Is There Radiation in Your Seafood?

— By Kiera Butler

| Mon Apr. 11, 2011 2:30 AM PDT

seiho/Flickr

The oceans around Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are beginning to show troubling signs of radioactivity. Recent testsby TEPCO found levels far surpassing legal limits, iodine by 7.5 million times and cesium by 1.1 million times. As MoJo environmental correspondent Julia Whitty has reported inseveral recent posts, radioactive material is now entering the marine food web, and will likely only continue to work its way up. And ocean currents are carrying the contaminants far and wide. As a result of the increased radiation levels, several countries, including Hong Kong, Russia, and India, have enacted temporary bans on Japanese seafood imports. But so far, there is no such ban in the US.

See more at: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/04/radiation-seafood-japan

The Battle Over Charter Schools

McKinley Elementary School parent, Oralia Velasquez. Photos: Kristina Rizga

Is the group behind the nation's first "parent-trigger" school experiment grassroots? Or astroturf? I went to Compton to find out.

— By Kristina Rizga

• DONATE
• NEWSLETTER

36 Comments | Post Comment

Thu Apr. 7, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Like all the houses on this block of southern Los Angeles, education reformer Oralia Velasquez's bungalow has bars on the windows and doors. I ring her doorbell one night as her neighbors—men in blue uniform shirts, kids carrying soccer balls—enter a few of the pastel houses that line the street, greeted by barking dogs and the wafting smell of dinner. We sit near family photos and statues of the Virgin de Guadalupe and discuss the complex national education debate playing out now at her daughter's elementary school.

California's parent trigger law: Say an elementary school like McKinley fails to make "adequate yearly progress" for four consecutive years, according to state markers measured using standardized test scores. If 51% of the school's parents sign a petition, they can request significant changes: closing the school, bringing in a charter school operator to run their school, or replacing the principal, teachers, or other administrative changes. The current version of the law doesn't require that public forums discuss all of the rights and options before or during the petition process, either. This is the first of 75 "parent triggers" allowed to take place in California's schools, and Compton is the first district in the country where this law is going through a test run.

Until the nation's first "parent trigger" law passed in California, news coverage of Compton was often reduced to gang violence and drive-by shootings. But the flatlands are also dotted with graceful, dilapidated homes: reminders of a golden era when Compton held middle-class union jobs in the auto, steel, and rubber industries. Like Detroit, the death of industry left blight in its wake, and today there are more liquor, party-supply, and 99-cent stores here than parks, playgrounds, or libraries. Fewer than 1 in 10 residents have college degrees. School dropout rates are high. School test scores are among the lowest in California.

So when someone from a nonprofit calledParent Revolution knocked on Velasquez's door last fall to talk about "the possibility of change" and how California's newly-passed "Parent Empowerment" law could help Amie, her fifth-grade daughter, learn to read better at McKinley Elementary School, she was sold. She's been hearing about "change" from the school district since she was a teenager; why not try a charter school run by the Celerity Group, the operator Parent Revolution suggested, instead? "Whenever I tried talking to previous [McKinley] teachers about Amie's struggles, they'd say, 'She is fine. She is well behaved.' But I'm not worried about her behavior. I want her to get high grades and go to college," she tells me. Aware that only one in five charters succeed, she visited one in person. "The atmosphere at Celerity is totally different. Everyone said good morning to me.

See more at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/parent-trigger-compton-NCLB

The Leave No Trace ethos to your bodily functions

Before you go forth and drop trou in the great outdoors, you may want to consult Kathleen Meyer's How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art.

See more at: http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/04/is-it-okay-to-poop-outside

Should Foodies Be Fasting?

— By Kiera Butler

| Fri Apr. 1, 2011 1:40 PM PDT

When fasting is in the news these days, it's usually accompanied by words like "cleanse" and "detox." You give up microwave burritos for a while, maybe hit a few yoga classes, and emerge on the other side simultaneously skinnier and more grounded. Or something.

But this week, some people are practicing a different kind of fast: They're hungerstriking to protest the cuts proposed in the house budget bill H.R.1, a brutal piece of legislation that would take food, medicine, and services away from the people who need it most—in order to provide tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations. For a side-by-side comparison of cuts to aid programs and tax breaks for rich people, check out this cool chart over at the Center for American Progress.

The growing list of fasters includes leaders of religious organizations, NGOS, activists groups, and others. On Tuesday, Mark Bittman devoted his column to the topic. The whole thing is worth reading, but his basic point is this:

...we need to gather and insist that our collective resources be used for our collective welfare, not for the wealthiest thousand or even million Americans but for a vast majority of us in the United States and, indeed, for citizens of the world who have difficulty making ends meet. Or feeding their kids.

See more at: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/04/should-foodies-fast-hr1

An Amen to North Social about Facebook Tabs

The Drop

More Pizza Toppings = Slice Failure Like anything that involves communicating, the more layers you add, the harder it is for the receiving party to follow along. This can create a major problem for brands trying to maximize their social presence on Facebook. Facebook is a medium that just begs for simplicity. The super duper All-in-One Facebook tabs don’t actually inspire action... they actually stunt conversion rates! We know because we've built them, launched them, and watched them underwhelm clients over and over again. Yes, we're willing to admit that when we first started building Facebook apps we got a little excited and built a bunch of crazy stuff that did nearly everything that could possibly be added into a single tab. These "ship in a bottle" tabs are complex, expensive, and get their ass kicked by simple tabs that only ask the visitor to do one simple thing every single time. If you’re running a sweepstakes, your goal should be to get the visitor to enter (and hopefully share); NOT to watch a video, scroll through photos, vote, read your real time Tweets, and make you an afternoon latte with extra foam. Before you even consider letting someone (even us) wireframe out one of these Swiss Army knife-like applications, ask yourself, “Is this strategic”? When you add too many toppings to a tab, just like a overloaded slice of pizza, your brand will topple over creating a giant mess that is impossible to consume. Cheers, The North Social Team

Close the DJJ Prisons

Close the DJJ Prisons Take Action Now "DJJ is the worst thing that ever happened to my son and our family. The youth prison system is a disgrace for California and its closing is past due." Lourdes Duarte, Families for Books Not Bars HUGE NEWS- Governor Jerry Brown wants to close California’s youth prisons! On Monday, Governor Brown proposed to eliminate the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and fund counties to treat the youth instead. Books Not Bars has been calling for DJJ’s closure for seven years. And finally, Sacramento is listening. Governor Brown has called his proposed budget “painful.” With deep cuts to vital human and health services, plus nearly $1.5 billion in cuts to higher education, the next few years will be challenging. Considering the cuts to these important programs, closing DJJ makes more sense now than ever.The DJJ drains our state budget of hundreds of millions of dollars each year and fails more than 8 out of 10 youth who are released from its prisons. We cannot afford to fund a wasteful, broken system that hurts our youth and worsens the deficit. But the fight is not over. As we write this, opponents are already contacting lawmakers to urge them to oppose this crucial plan. Please send an email to legislative leaders and stand with us in urging lawmakers to close DJJ once and for all. We’ll also collect your signatures and deliver them to lawmakers. This is our chance to show Sacramento that the majority of Californians want a juvenile justice system that invests in youth, their families, and our communities—not miserable warehouses that just add damage to damage. Stand with Books Not Bars and take action today! Thank you, Sumayyah Waheed Books Not Bars Campaign Director

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights www.ellabakercenter.org | 510.428.3939 344 40th Street | Oakland, CA | 94609 Connect & Share:

Creativity and Innovation - Where do our best ideas come from

THE BOOK TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT TIPS BLOG TOOLS EVENTS ABOUT US Creativity and Innovation Greetings! Where are you when you get your best ideas? In the shower? Working out? Walking in nature? Sleeping? The likelihood is that you are not in front of your desk. So how do we expect ourselves and our employees to think innovatively and creatively when we spend our time clicking back and forth between browser windows, furiously answering emails, and sitting in meeting after meeting? By learning how to relax and intentionally quiet the mind, we can actually train creativity, just like a muscle. Find some great tips below for learning how to cultivate creativity in yourself and your employees. The Energy Project Team www.TheEnergyProject.com @energy_project facebook.com/theenergyproject PS. One of the best ways to be creative is to live like a sprinter. Vote for Tony's panel idea and help bring him to next year's South by Southwest conference: The 90-Minute Solution: Live Like a Sprinter! Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation Eighty percent of the CEOs said the business environment is growing so complex that it literally demands new ways of thinking. Less than 50 percent said they believed their organizations were equipped to deal effectively with this rising complexity. But are CEOs and senior leaders really willing to make the transformational moves necessary to foster cultures of real creativity and innovation? WATCH THIS VIDEO! Top Tips For Fostering Creativity Begin any creative process by immersing yourself in the known. Practice mindfulness. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, stop and take a few moments to focus your breathing. Schedule at least one hour a week to brainstorm and strategize around some issue at work. UPCOMING EVENTS 09.01.10 Book Tour - Phoenix, AZ 09.14.10-09.15.10 Special Offer: Take 20% off! Public Workshop - Chicago, IL 09.15.10 Book Tour - Denver, CO 09.16.10 Book Tour - Indianapolis, IN 09.21.10 Book Tour - Los Angeles, CA See All Events > "I've learned that I definitely don't do my most creative thinking at the office. I need to be on my own, in a quiet place, undistracted. I can only make that happen when I give myself the time and space I need." Hannah Minghella, President, Sony Pictures Animation The Stages of Creativity First Insight: Big-Picture Zone Deep and intuitive thinking Saturation: Tactical Zone Immersing yourself in the known Incubation: Big Picture Zone Idea germinates and expands Illumination: Big Picture Zone The "Aha!" moment Verification: Tactical Zone Ideas accepted and supported scientifically