While some children were born without faces simply because they didn't deserve them (see the Scarfolk Annual 197X), the government became increasingly concerned about citizens who did have them. They found that people with faces are more likely to have personal desires, hopes and dreams, in short: a will and ideas of their own.
Such idiosyncrasies were not only thought of as needlessly self-indulgent, they were also deemed inconsistent with the smooth running of a successful society. Scarfolk's was the first council benevolent enough to offer face removals on the NHS.
In 1976, the council trialled face removals on stray foreigners, prisoners, children nobody wanted, unsuspecting people who were picked up leisurely walking in a park after sundown and volunteers (see leaflet above).
When the full scheme was rolled out in 1977, the council soon lost track of which faceless citizen was which. By 1978 a new law was passed which dictated that all faceless people were required to have a tattoo of their old face over their lost one to make identification easier.
The 13th Circuit Court and the Hillsborough County Commission have already resolved this issue. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/W. SLUPECKI
In November 2018, Hillsborough County voters approved a referendum creating a one-cent sales tax to pay for improvements in road maintenance, mass transit and pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure. The initiative, which received 57 percent of the vote, was authored and championed by All for Transportation (AFT), a citizen group backed by community advocates and business leaders.
Even as the sales tax is being collected, however, none of the revenue has been spent, entirely because of a frivolous lawsuit from Republican officials.
AFT’s landslide victory reflected years of dissatisfaction with transportation in the Tampa Bay area. Stifling traffic congestion is a fact of everyday life. Meager funding for mass transit makes bus routes slow and unreliable. Insufficient infrastructure and poorly designed intersections cause deadly crashes that kill pedestrians and bicyclists.
Funds from the one-cent sales tax would make substantial headway on each of these issues, helping USF students along the way. Underfunding, for instance, forced Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) to cut routes running through the USF campus during a restructuring in 2017. New money could see those routes brought back.
Instead, every cent of that money is frozen. Following AFT’s approval, Republican Hillsborough County Commissioner Stacy White filed suit against the county, claiming that the referendum violated the Florida Constitution. In the meantime, the county has no access to the sales tax proceeds.
Initially, White had a reasonable case. The AFT initiative included a specific plan for spending the sales tax revenue—a strategy that helped communicate proposed improvements with voters but usurped the constitutional spending authority of the County Commission.
As a result, a judge on the 13th Judicial Circuit struck down the spending plan but upheld the tax. For their part, the Hillsborough County Commission voted to stick to the AFT spending plan, honoring the will of the voters. For all intents and purposes, these moves were common sense solutions, resolving legal issues without usurping democracy.
Now, both White and the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature are appealing the decision to the Florida Supreme Court, using a game of semantics to demand an all-or-nothing position. If the spending plan is repealed, they argue, the rest of the initiative should be overturned, too. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the issue next Wednesday.
This litigation has little to do with the Florida Constitution and everything to do with politics. White and Republican state legislators like Sen. Tom Lee (R-Thonotosassa) campaigned against AFT in the 2018 election, and both White and Lee have expressed an ideological commitment against tax increases and public transportation.
By challenging the sales tax in court, these officials want to overturn a popular transportation agenda for their own political interests.
The Circuit Court and the Hillsborough County Commission have already resolved this issue. The Florida Supreme Court should reject petty partisanship by siding with Hillsborough voters and affirming the previous ruling.
Nathaniel Sweet is a senior studying political science.
by Heike Becker, Professor of Anthropology, University of the Western Cape
A human skull on display in Berlin in 2018. Germany handed back human remains seized during the Namibia genocide from 1904 to 1908.
EPA-EFE/Hayoung Jeon
Germany committed genocide in Africa 40 years before the Holocaust of the European Jews. In 1904 and 1905 the Ovaherero and Nama people of central and southern Namibia rose up against colonial rule and dispossession in what was then called German South West Africa. The revolt was brutally crushed. By 1908, 80% of the Ovaherero and 50% of the Nama had died of starvation and thirst, overwork and exposure to harsh climates.
The army drove survivors into the waterless Omaheke desert. Thousands more died in concentration camps.
For many historians this first genocide committed by Germany provided the template for the horrors that were to come 40 years later during the Holocaust of the European Jews. The philosopher Hannah Arendt, herself a Holocaust refugee from Germany, explained in 1951 that European imperialism played a crucial role in the development of Nazi totalitarianism and associated genocides.
We know very little about the experience of those who lived through this first systematic mass extinction of the 20th century. Forty-seven testimonies were recorded and published in 1918 in a scathing official British report about German colonial rule in Namibia, known as the Blue Book. One eyewitness remarked:
Words cannot be found to relate what happened; it was too terrible.
Following on an earlier Norwegian edition, a new book, Mama Penee: Transcending the Genocide, by Uazuvara Ewald Kapombo Katjivena, to be published by UNAM Press in Windhoek in February, makes an extraordinary attempt to present the lived experience of the genocide.
Surviving a genocide
Based on oral and family history, Katjivena, a former exiled liberation Namibian fighter until the country’s independence from South Africa in 1990, tells his grandmother’s story in a biography deeply infused with family and oral history. His grandmother, Jahohora, survived the genocide as an 11-year-old girl.
In the book’s opening scene young Jahohora witnesses her parents’ murder at the hands of German colonial troops in 1904. Following this traumatic experience, she wanders into the veld. The young girl survives on her own, using skills that her mother had imparted to her, to scavenge from the environment. She traps rabbits and birds, eats berries and wild honey, and occasionally feasts on an ostrich egg.
The remaining connection with her parents is cruelly cut after she is caught and forced to work for a German farmer. During the “civilising” washing and changing of her attire, her ceremonial Ovaherero headgear is cut into pieces and burnt by the farmer’s wife.
The headgear was her mother’s significant gift for the growing daughter just before the start of the hostilities in early 1904. Jahohora suffers deeply humiliating experiences.
Katjivena’s grandmother was a remarkable woman of deep thought, insight, and immense resolve. Her parents and grandparents belonged to a section of the Ovaherero called the Ovatjurure. They played a significant role in their communities by helping to maintain peace among families in the nearby homesteads and in the neighbouring villages.
Their daughter passed on this remarkable tradition to the children and grandchildren she brought up during Namibia’s colonial era under Germany and South Africa.
Regaining agency
Katjivena intersperses Jahohora’s personal perspective with historical facts. We read a detailed, chilling account of General Lothar von Trotha’s extermination order of 2 October 1904. The oral history telling, however, also indicates instances of humanity during an entirely inhumane era.
Who were these white people, the survivor wondered. Why had some German soldiers saved her from certain death and given her a chance of life while their fellows had mercilessly killed her parents? As Jahohora meets other survivors and hears their stories, she begins to understand the genocide and especially the role of Von Trotha, who is locally known as omuzepe (the killer).
Katjivena’s story looks simple, yet it exudes deep meaning. It turns the gaze onto the oppressors. The resisting gaze of the colonised, the cultural theorist Elizabeth Baer writes, is an act of self-creation. It “begins to recognize and restore agency to the victims of imperialism”.
Transcending the genocide
The subtitle of Katjivena’s book is Transcending the Genocide. It adds a tremendous living voice to the symbolic commemorations of Germany’s African genocide that have taken place over the past few years.
Importantly, human remains of genocide victims were repatriated from Germany to Namibia in 2011, 2014 and 2018. These had been shipped to academic and medical institutions in Germany, and had remained there until recently.
In 2019 some significant items of cultural memory, which had been stolen during colonial conquest, were returned to Namibia from the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. These included the slain Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi’s Bible and his riding whip.
In Windhoek a Genocide Memorial, built in 2014, signifies a noteworthy shift in post-colonial Namibian memory politics. The statue’s North Korean aesthetics and symbolism remain controversial. That aside, the new monument shows that the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama has belatedly entered the public history narrative of Namibian nationhood. This would have been impossible a few years earlier.
Reconciliation and reparations
On the political level, the German government finally acknowledged the colonial genocide in 2015. Ever since, Namibian and German envoys have been talking about an official apology by Germany.
Most controversial have been negotiations about reparations. Also controversial has been the role of the Ovaherero and Nama communities that were directly affected by the genocide. But in January 2020 Germany’s new ambassador to Namibia, Herbert Beck, hinted that important political developments might be about to happen.
It is not clear yet where the complicated process of post-colonial reconciliation is going. Yet, with stories such as Katjivena’s remarkable biography of his grandmother, the dead and the survivors of the colonial genocide are finally given a face.
Heike Becker 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.
One of the best work trips I ever took was the overnight train from London King's Cross to Edinburgh: I had a comfortable berth, went from city centre to city centre, arrived rested and refreshed, and did not have to endure the indignities and discomforts of air travel.
University of Westminster Senior Lecturer in Transport Planning Enrica Papa's editorial on the glories and possibilities of overnight rail as an alternative for many air journeys describes how the phenomenon of flygskam (Swedish: "flight shame") is giving rise to an overnight rail renaissance, with many European rail services reinstating and improving their overnight rail service -- for example, in 2022 you'll be able to take a sleeper car from Malmo to London, departing after dinner and arriving before lunch.
A recent study from the Netherlands found that passengers who travel for leisure purposes seem to be most attracted to the option of night trains. It’s possible that night train services could simply generate new demand from these customers instead of substituting existing airline passengers. The researchers found that 40% of business travellers still opted to fly the day before and stay in a hotel instead, though many thought the relative comfort of sleeper trains was appealing.
Warner subsidiary Otter Media has a division called Fullscreen ("a social content company for talent and brands") that has been demonetizing Youtubers' videos that use the numbers 36 and 50 (and possibly other numbers, for all we know), claiming that their use of these integers is a copyright violation. Doing so allows Warner to steal the money that these Youtubers' videos would otherwise earn.
Youtube operates a filter called Content ID that allows rightsholders to automatically claim control over user-created videos that contain materials that are the rightsholders' copyrighted works. This system has no checks and balances and virtually no penalties for abuse, and users who complain can attract "copystrikes" -- three of these, and you lose your account and your videos, permanently, with no appeal.
“This isn’t something we usually forecast, but don’t be surprised if you see Iguanas falling from the trees tonight as lows drop into the 30s and 40s. Brrrr!” the National Weather Service's Miami bureau tweeted tonight.
Jan 21 - This isn't something we usually forecast, but don't be surprised if you see Iguanas falling from the trees tonight as lows drop into the 30s and 40s. Brrrr! #flwx#miamipic.twitter.com/rsbzNMgO01
The low temperatures stun the invasive reptiles, but the iguanas won’t necessarily die. That means many will wake up as temperatures rise Wednesday.
Iguanas aren’t dangerous or aggressive to humans, but they damage seawalls, sidewalks, landscape foliage and can dig lengthy tunnels. The males can grow to at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weigh nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms).
Female iguanas can lay nearly 80 eggs a year, and South Florida’s warm climate is perfect for the prehistoric-looking animals. Iguanas are native to Central America, tropical parts of South America and some Caribbean islands.
Cities across the US have been holding gun buyback programs since at least 1974. Most of these events have been organized by local police departments, who typically offer between $50 and $250 in cash or gift cards in exchange for a turned-in firearm with no questions asked.
The Episcopal congregation at the Church of the Holy Cross in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania tried their hands at a similar program on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, largely inspired by a double homicide that occurred in front of the church in November 2019. Church leaders had planned to remain available all throughout the afternoon, offering $100 per gun.
In the first 40 minutes, more than 50 people showed up, and the church ran out of the $5,000 they had budgeted for the event.
Many gun advocate argue that events like these are nothing more than symbolic acts of virtue-signalling that ultimately make no real impact on curbing gun violence. And statistically speaking, they're probably right. But that shouldn't diminish the hope, inspiration, and community building that can be derived from such events.
That's why the Church of the Holy Cross is planning to hold another similar event soon. If you do want to donate to the cause to help buy back more guns, you can send money directly to the church at 7507 Kelly Street in Pittsburgh; unfortunately, they don't take donations online.
It's been some time since I visited AbeBooks.com's wonderful "Weird Book Room," a special curated section within the glorious online marketplace for used books. Sure, some of the books may not be so odd on their own but all together they make for quite a bizarre bibliography. Seen here are just a small sampling of the confounding covers and strange juxtapositions.
Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are linked to cancer and liver damage, were used in a number of products, including Teflon and Scotchgard. PFAS take such a long time to break down in the environment that they are described as "forever chemicals."
David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which just issued a report about widespread PFAS pollution in the United States water supply, told Reuters, “It’s nearly impossible to avoid contaminated drinking water from these chemicals.” From the article:
Of tap water samples taken by EWG from 44 sites in 31 states and Washington D.C., only one location, Meridian, Mississippi, which relies on 700 foot (215 m) deep wells, had no detectable PFAS. Only Seattle and Tuscaloosa, Alabama had levels below 1 part per trillion (PPT), the limit EWG recommends.
In addition, EWG found that on average six to seven PFAS compounds were found at the tested sites, and the effects on health of the mixtures are little understood. “Everyone’s really exposed to a toxic soup of these PFAS chemicals,” Andrews said.
Image: by trozzolo - Own work, Public Domain, Link
One of my FAVORITE urban legends is one I actually believed for a long time… that the official Language of the United States was almost German. It gets better! The legend says that in a Congressional vote, German lost by only one vote, and that’s why we speak English in America. I hate to bust […]
We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, addressing what's at stake and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.
While culture is shared, copyright law has increasingly been used to lock people out of participating in it. Although copyright law is often treated as the exclusive domain of major media and entertainment industries, it actually should be serving all of us. Because, of course, it affects all of us.
Eight years ago, a diverse coalition of Internet users, non-profit groups, and Internet companies defeated the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), bills that would have forced Internet companies to blacklist and block websites accused of hosting copyright-infringing content. These were bills that would have made censorship very easy, all in the name of copyright protection.
SOPA and PIPA have their successors. Between the Copyright Directive in the EU (previously known as Article 13, now as Article 17) and endlessly frustrating iterations of the CASE Act, there’s a push to “fix” copyright law in ways that cause harm for regular people and smaller creators, while shoring up the power of the huge entertainment companies and big tech. And that’s not to mention laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it difficult and expensive to tinker with or repair devices you, in theory, have bought and “own.”
But we know this play, and we know that you will stand against it the way we all did eight years ago.
We continue to fight for a version of copyright that does what it is supposed to. And so, every year, EFF and a number of diverse organizations participate in Copyright Week. Each year, we pick five copyright issues to highlight and advocate a set of principles of copyright law. This year’s issues are:
Monday: Fair Use and Creativity Copyright policy should encourage creativity, not hamper it. Fair use makes it possible for us to comment, criticize, and rework our common culture.
Tuesday: Copyright and Competition Copyright should not be used to control knowledge, creativity, or the ability to tinker with or repair your own devices. Copyright should encourage more people to share, make, or repair things, rather than concentrate that power in only a few players.
Wednesday: Remedies Copyright claims should not raise the specter of huge, unpredictable judgments that discourage important uses of creative work. Copyright should have balanced remedies that also provide a real path for deterring bad-faith claims.
Thursday: The Public Domain The public domain is our cultural commons and a crucial resource for innovation and access to knowledge. Copyright should strive to promote, and not diminish, a robust, accessible public domain.
Friday: Copyright and Democracy Copyright must be set through a participatory, democratic, and transparent process. It should not be decided through back-room deals, secret international agreements, unaccountable bureaucracies, or unilateral attempts to apply national laws extraterritorially.
Every day this week, we’ll be sharing links to blog posts and actions on these topics at https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek and at #CopyrightWeek on Twitter.
As we said last year, and the year before that, if you too stand behind these principles, please join us by supporting them, sharing them, and telling your lawmakers you want to see copyright law reflect them.
Privacy activst Murray Hunter's picture book Boris the Babybot tells the story of Boris, a robot whose job it is track all the babies and send their likenesses and preferences back to the factory so that its owners can make money by deciding who's a good baby and who's a bad baby.
By and large, this is an easy task: Boris scans the babies' smiles and noses and eyes, but records whether they like peas or puppies. But some babies can't be scanned: they're in the bath, hidden by bubbles; or they're covered in so much food their faces can't be captured, or they're just having too much fun wearing a box on their heads, meaning Boris can't get a look at their faces.
When Boris is fired from his factory job, he is initially distraught, but then he formulates a better plan: rather than scanning those babies, he joins them -- getting bubbles all over himself, smearing himself with food, and putting a box on his head.
Helen Sharman was the first British astronaut and in 1991 became the first woman to visit the Soviet Mir space station. In an interview published in The Guardian yesterday, she made a comment about extraterrestrials, the latter part of which is an eyebrow raiser:
"Aliens exist, there’s no two ways about it. There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life. Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them."
These are just a small sample of Michael Schlegel's glorious photographs of trees in Fanal, the laurisilva forest of Madeira, Portugal. The otherworldly images reassure me with their quiet calm.
Jukin Media, one of the various content aggregators that buy the rights to viral video clips, has managed existing and unlicensed use of such clips by monetizing them through YouTube's contentID system. But Jukin has now reportedly threatened to use copyright strikes to shut down a channel while privately demanding money from its operator. It's extortion, says the target, hit with a $6000 "bill".
They email us with a bill and they charge us fifteen hundred dollars per clip that was in our videos. And so today we got hit with a huge bill of six thousand dollars. I think it's because in the past we've we've paid them this amount of money, so they just they're like hey this guy's willing to pay this money, let's keep you know charging him for it, he'll just pay us. So we've paid about two thousand dollars in total and now we have another six thousand dollars to pay and if you don't pay then basically they'll start striking your channel.
To publish on YouTube, you agree to let YouTube define and enforce a private regime far more expansive than copyright law provides, with no effective provisions for fair use beyond a lengthy and hostile process likely to end with your channel shut down. YouTube claims not to arbitrate copyright, but no-one is fooled: it immediately enforces claims on the basis of a promiscuous algorithmic matching system designed from the ground up to serve claimants, while burdening targets with legal process and its own broken, opaque policy-enforcement bureacracy.
If you include anything that already exists, even a moment of footage or audio, even so much as whistling a tune, you're vulnerable to YouTube's enforcement regime and the corporate parasites exploiting it.
How often have you seen news stories and videos poking fun at people who have trouble locating where a certain country is on a world map? The latest iteration of this kind of lazy journalism comes from Morning Consult: Can You Locate Iran? Few Voters Can. "The polling experiment sheds light on voters’ geographical unfamiliarity with foreign countries, even those with which the United States has been engaged in sustained conflict," says the article.
If Morning Consult wanted to shed some useful light, it could focus less on the geographic location of Iran and more on why the US and Iran have been at odds ever since the CIA and Britain's MI6 overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 and installed a murderous and corrupt tyrant who was happy to let western petroleum concerns exploit Iran's natural resources in exchange for a dictatorship. This segment from a 2018 episode of The Daily Show has a good recap:
Our living spaces and home environments greatly impact our daily lives. I find that for those of us living spirit-based or magical lives, the above statement bears special importance. Living consciously includes infusing the spiritual with the mundane as a reminder that we are not just humans, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Our homes are perfect spaces to incorporate magic. Having a home in and of itself is a blessing, proof of the Universe’s abundance. No matter how humble or small our abodes may be, we can make them sacred. Even if you rent a room in a house, that space where you cook your meals, clean your body, and lay your head is not just a dwelling for your body but for your soul as well.
Fast-paced and distracted living make it hard to remember that our homes can be sacred spaces that provide sanctuary in addition to actual roofs over our heads. Many people (at least here in the USA) over-stuff their homes. Americans love our stuff! We fill every nook and cranny with action figures, tchotchkes, electronics and reading material. Cleaning preferences are highly personal and many people look upon cleaning as a burden. How can we reconcile these issues?
Witchy folks in particular have a reputation for being quite clutter-y. Some spiritual traditions actually require you to have certain objects in order to practice. I encounter the dilemma of loving to collect things and being stressed out by too much visual clutter. A fine balance must be struck in my home.
However, I consider it a fun challenge to use objects that infuse a sense of magic while also being functional or as unassuming as possible. These are fine details that one only notices upon a second look. Upon taking a second or closer look, these objects provide delight and are a reminder of my spiritual practice and experience.
Regarding cleaning, I try to view it as an act of meditation and stewardship of the home that Great Spirit (God, Goddess, the Universe, etc.) gave me. I also see cleaning as something that not only clears away physical dirt, but also old energies. I’ll add Florida Water cologne to my mop water solution. This not only cleans the dirt from my floors but the properties of the cologne lift the vibration in my home. The positive shift is easily felt by anyone who is in the home and it smells wonderful!
Every aspect of our living spaces can potentially bring us peace and lift our spirits. Here are some tips you may want to implement in your life and home keeping.
1. Determine what you like to look at. This is a plain way of asking what your aesthetic is. I believe that what we see as we enter and walk around our living spaces is crucial. Do your eyes delight at seeing shelves lined with books? Do you love seeing clusters of sparkly crystals everywhere? Perhaps clean, open spaces make you feel best.
2. Once you know what you like best, clean and decorate accordingly. I make my bed every morning, but not because I want to be a good, organized person. I discovered it is extremely important to me to see a clean, nicely made bed every single time I enter my bedroom. That is why I make my bed – I do it because I know seeing it brings me joy and relieves anxiety. I prefer less clutter but dislike a sterile look. Therefore, my décor is sparse but each item is what I consider to be the most beautiful. Only decorate with what you actually like to look at!
3. View cleaning your home as an act of gratitude and blessing. This mindset shift helped me so much! Our most dreaded cleaning tasks seem much less odious if we view them as acts of gratitude. I dislike washing dishes. But I’m truly grateful to have dishes. My dishes get dirty because I ate food off of them. That means I have food. I’m so fortunate to have food and nice dishes off of which to eat that food. I remind myself this when I’m muttering to myself at the sink! Cleaning can be seen as blessing. Your home and the items in it bless you with their beauty and functionality. You can bless them back by honoring them, enjoying them, and keeping them clean.
4. Incorporate Spirit wherever and however you can. You’ll see in the pictures in this blog that I have little touches of magic all over my home. I cannot recommend this enough. Place spiritual items where you can see and enjoy them. Clear off the clutter and place your favorite holy book or a statue of deity on your nightstand. Place fresh or even fake flowers on your dining table as a reminder of the beauty of Mother Nature. Setting intentions and binding them to objects is another simple act. For example, if you need to work on your communication skills, set the intention that when you notice the blue pillows on your couch, it will be a reminder to focus for a moment on your throat chakra. A selenite log on the entryway table looks gorgeous and cleans the energy of anyone who comes through the front door. The possibilities are endless. Have fun with this!
Update: On February 7, 2020, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Great Minds’ petition for rehearing (opinion (PDF)). As a result, the decision (PDF) of the panel in favor of CC’s interpretation of the licenses remains final.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reaffirmed Creative Commons’ interpretation of activities that are permissible under the NonCommercial (NC) licenses, which allow bona fide noncommercial reusers to hire out the making of copies of NC-licensed content, even to profit-making businesses such as Office Depot and FedEx Office. Below is an excerpt from the decision:
“Under the License, a non-commercial licensee may hire a third-party contractor including those working for commercial gain, to help implement the License at the direction of the licensee and in furtherance of the licensee’s own licensed rights. The License extends to all employees of the schools and school districts and shelters Office Depot’s commercial copying of Eureka Math on their behalf.”
This is the second time a federal appellate court in the United States has adopted CC’s interpretation of NC. The first decision was published by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit last year (summarized here) and involved copying by FedEx Office at the behest of school districts admittedly using the works for noncommercial purposes.
CC’s position has been clear in both of these cases: so long as commercial actors are not acting independently for their own commercial gain but solely on behalf of noncommercial actors, they are protected by the license granted to the noncommercial actors.
After all, entities must act through employees, contractors, and agents as a necessity. To require every teacher, employee (including part-time student employees), and third-party contractor making copies of NC licensed works to forego payment for their services would make it impossible for those types of licensees to use the works and facilitate sharing for noncommercial purposes.
This is a huge win for educators, school districts and, most importantly, students.
All students deserve access to effective open education resources (OER) and meaningful, inclusive learning opportunities. These NC-licensed OER will help ensure students have access to the effective learning resources they need by allowing schools to seek assistance in making copies when they do not have sufficient resources to do so on their own. Further, because these resources were created using public funds received by the New York State Education Department from the U.S. Department of Education, it’s important that they remain openly licensed.
In October, Creative Commons requested permission to file an amicus and participate in oral argument. Our requests were granted, and our amicus brief (friend of the court brief) with the 9th Circuit became part of the record. Andrew Gass of Latham & Watkins argued the case on behalf of CC (video).
A very special thanks to Latham & Watkins for their hard work and diligence over the course of both the 2nd Circuit and 9th Circuit cases.
The passage -- through MEPs erroneously pushing the wrong buttons! -- of the new EU Copyright Directive last March means that online platforms operating in the EU will have to implement filters that allow anyone, anywhere, to claim anything as their copyright, whereupon the platforms will have to detect any attempt by anyone else to upload those claimed works and block them.
Julia Reda (previously) was an MEP during the passage of the Copyright Directive and she led the charge to reform it to remove its most odious and absurd passage. Thanks to her and other organizers, 200,000 Europeans marched in 50+ cities, and 5,000,000 Europeans signed the largest petition in continental history, opposing the inclusion of the filter mandate in the Directive. Despite this unprecedented public opposition and the near-unanimous verdict of security experts, economists, technologists, and scholars that this would not work, MEPs voted in favor of this proposal (notwithstanding that 10 of them got confused and pressed the wrong buttons, and that the proposal only passed by five votes) (no, really).
Writing for Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, Reda explains why Americans should be alarmed at this turn of events: it will cement the dominance of both large platforms and large entertainment conglomerates, at the expense of upstart competitors, like EU-based online platforms that differentiate themselves through promises of better privacy or better moderation; and like small, independent labels and publishers that offer more equitable deals to creators.
Moreover, the filters will perform in ways that are familiar to anyone who pays attention to Google's Content ID (for Youtube) or the filters used on Facebook and other platforms: they will both overblock legitimate creative or critical media, and underblock material that actually infringes copyright.
The Copyright Directive's filter mandate ignores the rich factual record on how his kind of "expedited removal process" gets abused, pressed into service by sleazy "reputation management" companies, search-engine optimizers, stalkers, bullies, harassers, and anyone else who is smart enough to realize that they can make speech that upsets them disappear simply by making false accusations of copyright infringement.
The final text of the filter mandate is "full of contradictions" -- as Reda points out, the lawmakers responsible for drafting the rule threw in a bunch of sops to fairness and due process, requiring platforms to respect limitations to copyright (like the exceptions for parody and criticism) while still requiring them to remove content at a scale and speed that is inconceivable without automated filters -- which are incapable of distinguishing these legal uses from illegal ones.
The protests against Article 17, mostly driven by young people and organized online, were not in vain. In the final days of the negotiations, the European institutions hastily introduced some safeguards into the text aimed at limiting the negative impact of Article 17 on regular internet users and publishing opinion pieces trying to convince the enraged public that their memes are not in danger. The exceptions for caricature, parody, and quotation, which were previously voluntary for EU countries to implement in their national law, were turned into mandatory users’ rights. Platforms were required to respect these exceptions and limitations and were barred from overwriting them through their terms of service. The ban on general obligations for platforms to monitor all user activity, a mainstay of the old notice-and-takedown regime, was introduced into Article 17. And perhaps most importantly, the requirement was added that the new safe harbor must not lead to the deletion of legal content.
These safeguards, as important as they are, have only led to more confusion among the national lawmakers who are now tasked with implementing the new rules into their national copyright laws by the summer of 2021. How can platforms be forced to filter out infringements without monitoring all user uploads? That is like asking them to find a needle in a haystack without looking at all the hay. How are platforms supposed to ensure that legal content stays online while doing everything they can to delete the legal content? Wrongful copyright claims are commonplace and legal uses are governed by a maze of national copyright exceptions that are often different from one European country to the next.
Where the obligations to protect rightsholders and those to protect users are in clear conflict, national legislators have to make a choice. France has already presented its proposal for national implementation of Article 17, which simply ignores all the mandatory user rights included in the directive. Such a radical approach is likely to violate European law, but until these questions are litigated, other countries may follow France’s example. And across the pond, entertainment companies are invariably going to present this extreme reading of the new rules as a blueprint for the future of US copyright enforcement, “to stay competitive with the EU”. By the time Article 17 is in force and its devastating effects on online freedom become more visible, it may be too late to stop its proliferation.
by Kelley Fanto Deetz, Lecturer in American Studies, University of Virginia
Jermone Bias and Cheyney McKnight portraying enslaved cooks at Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, Virginia, a National Park Service property. National Park Service
Fall is almost gone and winter is coming, as are hundreds of hearth cooking demonstrations at countless historic homes and plantations throughout the nation.
Like an automated clock, historic kitchens become the center stage for historical storytelling at this time of year.
This kind of programming provides a dynamic glimpse into this particular history, and allows the guests to witness hearth cooking, smell the food, feel the heat of the fire and engage in conversations with a living history interpreter. As a scholar committed to public education about this subject, I believe such demonstrations can be evocative and inspire a contemplative visitor experience.
But out of the dozens of programs I have participated in, with costumed historical interpreters, only three have staffed the kitchen with someone depicting an African American cook. The rest of the cooks have all been white.
These historic kitchens have power as a stage for historical interpretation and learning, and it is lost when those telling the first-person stories are not representative of those who once cooked there.
Southern plantations relied on the forced labor of enslaved African and African American cooks, who worked around the clock for the pleasure of the plantation elite. Plantation kitchens were not romantic spaces where the white mistress of the house would bake pies and sip tea while reading The Virginia Housewife.
By the late 17th century, southern plantations moved away from their reliance on white indentured servants, whose terms lasted up to seven years, and replaced them with enslaved Africans, who were held for life. By the early 18th century, the production of plantation fare was mostly in the hands of enslaved Africans and African Americans.
As revealed in diaries, journals, slave narratives and cultural landscape studies, these kitchens were landscapes of power, control, pain, sorrow, fear – and only rarely joy. These spaces hold the stories of the thousands of enslaved cooks who were bound to the fire, cooking what became southern cuisine.
Reflecting actual history
The vast majority of Americans get their history not from books, but from media and tourism. The sharp decline in Americans’ historical knowledge has been building for years and has frightened many historians, perhaps for the reason that the 19th-century philosopher George Santayana gave, that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We are living in history’s legacy. History informs the present.
Historic sites have a significant responsibility to uphold integrity and honesty and adhere to a code of ethics. The National Council on Public History’s code of ethics includes these directives: “Public historians should carry out historical research and present historical evidence with integrity. Public historians should strive to be culturally inclusive in the practice of history and in the presentation of history…research-based decisions and actions may have long-term consequences.”
Two women giving a cooking demonstration in 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s Magnolia Mound Plantation.
Screenshot, The Advocate
Thousands of enslaved cooks were worked to death. They spent their lives cooking for the big house and rarely receiving credit, while the white mistress of the house claimed their fame.
This legacy resonates in plantation museums, when foodways presentations are given in the kitchen or dining room. But elite white plantation mistresses did not cook in these early American kitchens, nor did they create the food that gave way to southern hospitality and American cuisine.
Recipes like gumbo, shrimp and grits, jambalaya, hoppin’ John, okra stew and fried fish were favorites among the slave-holding elite. These dishes, African in origin, became American cuisine because of the forced labor of enslaved Africans and African Americans. These were their recipes.
Museums are tasked to represent history in the most honest way possible, through lectures, programming, historical interpretation, reenactments and exhibits. But when it comes to slavery, this line is often blurred. Some museums are in the business of historical fantasy, and Nicole A. Moore, an African American interpreter and hearth cook, stated in a personal interview that it is time for museums to be responsible.
“That lack of recognition is all too common and whether sites want to acknowledge it or not… they won’t make you uncomfortable by sharing the truth, so please bring your fantasies and ideas about this time period, and they’ll keep the dream alive.”
This dream is that slavery wasn’t that bad, that the enslaved community was happy cooking for the big house, and was at most an assistant. This fantasy gives full culinary authorship to the white plantation mistresses.
Correcting the stories
Many visitors want confirmation of their limited historical perspectives, often gained from grade-school textbooks, most of which distort the reality of history. Most visit historical sites to connect with the past and to find a sense of pride in our collective history.
But the reality of the past can interrupt premeditated concepts of history. Some museums, for example, are making a conscious effort to properly represent these historic kitchens and those who cooked in them. Among them is Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which has led this cause for decades by using the stories of enslaved chef James Hemings and others, through interactive African American-led programming .
Williams was the first African American interpreter to cook in the plantation museum’s kitchen, marking a historic moment for the site and its public narrative.
Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee and the site where I work, has also hired Williams for its Christmastide program in December, where he will cook an 18th-century meal in the historic 1738 kitchen and teach visitors about plantation kitchen labor, enslavement and the birth of American cuisine.
These sorts of programs attempt to correct the stories told at these sites, to better represent history and place.
Plantation museums are having an identity crisis. Some visitors are complaining about having to learn about slavery. Simultaneously, historic plantations are losing support from wedding venue sponsors who criticize the promotion of these sites as romantic and ahistorical.
The latest critiques highlight the divisions in public opinion about the functions of such sites. The questions remain, what role do these museums have in telling our nation’s history, and at what point does representation matter?
Alex from Copy Me (previously) writes, "Copying is one of the most essential steps to creativity. And if we don’t understand how it works, copyright can easily become detrimental to the very creativity we want to protect. Copy-Me's got a new video about how even the great geniuses copied others and how this practice goes waaaay back to the most famous artists and inventions. With loads of examples and quotes from experts.
We tried to reach the emotion behind the beliefs we all carry with us because facts alone don’t change anyone’s mind, especially when those beliefs are so woven into every aspect of our society. It’s called, appropriately, 'Geniuses Steal', the 3rd part in a miniseries about how minds really work and how the romantic notions about creation hinder our own ability to create.
We know geniuses are not real and minds don’t have Eureka moments. But we still cling to the idea of an original artist. That romantic notion of someone who creates something out of nothing, with their mind alone.
But the truth is every single piece of art and technology ever created is a remix. Shakespeare copied. Mozart copied. Picasso copied. Morse copied. Tarkovsky copied too. They’re all based in the work of others before them. The obsession with originality is quite a new phenomenon in the history of our species. And maybe it’s time to reconsider how art and inventions come about before our laws destroy the very creativity we want to protect.
Art and inventions are extraordinary, there is no doubt about that. But the steps taken are quite ordinary. We don’t need magical out-of-this world explanations when the answers are right in front of us. And it’s a lot easier to get started on something when you don’t expect your ideas to come from another world, isn’t it?
Gasparilla is a Tampa tradition. It’s rowdy, it’s loud, it’s jubilant and sometimes a little messy. While we love rocking an eye patch and a pirate hat, sometimes the aftermath of Gasparilla is worrying.
How much trash is collected after Gasparilla? More than 35 tons in 2019, according to City Officials — and they were able to recycle about 2.5 tons of what was collected. Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful Volunteers collected approximately 540 pounds of of additional materials, which includes beads.
Findings out of USF St. Pete and Eckerd College indicate there are nearly 4 billion micro plastics in Tampa Bay. That means 1 particle per liter of water.
Divers with the Florida Aquarium pulled more than 200 pounds of beads out of Tampa Bay following 2019’s Gasparilla celebration. To encourage folks to not toss their beads, Florida Aquarium offered discounted admission if you brought your beads with you.
While we love to celebrate, we also love this beautiful city and we want to keep it that way. Be jubilant, but be mindful.
On December 12, Mayor Jane Castor officially launched the #BeadFreeBay campaign, an anti-littering awareness campaign to remind the public that throwing beads and other litter in the wateris prohibited. Beads and other non-biodegradable items are incredibly harmful to the environment and they pose serious threats to marine wildlife.
The goal of the Bead-Free Bay campaign is to minimize the environmental impact of Tampa’s traditions and events on thewaterways and beyond.
“Environmental sustainability is a core tenant of my administration’s focus,” said City of Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. “And while we all love a good parade, the beads thrown during the parade have no place harming our delicate ecosystem. Together, we will transform Tampa’s tomorrow by keeping our marine wildlife safe and our environment clean by keeping beads out of the water this and every event season moving forward.”
The City of Tampa has already started taking steps to minimize the ecological impact of Gasparilla. Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla worked with the Coast Guard to issue a litter law notice to all mariners. The City is also rolling out a branded campaign with signs at all city docks, and will establish designated “no-throw zones” during parades to prevent beads from accidentally being tossed in the water.
Registration is free—and open now! Please join us for an evening of celebrating our shared culture and heritage. Be on the lookout for more information coming soon.
January 30, 2020 | 5:30-8:30pm
American University Washington College of Law, Grossman Hall
4300 Nebraska Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20016
Kentucky's Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative came out of a local electrification co-op set up during the New Deal, and in 1949 it was expanded into a telephone co-op with more federal infrastructure money. Today, the PRTC has used Obama FCC funding to expand into public broadband delivery, wiring up all of Jackson and Owsley Counties, some of the poorest places in America, using a mule called "Old Bub" to haul fiber through inaccessible mountain passes and other extremely isolated places.
Fiber buildout has created an economic miracle for the people served by the PRTC; working with the nonprofit Teleworks USA (which trains people for remote work, especially tech support and customer service), the coop has created high-paying, sustainable jobs in the counties, taking local unemployment from 12-16% to below 5.5%. People work doing customer service and tech support for "Hilton Hotels, Cabela’s, U-Haul, Harry & David, and Apple," and some people get paid to tutor wealthy Chinese children in conversational English ("We joke that there are going to be all these kids in China with Southern accents").
The fiber buildout cost $50k/mile, a price-tag that reflects the coop's commitment to serving every person in its region, no matter how remote. The result wasn't just hundreds of good jobs paying much higher than the counties' median wage, but also a closure of the regional "homework gap."
The region's blazing fast broadband has made it a desirable place for siting all kinds of businesses, bringing in both call-centers and a helicopter rotor factory. Cheap land and a trained workforce, combined with amazing internet have turned the county around.
The grant money and loans for the broadband service came in large part from Obama's Connect America Fund, which Trump FCC chairman Ajit Pai renamed the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, riddling it with loopholes that allow the big cable and telcoms companies to reap massive federal subsidies by connected as few as one household in the regions targeted by the plan.
The region is still saddled with the long-term effects of poverty, especially opioid-related effects, thanks to aggressive targeting by opioid manufacturers like the Sackler family's Purdue Pharma. In Owsley county, the school superintendent says more than a third of his students are not being raised by their parents, who are either "in jail, addicted or dead." Teleworks has been able to alleviate some of this, helping those incarcerated over opioids get work with call-centers that do not require background checks.
Sue Halpern's longread for the New Yorker is the kind of Appalachian coverage that I'd love to see more of: portraits of good people, hard done by, figuring it out through a combination of solidarity and smart federal spending targeting improved infrastructure, rather than subsidizing for-profit monopolies to do work we know they'll skimp on, or cheat their way out of altogether.
Remember that preventing government provision of broadband is priority #1 for the Republican Party, from Red State legislatures that have banned cities from creating fiber networks to Trump's FCC, which has blocked cities and states from creating broadband solutions to the nation's deplorable, failing, overpriced network infrastructure, a creature of monopolists who would rather spend billions on stock buybacks than fiber.
Meanwhile, in April, the Trump Administration, led by the F.C.C.’s chair, Ajit Pai, announced its own broadband initiative, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which, as critics have pointed out, is essentially a renaming and repurposing of an Obama-era program called the Connect America Fund. That program uses a portion of the Universal Service Fund, a pool of money collected from customers by their service providers and passed along to the F.C.C., to subsidize, among other things, phone and broadband service in places where it is not otherwise economical. Some companies receive more money back from the U.S.F. than they contribute. Others pay in more than they receive. P.R.T.C., for example, gets a U.S.F. subsidy every month that enables the coöperative to avoid passing along the real—and prohibitive—cost of service to its members, which Gabbard estimates to be two or three times what P.R.T.C. actually charges.
The big telecom companies also receive U.S.F. money, often taking advantage of a loophole in the law that lets them claim to be operating in an underserved area as long as they are providing service to a single customer in a rural census block. These “false positives,” Bloomfield told members of the House of Representatives in September, too often result in areas without service appearing on maps as if they were covered. (As a case in point, many of the residents of Lee County, Kentucky, which is adjacent to Jackson and Owsley Counties, while “served” by A.T. & T., are still only offered dial-up Internet.) The solution, Bloomfield told me, is better mapping. “It’s the No. 1 thing,” she said. “We really need to get carriers to really be honest about what areas they’re serving, what they’re not serving, and what the speeds are.” Better maps will enable U.S.F. money to be distributed more equitably, freeing up funds for coöperatives, municipalities, and smaller, regional companies to build the necessary infrastructure to deliver broadband to otherwise overlooked communities.
The financial health of colleges and universities is much in the news these days. An enrollment cliff – a drop-off in traditionally aged college students – will hit in the next decade and may threaten more small, regional and marginally resourced public and private colleges and universities. A recent article in Forbes offered some sound advice recently: “If you are worried or even curious about the financial health of a college, ask them. It’s a good, reasonable question for any student, parent or community leader to ask.” But what are the right questions to ask? As long-time university administrators with experience in both the public and private college sectors, we suggest beginning with these five questions:
1. What physical shape is the school in?
Institutions with cash flow problems often put off millions of dollars of maintenance – and it shows. As you tour a campus, you will probably get a feel within the first few minutes of what the campus is like. Is it clean and neat? Is there evidence of disrepair? Do the buildings appear well cared for and technologically up-to-date? All these things shine light on whether an institution has the resources needed to keep its facilities in good operating order. The more you see that concerns you, the more you should wonder if a school has enough money to provide a quality educational experience.
2. How big is the endowment?
When it comes to a college or university’s endowment, size matters. An endowment is a permanent fund that universities and their foundations use to collect and invest funds given by philanthropic donors. Most schools use interest and dividends earned from the funds in their endowment to pay for various things, such as student aid programs and financial support for study abroad and internships.
You can find out what the institution’s endowment is through an online search. Generally speaking, the larger the endowment, the better able an institution is to finance its operations and the more stable it is for the long run. Only 106 institutions have endowments of more than US$1 billion. But the size of endowment isn’t the only thing to consider.
To preserve the value of the endowment spending for both current and future students, historically, colleges were advised to spend only about 5% of their endowments each year. Institutions that spend above that amount over a longer period of time can potentially erode the value of their endowments, unless they attract more donations or gain other sources of revenue.
For that reason, institutions that spend more than 5% assume larger risks for the future market value of the endowment.
An endowment spending rate of more than 5% may be also a sign of budget stress and another potential red flag. There is no single place that you can go to find out the spending rate of the endowment. Some institutions, such as Elon, where we both work, and Yale, publish this information on their websites. Many do not.
Often, the only way to find out is to ask. You might start by asking the director of admissions or chief financial officer.
3. What is the tuition discount rate?
At private colleges, you should ask, “What is the school’s tuition discount rate?” These discounts are actually tuition dollars that families or students pay that are redistributed – for very good reasons – to support students with high financial need or to attract students with special talents. Learning environments that are diverse and vibrant benefit all students. This tuition money gets redistributed in the form of need-based financial awards, merit financial awards and athletic financial awards.
According to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, the average tuition discount rate for incoming freshmen in 2018-19 was 52.2%. When an institution is using 52% of every dollar they take in for discounting, that leaves only 48% for everything else, such as faculty and staff salaries, student support services, facilities and utilities. A tuition discount rate higher than the average rate can be a sign of trouble.
If you have never understood why the sticker price of college is not what you end up paying, a big part of that answer for private colleges is the tuition discount rate.
4. Check databases
Check out federal databases to get key measures about a school’s performance. The College Scorecard, for instance, is a free U.S. Department of Education site that provides information on a variety of measures, including the size of the student body, cost, graduation rates and how much students are expected to earn after they graduate.
The education department also publishes a Financial Responsibility Composite Score for each institution in the U.S. that receives federal aid. This score rates each school’s ability to meet the standards of financial responsibility necessary to participate in federal financial aid programs. The range of scores is a high of 3 to a low of -1. While this simple score might not tell the complete story of a school, it is a key indicator of whether a school is in good financial health.
5. Search online
Get online and broadly research institutions you are considering. Many state university systems are considering mergers because of declining enrollment. Your research will also help you uncover potential trouble spots: Is the school’s accreditation threatened? Has enrollment been on the decline? Has there been frequent turnover in leadership? None of these things bodes well for a college or university in the future.
There are more than 4,500 colleges and universities in the U.S. Most of them can make a major difference in a student’s life. But some are in danger of closing and – in the most egregious cases – are revolving doors of failure. Before you invest your money by paying your own costs or footing the bill for a loved one to attend a particular college, understand that the responsibility for doing research and asking questions is on you.
Leo M. Lambert is on the Board of Directors of the Association of Governing Boards, the Washington Center, and the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.
Gerald Whittington is affiliated with Kaludis Consulting, as a Senior Consultant.
We recently tested 467 makeup products, donated by people in the UK, for bacterial and fungal contamination and found that 90% contained potentially deadly germs. These products, which included lipstick and mascara, could pose a significant health threat.
We found E coli and Staphylococci in used eyeliner and mascara. These bacteria can cause irritation and conjunctivitis (pink eye). Although the symptoms of conjunctivitis tend to be mild – itchy, watery eyes – in extreme cases it can lead to sight loss. And the germs causing conjunctivitis can spread to other parts of the body, which can trigger a more serious secondary infection.
The lipsticks and lip gloss in our sample contained Staphylococci and various bacteria associated with faecal matter. These bacteria could cause redness, swelling and inflammation of the lips, which can be treated with antibiotics or antibacterial creams. But if the germs spread to the blood or deeper tissues of the body, the infection can become life threatening.
Also, some strains of Staphylococci, such as Staphylococcus aureus, have become more resistant to antibiotics. S aureus is fairly contagious and can cause skin infections, including impetigo.
The makeup products we examined (lipstick, lip gloss, eyeliners, mascaras and beauty blenders) had between 100 and 1,000 individual bacteria, except for beauty blenders which had an average of a million bacteria. As few as 100 cells of some bacteria can cause infection.
Previous studies have investigated microbial contamination in makeup in other countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Italy,. They have reported high levels of disease-causing bacteria, including E coli, Salmonella, Klebsiella and Citrobacter, but little research has been conducted in the UK.
Our research is the first to look at beauty blenders – a popular foundation blending and contouring sponge. (Over 6.5m beauty blenders have been sold worldwide.)
We found that these products are particularly susceptible to contamination as they are often left damp after use, which creates an ideal breeding ground for harmful bacteria. Most (93%) of the beauty blenders we tested had never been cleaned, despite two-thirds (64%) of those we surveyed admitting that they’d dropped them on the floor.
It’s actually easy to avoid germs from cosmetics. Beauty blenders can be cleaned with warm, soapy water. For lipstick, simply turn the lipstick tube up slightly and wipe off the top layer of lipstick with a tissue, then pour a small amount of rubbing alcohol and dip the exposed lipstick into the alcohol for 30 seconds. Remove it and gently dab the alcohol off and allow it to dry. This won’t affect the lipstick but will keep it clean.
Mascara pots can harbour bacteria, but they can’t be cleaned, so it’s best to replace your mascara monthly or use disposable wands.
Check expiry dates
All cosmetics are made under strict conditions to control the growth and accumulation of microbes during use. Preservatives are used to stop bacteria from growing, but they have a finite shelf life. All cosmetics have expiry dates, which are calculated based on the length of time the preservatives in the product are able to control contamination.
If the expiry date is printed on the packaging, it is displayed in the form of a symbol resembling an opened pot with either 3M, 6M, 12M, 18M, 24M, or 36M printed in the middle, corresponding to the number of months the product can be used. Most products have an expiry date of three to 12 months, providing the user has not had an infection, such as conjunctivitis. However, our latest study shows that people are using products beyond the expiry dates and allowing microbial contamination to build up.
To avoid contamination, make sure you discard makeup that has passed the expiry period, don’t apply makeup if you have an infection or broken skin, never share cosmetics with friends, and definitely avoid using makeup samples in stores.
Amreen Bashir 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.
by Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland
SLS is a known irritant to human skin. But if it's only in contact with your skin for a short time, it's probably OK. from www.shutterstock.com
If you’ve ever Googled the causes of a skin complaint or damaged hair, chances are someone on the internet has pointed the finger at SLS, or sodium lauryl (or laureth) sulfate, a common ingredient in beauty products, washes, toothpastes and even cleaning products.
So what does this ingredient do, why is it in everything, and what does the evidence say about how safe it is?
Why SLS?
When we use a wash or beauty product on our skin, it’s probably a liquid made of a water phase and an oily phase. As we know, oil and water don’t mix, so something is required to keep the ingredients together.
That something is called a surfactant. A surfactant allows the oil and water molecules to bind together – it’s what’s found in soaps and detergents so we can wash our oily faces or dishes with water and get the grime to disappear.
Sodium lauryl sulfate is a surfactant, and its efficacy, low cost, abundance and simplicity mean it’s used in a variety of cosmetic, dermatological and consumer products.
Your toothpaste, shampoo and body wash probably all contain SLS.
from www.shutterstock.com
Our skin’s outermost layer is specially designed to keep harmful stuff out, and this is where a surfactant can cause problems. Using a chemical that weakens this defence mechanism can potentially cause our skin harm.
And some surfactants are more irritating to our skin than others. For something to be harmful, irritant or allergenic, it has to fulfil two criteria.
It has to have been found in studies to irritate human skin, and it has to have the ability to penetrate the skin. SLS ticks both of these boxes.
Researchers from Germany tested 1,600 patients for SLS irritancy and found 42% of the patients tested had an irritant reaction.
Another study, on seven volunteers over a three and a half month period, found regular contact caused irritation, and the irritation subsided once the skin was no longer exposed to SLS.
Another study found the warmer the water used with SLS, the more irritating it will be.
In fact, SLS is so known to cause irritation, it’s used as a positive control in dermatological testing. That is, new products being tested to see how irritating they might be to human skin are compared to SLS - something we know definitely to be irritating.
If a person is sensitive to SLS, they might find the area that has been in contact is red, dry, scaly, itchy or sore.
It’s also important to note there’s no scientific evidence SLS causes cancer, despite what you may read on the internet.
If you suspect you are sensitive to SLS, stop using the product and consult your GP or pharmacist.
from www.shutterstock.com
So why is it allowed?
So if it’s known to be irritating to human skin, why don’t the regulatory authorities ban its use?
For SLS to be considered dangerous, it would have to be in contact with the skin for a long period of time. Generally, with consumer products such as washes that contain SLS, it’s assumed they won’t be on the skin for very long, meaning the chance of your skin being affected is pretty low. So authorities don’t ban its use, but instead cap the maximum percentage at which it can be used in products.
This cap varies based on how long the product is likely to be in contact with the skin. So products that will be on the skin for a prolonged time can contain no more than 0.05-2.5% SLS in most countries.
All consumer and cosmetic product manufacturers are required to conduct thorough testing and include any adverse findings in the form of warnings on their labels. So on products containing SLS, you should see something like “if this product causes any skin redness or irritation, discontinue use and consult a medical practitioner”.
People with a history of sensitive skin, hyperirritable skin and patients suffering from skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis (eczema), rosacea and psoriasis are best to avoid products containing SLS.
There are many safer alternatives available (look for fatty alcohol ethoxylate, alkyl phenol ethoxylate or fatty acid alkoxylate on the label). If you think it might be SLS causing a skin irritation, stop the use of the product and ask your pharmacist or GP for advice. Skin care products also have hotline numbers on the packaging that can be contacted to report adverse effects.
Yousuf Mohammed receives funding from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration through grants 01FD005226,U01FD006946 and U01FD006700. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official policies of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. .
Reforestation has enormous potential as a cheap and natural way of sucking heat-absorbing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and restoring the degraded natural world, while supporting local livelihoods at the same time. But there is more than one way to plant a tree – and some of the most widely used techniques aren’t up to scratch. Here’s how to do it the right way.
The most popular approach to reforesting – adopted for example by 59 countries signed up to the Bonn Challenge, a global effort to reforest 350 million hectares by 2030 – is called Forest Landscape Restoration. This approach includes a range of different techniques, including regeneration of natural forests, plantations of exotic or native species for harvest, and agroforestry, where trees are grown around farmland.
However, these activities have very different consequences for the amount of carbon they store in the long term. Like fine wines, the carbon-storing potential of forests grows as they age. But almost half of pledged reforestation under the Bonn Challenge is for commercial plantations, which are regularly harvested – and which cycle back nearly all of the carbon it has stored back into the atmosphere every 10-20 years.
This means that on balance, these plantations store little if any carbon. Worse, activities such as logging can disturb soils, releasing additional carbon which potentially tips the scales from carbon sink to carbon source.
To meet the world’s climate targets, we need a greater focus on restoring natural forests. If protected from fire and other disturbances, the trees that return will keep storing more carbon until they match the stores of a mature, old-growth forest in around 70 years – and remain a long-term carbon sink. Natural regeneration is particularly effective in humid tropical areas, where trees grow faster than in northern latitudes.
There is a broader issue with all reforestation approaches, however. Forest landscapes must be resilient to future stresses brought by climate change, such as increasing temperatures, droughts, floods and other weather extremes – or else their benefits will be lost. This is especially important in the densely forested tropics, where climate impacts are predicted to be harshest.
There are a number of ways that we can ensure new forests are resilient to these impacts. First, having a diversity of species with a wide variety of traits in the forest landscape reduces the risk that a single event will wipe out large parts of the ecosystem. This is because tree species have different resistances and vulnerabilities.
For example, pests and diseases are likely to migrate as the climate changes. In a single-species plantation, that could wipe out the whole forest. But with many different species in the area, parts of the forest will be resilient.
We should also plant and introduce species that are adapted to the future climatic conditions projected for the area. For example, if climate models project a drier climate with increased droughts, then including native species with tolerance to drought would increase the chances of that forest staying resilient, and therefore maintaining its carbon store for longer.
Finally, it is important to accept that some trees, as well as animals and plants within the forest ecosystem, may not be able to cope with future climatic conditions in the areas they currently inhabit. They need to be able to migrate to areas with more favourable conditions, and for this to be possible, areas of forest within the landscape must remain connected. The best way of doing this is by planting forest corridors that connect fragmented forests across a vast area.
Supporting wildlife
Forests aren’t just carbon stores. How we reforest is also crucial to the health of the smaller flora and fauna that support a healthy planet.
The most appropriate way to support wildlife depends on the land’s history and natural tendencies – and sometimes this means not reforesting at all. For example, replacing native grassland and shrubland with forest plantations may actually reduce the diversity of wildlife in an area, as grassland species would be lost.
On deforested and former agricultural lands, regeneration of native forests will increase biodiversity. However, plantations of a single species of tree for harvest are unlikely to support thriving wildlife as well as natural forest would. This is particularly the case when the planted species is not native, as local wildlife will not be adapted to this new environment and the non-native tree may outcompete or threaten native trees.
One of the key principles of the Forest Landscape Restoration approach is that projects should enhance human as well as environmental wellbeing. Human livelihoods are interlinked with forest landscapes and should not be excluded from their restoration but supported, so that the intertwined problems of climate change, biodiversity loss and poverty can all be tackled together.
Working with local communities to plan, plant, protect, and take ownership of forest landscapes ensures that they will be maintained and protected long into the future. To this end, allowing a diversity of approaches – including some agricultural activities that meet the needs of local people – is key to delivering sustainable social and environmental change.
When restored well, forest landscapes can even help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, especially in tropical regions. For example, forests add moisture to the atmosphere and limit local temperature rise by absorbing some of the Sun’s radiation.
Reforesting our landscapes has great potential to improve the health of the planet and its inhabitants. If we plant trees with resilience to climate change, supporting wildlife, and promoting local human wellbeing in mind, reforestation can play a big part in tackling the climate and ecological crises, and supporting vulnerable communities across the world.
Heather Plumpton has previously received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the British Ecological Society (BES), Past Global Changes (PAGES) and the UK Department for International Development (DfID).
by David Yeates, Director of the Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO
Scientists need your help to protect Australia's insects and track their numbers. Joe Castro/AAP
Are you planning a big garden clean-up this summer, or stocking up on fly spray to keep bugs at bay? Before you do, it’s worth considering the damage you might cause to the insects we share the planet with.
Australia’s insect populations are under pressure. The problem is better known in the Northern Hemisphere, where over the past few years scientific studies have reported alarming declines in insect numbers.
We don’t yet have a true understanding of what is happening in Australia. This week, scientists gathered in Brisbane at the Australian Entomological Society conference to discuss the extent of the problem. Evidence suggests several species and populations are under threat.
Some might see insects as small and insignificant, but they perform functions crucial to sustaining life on Earth. There are several simple steps you can take to address insect decline in your area, or even help scientists keep tabs on the problem.
A gold wasp. Australian insect declines have not been well documented.
Oliver Niehuis/Australian Science Media Centre
We need to know more
In Australia, we know iconic species such as the bogong moth, green carpenter bee and Key’s matchstick grasshopper are in decline. There is documented evidence for the extinction of two Australian insect species, but this is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
A research review published this year suggested more than 40% of insect species globally are threatened with extinction over the next few decades. However, this estimate was based on limited studies of a few iconic insect groups in western Europe and the US.
Such findings should be taken with caution. We do not have enough evidence to extrapolate to the whole planet.
Despite this, factors affecting insect populations overseas – such as habitat loss, climate change and insecticide use – most likely also apply in Australia. Bushfires and drought on this continent can also affect insect populations.
There are no published studies documenting insect decline in Australia, but anecdotal reports from entomologists suggest lower than average populations across a number of species. However, very few of our estimated 250,000 insect species are being formally monitored.
A Pelecorhynchid fly. Studies suggest insect populations are declining, but data in Australia is scarce.
CSIRO Entomology
Why you should care
Insects pollinate plants, dispose of waste and control pests, among other functions. The planet would cease to support life without the services insects provide.
If insect populations are in decline, so are the populations of larger animals such as birds and lizards that feed on them.
In NSW, bogong moths are a staple food for mountain pygmy possums. A collapse in the moth population would lead to possums going hungry, which affects their breeding success.
Australia’s threatened species strategy prioritises action to protect 20 bird species – 14 of which feed partially or solely on insects.
Mountain pygmy possums feed on bogong moths.
Tim Bawden
Six ways to help insects
Insects are small and can inhabit hidden places, so you may not realise how many exist around you. Here are a few ways to help prevent insect decline in your home and elsewhere:
Household insecticide use can damage local insect populations.
Flickr
1. Entice insects to your garden: Lawn is a virtual desert for insects, so if you don’t really need it, cultivate insect-friendly native plants instead. Plan to have something flowering most of the year and aim for a variety of plant heights and structures, such as tall trees, thick shrubs and ground cover.
2. Put the fly spray away: Insecticides have become very efficient in recent years. They indiscriminately kill all insects, not just the ones you’re trying to get rid of. If you have to use insect spray, do so sparingly.
And whenever you can, choose food produced without lots of pesticides. These products are sold with labels such as organic, biodynamic, or chemical-free.
3. Turn off the lights: If you don’t need that outdoor light on all night, turn it off: the moths in your area will thank you. Many nocturnal insects can’t resist the light, but it disrupts their navigation system. This plays havoc with their ability to feed and reproduce.
4. Build them a home: Think about installing an insect hotel – a small structure of hollows for insects to rest and lay eggs in. Or simply leave dead wood or small areas of bare ground for insects to build nests in. If you don’t have a garden, join a local tree-planting group, or convince your council to plant more natives.
A flower fly. Scientists need help form the public to track insect numbers.
Denis Anderson/CSIRO
5. Resist the urge to clean up: If there is a section of your garden, local park or nature strip that is unkempt, leave it that way. What looks untidy to you is a great place for insects to live.
David Yeates currently receives funding from The Federal Government Departments of Environment and Energy, Agriculture, CSIRO and the Schlinger Foundation.
Katja Hogendoorn receives funding from the federal Department of Agriculture, AgriFutures and HortInnovations Australia Ltd.
Manu Saunders 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.
by C. Michael White, Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut
Generic drugs can be a great way to save money, but a recent study shows there are risks involved. HQuality/Shutterstock.com
Generic prescription drugs have saved the U.S. about US$1.7 trillion over the past decade. The Food and Drug Administration approved a record 781 new generics in 2018 alone, including generic versions of Cialis, Levitra and Lyrica. They join generic versions of blockbusters from yesteryear, like Lipitor, Nexium, Prozac and Xanax.
Seniors are the biggest purchasers of generics, because they take the most medications and are on fixed incomes, but virtually everyone has taken a generic antibiotic or pain pill at one time.
This leads to a vital question: Are generics safe? If drug manufacturers followed the FDA’s strict regulations, the answer would be a resounding yes. Unfortunately for those who turn to generics to save money, the FDA relies heavily on the honor system with foreign manufacturers, and U.S. consumers get burned. Eighty percent of the active ingredients and 40% of the finished generic drugs used in the U.S. are manufactured overseas.
As a pharmacist, I know that the safety of prescription medications is vital. My research, recently published in the “Annals of Pharmacotherapy,” raises alarming concerns about our vulnerabilities.
Where are your drugs being made?
A pharmacist at a drug plant outside Mumbai in 2012, shortly after a change in patent law allowed production of a generic cancer drug.
Rafiq Mugbool/AP Photo
Generic drug manufacturers either make bulk powders with the active ingredient in them or buy those active ingredients from other companies and turn them into pills, ointments or injectable products.
In 2010, 64% of foreign manufacturing plants, predominantly in India and China, had never been inspected by the FDA. By 2015, 33% remained uninspected.
The FDA informs manufacturing plants in other countries when it plans to inspect their plants.
Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
As I detail in my paper, when announced foreign FDA inspections began to occur in earnest between 2010 and 2015, numerous manufacturing plants were subsequently barred from shipping drugs to the U.S. after the inspections uncovered shady activities or serious quality defects.
Unscrupulous foreign producers shredded documents shortly before FDA visits, hid documents offsite, altered or manipulated safety or quality data or utilized unsanitary manufacturing conditions. Ranbaxy Corporation pleaded guilty in 2013 to shipping substandard drugs to the U.S. and making intentionally false statements. The company had to withdraw 73 million pills from circulation, and the company paid a $500 million fine.
These quality and safety issues can be deadly. In 2008, 100 patients in the U.S. died after receiving generic heparin products from foreign manufacturers. Heparin is an anticoagulant used to prevent or treat blood clots in about 10 million hospitalized patients a year and is extracted from pig intestines.
Some of the heparin was fraudulently replaced with chondroitin, a dietary supplement for joint aches, that had sulphur groups added to the molecule to make it look like heparin.
One of the heparin manufacturers inspected by the FDA received a warning letter after it was found to have used raw material from uncertified farms, used storage equipment with unidentified material adhering to it and had insufficient testing for impurities.
These issues continue to this day. Dozens of blood-pressure and anti-ulcer drugs were recalled in 2018 and 2019 due to contamination with the potentially carcinogenic compounds N-nitrosodimethylamine or N-nitrosodiethylamine.
One of the major producers of these active ingredient powders used by multiple generic manufacturers was inspected in 2017. The FDA found that the company fraudulently omitted failing test results and replaced them with passing scores.
This raises a critical question: How many more violations would occur with inspections occurring as frequently as they do in the U.S., and more importantly, if they were unannounced? Relatively speaking, the number of drugs proved to be tainted or substandard has been small, and the FDA has made some progress since 2010. But the potential for harm is still great.
What’s next?
How safe should U.S. residents feel when 80% of the active ingredients in our drugs are made overseas? Evidence shows that the FDA can’t trust the documents that foreign manufacturers produce to ensure that their products meet quality standards. The widespread willingness of foreign manufacturers to falsify, manipulate or shred documents in order to sell lower-quality or unsafe drugs to U.S. citizens shows that only frequent unannounced FDA inspections or FDA testing of batches of medications when they reach the U.S. will compel them to follow the rules.
Patients taking prescription drugs are sick and vulnerable; they should not be subjected to poor-quality medications that can make them worse. Similarly, domestic generic drug manufacturers employing U.S. citizens should not have to face strict regulatory compliance that effectively is not required of foreign competitors.
It is expensive, logistically challenging and politically unpalatable for the FDA to show up for unannounced inspections of foreign plants. If the agency is not given that right or the funding to ramp up testing of their products here in the U.S., it should not be subjecting U.S. citizens to the drugs produced in foreign plants. Unless we tackle this issue soon, I am afraid there will be a major incident where patients are killed and the golden goose – those immense savings associated with generic drugs – will also be sacrificed.
C. Michael White 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.
