Culture Tag

The world is horrible today. This week. This month. Year? Let's not quibble about when the horribleness started. Earlier I was scrolling through the blog and I realized that, for the most part, everything that we (and by "we," I mean conservatives at large) have been focusing on is either soaked in blood, or fodder for schism-revealing fights on Facebook and Twitter. This isn't good, I decided; so I went on a search for a lede that didn't include "ISIS" or "terrorism" or "Barack Obama." And I searched. And I searched some more. And then I found "Wigs."

Ah yes, Caitlyn Jenner. Hero of transdom or betrayer of feminism? Lately, consensus sides with the latter. Formerly Bruce, now Caitlyn Jenner has the self-professed feminist community up in arms. Named one of Glamour's Women of the Year, Jenner's remarks aren't quite the homer he (she?) may have hoped. According to Glamour's Los Angeles LGBT Editor, Jenner was awarded Woman of the Year because, "ehe made the decision to transition publicly—so that in the future kids don't have to wait until they're 65 years old to discover who they are." At the time awards were announced, Glamour wrote:

A year ago Caitlyn Jenner did not have a name. The Olympic hero turned reality-star patriarch was still living a phantom existence, her changing appearance igniting a tabloid frenzy around the rumor she'd run from for most of her 66 years: that she was transgender. She was confined to her house in Malibu, California, where she'd been forced to build a wall to shield herself from paparazzi cameras. "There I was, in this beautiful beach house, all by my little lonesome, right back where I started, dealing with the same issues I had when I was 10 years old," she remembers. Her breaking point came when photographers showed up outside her doctor's office, spying on what she'd hoped could be a private medical procedure to reduce the size of her Adam's apple. That night she couldn't stop thinking about a gun she kept in her home. "Go in there, no more pain," she recalls saying to herself. But in the light of morning, she had a revelation. "I thought, 'OK, you transition, big deal! You are still alive. You have to make your life interesting.' "

"The movement, the Million Student March, is a movement for a more equitable and fair system of education as opposed to the really corporate model that we have right now," said Keely Mullen, Million Student March Organizer, on Neil Cavuto's show Thursday. Their "three core demands," (yes, demands) are simple: free public college, cancellation of student debt, and $15 an hour minimum wage for campus workers. All was well and good until Mullen was asked the obvious -- how exactly will those three demands be paid for? [Blank stare] "Great question. Uh, I mean, you know, so, I'm not sure if you're talking on like a national level or at particular schools, I can sort of touch on both," said Mullen. And it actually got worse from there:

The moment I heard they were perfecting the self-driving car, it gave me very serious pause. Maybe that's because in some essential way I don't trust handing over the decision-making process to a machine, even though I don't like driving all that much and even though the evidence is that self-driving cars would almost certainly result in fewer accidents and fewer deaths overall. There's just something very basic about the thechnology that I don't trust, and it may be the very same very basic thing in me that makes me especially concerned with protecting liberty and autonomy. But I hadn't spent all that much time thinking about the details. It turns out others have---they must, if they're going to program these cars. And it's no surprise that there are some knotty ethical problems involved. Here's one hypothetical:

On Friday, President Obama unsheathed his mad internet skills and used them to bat at his Republican counterparts in Congress and on the campaign trail. Comparing GOP politicians to "Grumpy Cat," he lamented that anyone would dare display skepticism of the direction in which his administration has chosen to steer the country. From The Hill:

“Overall, we are making enormous progress. And it does make you wonder why is it that Republican politicians are so down on America?” Obama said. “I mean, they are gloomy. They’re like Grumpy Cat.”

A new commercial for KIA Motors which recently hit the airwaves is getting noticed on the internet for challenging the concept of participation trophies. In the ad, a father and son walk to their car after a sporting event. The father is stunned to see the word "participant" engraved on the award since his son's team won every game. He asks himself "Are we going to start ending games with hugs instead of handshakes?" Before getting in the car, he tears off the participant label and uses a magic marker to inscribe the word "champs" then hands it to his son with congratulations.

Facing pressure from activists, Grocer Whole Foods recently announced that by April of 2016 they'll no longer been selling products made from prison labor. Not only is the Texan grocer's move disappointing, it's also misguided. According to NPR, the groups targeting Whole Foods decried prison labor as "slave labor" and "exploitation."

The move comes on the heels of a demonstration in Houston where the company was chastised for employing inmates through prison-work programs. Michael Allen, founder of End Mass Incarceration Houston, organized the protest. He says Whole Foods was engaging in exploitation since inmates are typically paid very low wages. "People are incarcerated and then forced to work for pennies on the dollar — compare that to what the products are sold for," Allen tells The Salt. Currently, Whole Foods sells a goat cheese produced by Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy in Longmont, Colo., and a tilapia from Quixotic Farming, which bills itself as a family-owned sustainable seafood company. These companies partner with Colorado Correctional Industries, a division of the Colorado Department of Corrections, to employ prisoners to milk goats and raise the fish."

Exploiting inmates? What about providing them with trade skills, social skills, or teaching work ethic and purpose? That's exactly what Colorado Correctional Industries does. "Every participant is not only encouraged, but expected to contribute ideas, effort and commitment," says CCI.