Posted in December 2011 …

Dec 07 2011
Leave a comment
Discrimination, Employment Law, Feminism

Women Don’t Want to Balance Work and Life

Women want more life and less work, and they are willing to sacrifice to get it.

Working women tend to value their personal lives more than professional advancement, according to a new survey from More Magazine. It found that “65% of women say it’s more important to have TIME in their life than to make more MONEY at their job” and “73% say if their boss left her job, they would NOT apply to replace her.” These priorities are trending: “43% say they are LESS AMBITIOUS now than they were 10 years ago,” and “58% say that flexibility is more important to them now than it was 10 years ago.”

I wonder how men would answer the same questions. Is this the mood all over? Is it a result of women finding that jobs aren’t all they were cracked up to be?

Beyond women’s feelings about work, this survey should help bust the stereotype of women as materialistic opportunists who seek mates who can buy them lots of shoes, since 65% of women polled prefer time over money. That should put the canard to rest…but it won’t.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tagged , , ,
Dec 03 2011
Health

All I Want for Christmas is Two Good Earplugs

As a Jew I don’t actually want anything for Christmas, but I do have a year-round wish to turn down the world’s volume knob, as regular readers know from “WOULD YOU TURN THAT DOWN?!!”

In that spirit, here is a collection of quotes from fellow opponents of noise pollution. Two of my favorites:

“The sanitary and mechanical age we are now entering makes up for the mercy it grants to our sense of smell by the ferocity with which it assails our sense of hearing.”
~ Havelock Ellis, 1912, in Impressions and Comments (1930)

“I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf.”
~ Pete Townshend of The Who (2006 interview)

Music lovers, listen up: you now have Pete Townshend’s approval to wear earplugs at rock concerts.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tagged ,
Dec 01 2011
Animals, Health, Vegetarian

FDA Refuses to Limit Antibiotics Given to Animals Raised for Food

An update on my previous post, Factory Farms are Breeding More Than Cows: Agribusiness Antibiotic Abuse Creates Superbugs: the FDA has refused consumer advocates’ petitions to “limit the routine feeding of antibiotics to farm animals.” For an administration that claims it wants to improve health care, rendering some of our most important medications powerless is a funny way of showing it.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tagged , , ,
Dec 01 2011
Animals, Vegetarian

Mind Games People Play to Justify Eating Meat

From a new study by the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology:

” ‘Many people like eating meat, but most are reluctant to harm things that have minds. Our studies show that this motivates people to deny minds to animals,’ ” researcher Dr. Brock Bastian said.

The university’s website continues, the “research demonstrates when people are confronted with the harm that their meat-eating brings to food animals they view those animals as possessing fewer mental capacities compared to when they are not reminded.

“The findings also reveal that this denial of mind to food animals is especially evident when people expect to eat meat in the near future.” In other words, people lie to themselves just to eat a burger.

Bastian calls this the “meat paradox.” It is a paradox for meat-eaters to tell themselves that animals don’t have minds because, of course, they do, and the very same people will acknowledge that in different contexts.

Meat isn’t just bad for the animals and for people’s health — it’s bad for people’s souls.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tagged , ,