a necessary evil, not a patriotic cause.

“It is necessity that produces slavery,” he said in 1855, and “it is convenience, it is profit, that creates slavery.”

As a senator in 1854, he had voted against the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories and was condemned throughout the South for his principled stand.

Sam Houston was no abolitionist, however. He owned more than a dozen enslaved people and profited from enslaved labor throughout his life. Unlike much of America’s Southern gentry, though, Houston was not willing to shed blood to expand slavery.

When Texas legislators met in 1861 to consider seceding from the United States, Houston made clear his opposition to the move. But Texas secessionists were a stronger force. When Houston refused to take an oath to the Confederacy on March 16, 1861, he was removed from the governor’s office.

Booed by crowds and driven from state politics, Houston settled into a self-imposed exile in Huntsville. He watched in dismay as Texas joined the Confederacy. He died two years later, a lonesome and broken man.

A contorted view of Texas history

As scholars who focus on race and class in Texas, we have studied the state’s history and have been led to speak out against Huntsville’s Confederate monument.

As we wrote last year in a statement published in the local newspaper, the Huntsville Item, the courthouse marker obscures and misrepresents local history. It is an insult to Houston’s refusal to pledge allegiance to the Confederacy and ignores the fact that enslaved African Americans made up most of Walker County’s population during the Civil War.

It is, in so many words, an ahistorical monument.

Yet Huntsville – population 40,000 – glorifies Houston as a military and political hero. His former home is surrounded by a modern museum dedicated to him. And Interstate 45, which runs from Houston to Dallas, features a 67-foot statue known as “Big Sam” advertising Huntsville to travelers.

How can modern Huntsvillians – like local officials across Texas – both revere this anti-Confederate leader and pledge their support for Confederate symbols?

The answer lies in the “Lost Cause,” a tenacious Southern myth that portrays slavery as benign and the Confederacy as noble. This is the preferred version of Texas history promoted by the state’s conservative leadership, the version that appears in Texas schools’ textbooks.

By the 1950s, when the Huntsville chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected the courthouse monument, the group had been pushing the Lost Cause narrative for over half a century.

Mae Wynne McFarland, a native Huntsvillian and 1941 president of the Texas Daughters of the Confederacy, characterized the “War Between the States” as a conflict “fought for exactly the same principles which inspired the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Texas Revolution.”

Houston fought in two of those three battles. His repeated public statements show, however, that he did not believe the Confederacy’s effort in the Civil War aimed at the “same principles” as the War of 1812 or the Texas Revolution.

Conservative white Texans have long tried to knit Sam Houston into their Lost Cause narrative. But biographers and students of history have always been there to correct them.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Jeffrey L. Littlejohn has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.

Aaron David Hyams has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.

Kristin Henze has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.

Zachary Montz has publicly advocated for the removal of Walker County's Confederate monument.

In a recent social media post showing off her Savage X Fenty brand, the singer Rihanna posed topless while sporting a diamond-studded pendant of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god. Hindus expressed their anger on Twitter, accusing her of cultural appropriation and of using their religion as an aesthetic.

Ganesh is the remover of obstacles and is called upon by Hindus during marriage ceremonies to bestow good fortune. Hindus consider him a divine figure and that fact should be respected and understood. The necklace, however, was treated as a mere accessory, lacking any significance or meaning.

Hindu deities possess a rich and varied iconography and mythology. Each deity has a special meaning and purpose for use in worship. When the imagery is used by non-Hindus, this significance is often lost and it may well be felt that the likeness of gods are used in disrespectful ways that involve thoughtless appropriation rather than cultural appreciation.

More than pretty

Cultural appropriation refers to the taking for one’s own the objects and practices of a minority (ethnic) or indigenous culture by a majority culture. This can lead to cultures and groups of people becoming further marginalised or exploited in different ways, often economically.

A Hindu symbol that has sparked debates about cultural appropriation is the bindi. A decorative mark traditionally worn by married women on the centre of the forehead, it is believed to balance energy and ward off evil. The bindi is considered to be ‘the third eye’, a point of mystical wisdom and a gateway to spiritual insight.

Western celebrities, such as Gwen Stefani and Selena Gomez, have worn bindis in music performances. This has aided the perception that a bindi is a fun and frivolous accessory, as meaningless as choosing to wear glittery eye shadow. As such, it has become a popular adornment of music-festival goers.

Identity politics (the politics of how groups define themselves) are at issue in appropriation. Immigrants have historically been discriminated against for wearing cultural and religious markers. It can be incredibly offensive when such markers become a meaningless fashionable item and become socially acceptable, even glamorous, when worn by those outside of the minority culture.

Unclean body parts

As well as appearing to appropriate a culture she doesn’t belong to, how Rihanna chose to wear the symbol of Ganesh has added to the outrage of Hindus.

Within Hindu ritual tradition, the body needs to be ritually cleansed and covered before it is deemed suitable to be before deities for worship and prayer. Although deities cannot be polluted, consumerist commodities have caused great offence when they don’t uphold the sacredness of the representation.

For example, in 2005, the designer Minelli brought out a shoe that was adorned with the image of Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu, one of the three main deities of Hinduism. In Hinduism, feet are considered lowly and unclean because of what they come into contact with. For this reason, placing a representation of a deity on shoes is disrespectful. When the shoes were withdrawn from sale, many Hindus wanted to salvage the sacred image and unpicked the motif so they could dispose of it ritualistically by immersing it in the sacred waters of the Ganges.

A sexualised body is also deemed “unclean”, which is why Rihanna wearing a necklace of Ganesh while topless and showing off her satin underwear collection was disrespectful to Hindus. To be in the presence of a god, Hindus must be respectfully and modestly dressed.

Diversity should be celebrated and there are ways to appreciate a culture without appropriating it. Engaging with other cultures should be a thoughtful and informed practice, one which acknowledges and respects the provenance of its symbols, objects and practices.

Rina Arya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Eugene Bullard ran away from home in 1907 to seek his fortune in a more racially accepting Europe. There he led a life of staggering accomplishment, becoming by turns a prizefighter, a combat pilot, a nightclub impresario, and a spy. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell Bullard's impressive story, which won him resounding praise in his adopted France. — Read the rest

In January 2021, the Boston Public Library uploaded some 8,000 public domain photographs to Wikimedia Commons. As The Boston Globe explains:

There's plenty of history to be found in the stash — the BPL highlights photos on the early history of the Red Sox and 19th century daguerreotypes of local abolitionists, for example — but which photos will make you want to run and hide?

When water was often unsafe to drink, people turned to wine. But beer takes a lot less time to make, and is somewhat nutritious besides. Brewing beer is akin to cooking, so making beer became one of the household chores that women performed. — Read the rest

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill March 3 that could potentially expand voting rights for American citizens who often experience disparities in information access and transportation to the polls. 

The For the People Act would provide citizens with better access to voting through decreasing the “influence of big money in politics” and strengthening “ethical rules of public servants,” according to the bill.

New rules are needed to reform the corrupt voting system that is currently in place. Impoverished citizens have disproportionate access to information about candidates, voting dates and methods due to the prioritization of citizens who are known to vote one way or the other.

Common voting barriers are lack of transportation to the polls, time in the day to vote and poor access to education on candidates, often experienced by impoverished citizens. 

The For the People Act will also allow for automatic voter registration when citizens obtain a license from their state’s department of motor vehicles, which makes the process of participating in American elections easier and less time-consuming. 

With this bill, each state will no longer require citizens to justify their need for a mail-in ballot, making access to ballots easier. This opens up voting to lower income citizens who do not have the time nor the financial means to go to the polls. 

Income is positively correlated with the ability to vote. During the 2016 presidential election, those with an income of $150,000 and higher were about 30% more likely to vote than those who had an average income of $5,000, according to Econofact’s 2019 analysis of 2016 exit poll data. 

This is due to citizens’ means of getting to the polls, such as by car or public transportation, and the time they have allotted to wait in the long voting lines. In the 2020 presidential election, some waited as long as eight hours, like voters had to do at a precinct in Georgia, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Most working Americans don’t have the ability to take eight hours out of their day to wait in a line to vote.

The For the People Act would also decrease the financial abilities of extravagant campaigns. Voter suppression has become a large issue in America, being spearheaded by campaigns who use their money to direct educational information to specific constituents.

Voter suppression is so prevalent in the U.S. that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was prompted to create a campaign in 2020 called Block the Vote to combat it. 

“Across the U.S., too many politicians are passing measures making it harder to cast a ballot,” the ACLU’s website said. “The goal is to manipulate political outcomes, and the result is a severely compromised democracy that doesn’t reflect the will of the people.”

Voter registration knowledge will be improved through the bill by requiring annual reports by each state on registration statistics to analyze demographic trends in registration, adding a voter registration reminder to change of address forms and providing grants to states that promote the involvement of young people in election activities. 

Republican opponents of the bill have also argued that the bill seems to be completely in favor of Democrats, because it would expand voting access to those who are more likely to “vote blue.” 

“Democrats want to use their razor thin majority not to pass bills to earn voters’ trust, but to ensure they don’t lose more seats in the next election,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy during the House vote March 3. 

This opposition is telling of Republican legislators’ voter suppression intentions. Democracy is based on the public choosing their leaders, and if the majority of people in America choose Democratic leaders, then Republicans have no right to attempt to suppress that. 

If the For the People Act is passed, money will no longer be an obstacle for voter education and capability, nor will campaigners have the ability to directly suppress economic classes. The bill is needed in order to diminish the disparities the corrupt voting system currently creates among Americans.

After a long day at work cleaning Juniper-Poplar Hall, Jenny Lanza’s priorities after arriving home are to shower and change her clothes before coming into contact with her family, especially her 70-year-old mother. 

Even with the fear of exposing them to COVID-19 in the back of her mind, she has no option but to continue working to support herself and her family.

“It was stressful … I got a little nervous because I was afraid my children or mother, who is already old, would get the virus,” Lanza said. “They say young people are still at risk but I was more worried about my mother.”

When she reflected on how she would handle the situation of working and being exposed to COVID-19, she decided to work out a way to continue her job duties and reduce the risk of infecting her family. 

“We do have contact with a lot of students so I started wondering ‘How am I going to [deal] with my job?’” Lanza said. “But I said ‘OK, I have to move forward. I have a job and I will figure out how to take care of my mother.’”

Similar to Lanza’s case, working from home was not an option for other Housing and Residential Education custodial employees as the university had to step up its cleaning procedures around campus. Even though the number of students in the dorms was reduced in summer and fall, all of the employees in the custodial services department continued working 40 hours a week. 

Roberto Jimenez, custodial manager, said at the beginning of the outbreak his staff was worried about the health risks that the pandemic posed. To give them some “peace of mind,” the housing department started buying personal protective equipment (PPE) in large quantities.   

“I think to an extent, everybody was somewhat scared of this virus,” Jimenez said. “But with the department, we knew that we had to come back with the plan and make sure and reassure the staff that we were going to provide them with the tools not only to help sanitize and disinfect surfaces, but also for them to protect themselves.”

Employees were given PPE including suits that covered their clothes for when they were cleaning inside each residence hall as well as mandatory guidelines such as keeping physical distance between each other and using gloves, face masks and goggles when working.

During their training in March 2020, custodial services staff were told to focus on cleaning high touch areas and to disinfect common areas almost every hour. Some housing employees went through special training to work in the isolation dorms designated to house students who tested positive for COVID-19 or those who were exposed to the virus.

Their procedures for the isolation areas include taking new linen sets to each room, carrying frozen meal kits and having a specific disinfecting routine for the isolation spaces. 

“The disinfection process works by spraying the room, spraying the space with a peroxide-based chemical that kills anything that could be in there,” Jimenez said. “Then we have people that come behind, and they wipe everything down, and then they’re out. So that space is clear for entry by a resident. A resident stays there anywhere from two days to two weeks, they move out, and then we go through the process all over again.”

Even with all of the precautions, Lanza felt nervous about heading to work and putting her families at risk because of the potential exposure to the virus. Lanza was concerned for the health of her elderly mother as well as her young children, and so she limited her risk of exposure to the dorms, and took all the necessary precautions to prevent contracting the virus, including not traveling. 

Her routines before the pandemic included visiting friends and going on trips to visit her family in Houston or Miami, and going back to Honduras, her home country. 

“[The pandemic] has impacted me because you can’t have relationships with friends or family,” Lanza said. “So, I used to visit them at least once a year but now I haven’t been able to see them for all this time, and that has affected me. It makes me sad because I have family in different states and I can’t be near them.” 

As an immigrant, Yamilka Pages, a custodial services member from Cuba, said she also misses visiting her family. Even if traveling is not something she does often, she wishes she could be with her family now more than ever. 

“It has affected me not being able to visit my family because of how the situation [with the virus] in Cuba is right now,” Pages said. “One would like to help them by going there, but with Cuba’s current situation, I cannot go.” 

Pages tries to speak with her daughter almost every day and has been taking advantage of her time at home to get more rest.

“Thank God I have not felt lonely, I am not the type of person who goes out much,” Pages said. “I like watching TV or Netflix, or sometimes I put on Cuban shows on YouTube.”

Like other custodial staff, she is grateful she could continue working under the new circumstances and said she has not felt a financial impact from the pandemic because her hours have stayed the same. 

Even if the workload does feel heavier and the cleaning routines can get tiring, like many employees, Lanza said she is grateful to still have a job knowing that many people have been laid off or were being furloughed because of COVID-19 restrictions. 

“We do have a little more work, but we have work,” Lanza said. “Sometimes I get stressed out, but at the same time I say ‘I am healthy, I have my family, I have a job.’

“Unfortunately, many people have lost their job, many people have lost relatives. And I tell myself ‘continue going’ because for now I have not had to live those difficult moments that others have gone through.”

I never thought of ostriches as particularly dangerous — until I read the unexpectedly gripping Wikihow article on "How to Survive an Encounter with an Ostrich".

Now I'm terrified! Basically, ostriches are velociraptors — capable of running 43 miles an hour, and possessed of "razor sharp talons" on legs powerful enough to deliver a 500-psi blow. — Read the rest

As of 2020, writes Nirav Patel, all the fancy TV brands load their sets with tracking, UI advertising and junkware, and short of nerdy shenanigans (such as buying a Raspberry Pi and setting it up as an ad-killing DNS proxy) there's no practical way to get around it. — Read the rest

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says it’s time to tax wealth.

The Massachusetts senator on March 1 introduced a bill to tax households worth over US$50 million and up to $1 billion at a rate of 2%, and anything over that at 3%. She first proposed the idea of a wealth tax during the Democratic presidential primary in 2019.

The legislation, which could raise an estimated $3 trillion over a decade, is meant to reduce inequality by using revenue from the wealthiest Americans to pay for new federal programs to lift up some of the poorest.

There’s at least one problem: It may be unconstitutional.

As an expert on tax policy, I know firsthand how America’s system has exacerbated inequality. Fortunately, there are other ways to tax the rich.

Income and wealth inequality

Concerns about inequality have increased in recent decades.

Americans enjoyed substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity from the end of World War II into the 1970s.

But in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan dramatically slashed taxes on the wealthy – twice – cutting the top rate on wages from 70% to 28%.

Studies have shown that the drop in tax rates, combined with other “trickle-down” policies such as deregulation, led to steadily rising income and wealth inequality.

The wealthiest 1% controlled 39% of all wealth in 2016, up from less than 30% in 1989. At the same time, the bottom 90% held less than a quarter of America’s wealth, compared with more than a third in 1989.

Currently, the federal government taxes all income above $518,400 at 37% with an additional 3.8% investment tax on incomes over $250,000.

The problem with a wealth tax

Warren’s wealth tax aims to change that.

Her tax on estates worth over $50 million would affect an estimated 100,000 families, or fewer than 1 in 1,000, according to University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. The tax wouldn’t start until 2023.

Unlike an income tax, a wealth tax reaches the root of both wealth and income inequality.

There’s only one snag: There are strong arguments that a federal wealth tax is unconstitutional. Wealth taxes violate Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids the federal government from laying “direct taxes” that aren’t apportioned equally among the states.

A direct tax is a tax on a thing, like property or income. An indirect tax is a tax on a transaction: for example, a sale or a gift.

The income tax is a direct tax and constitutional because of the 16th Amendment, which specifically allows income taxes without apportionment. As for property, you may notice that only states levy real estate taxes. In almost every case, the federal government cannot tax real estate or any other form of wealth absent a transaction.

Warren cites a small group of law professors who back her claim that a wealth tax passes constitutional muster. But the argument against constitutionality is strong enough that a lawsuit before the Supreme Court is sure to follow any attempt to enact a wealth tax.

Barring a victory before a conservative Supreme Court or an arduous amendment to the Constitution, the federal government is shut out of taxing wealth.

Two other proposals

Two other proposals to tax the rich also emerged in 2019.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wanted to create a new “60% to 70%” tax bracket for income earned from labor over $10 million. She estimated that her plan would catch about 4,000 people and raise $720 billion over 10 years.

One problem with that idea was that the wealthy can avoid or lower that tax by choosing when they receive the income. A second is that the rich earn most of their money from capital gains, which are taxed at a much lower rate than wage income.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has since signed on to Warren’s plan, in 2019 proposed going after wealth but targeted instances when it’s being transferred to someone else – which is what makes it constitutional. He wanted to lower the threshold at which the estate tax applies from $11 million – which touches just 1,000 estates a year – to $3.5 million, where the threshold stood in 2009. He would also levy a new 77% rate on estates over $1 billion. Sanders estimated that his plan would raise $315 billion over 10 years.

Although this would bring in significantly less than his colleagues’ proposals, it is far superior because it both addresses the root of the problem – wealth disparities – and can be implemented immediately. And it wouldn’t pose a constitutional problem.

A rising tide

I agree with all three lawmakers that the United States should return to economic policies that seek to lift all boats.

Although American wealth and productivity has surged in the last 40 years, most Americans have not fared nearly as well as the richest have. In 2020 alone, America’s billionaires saw their wealth increase $560 billion, even as tens of millions were unemployed or depended on food donations to get enough to eat.

The U.S. tax system is at least partly responsible for these gaps. A wealth transfer tax – rather than one that taxes wealth – seems to be the best approach to both pass legal muster and help solve the problem.

This is an updated version of an article first published on April 2, 2019.

Beverly Moran receives funding from Ford Foundation in 2001 for work on taxation and wealth. Also the Annie E. Casey Foundation in around 2005. same type of work

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