BEARS-VIKINGS KICKOFF TIME ON JAN. 1 MOVED TO 4:15 PM ET

From NFL Media.com - private access website; no direct link available to the public.
The Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings game on Sunday, January 1 will be played at 4:15 PM ET rather than 1:00 PM ET, the NFL announced today.

The change is to accommodate FOX television patterns.

Intelligent Design sacked in court - judge rules lessons unconstitutional

A US court has ruled that school children cannot be taught the theory known as "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution.

Ihave mixed emotions about this, but it's important that kids are given non-religious tools with which to analyze biological change. But that said, is science a religion itself?

Study: Racial prejudice makes you stupider

My friend and attorney Bill Taylor brought this to my attention today, so I looked it up on the San Francisco Chronicle website. Here's a large excerpt; for the rest of the story, click on the title link.

To the litany of arguments against prejudice, scientists are now adding a new one: Racism can make you stupid.

That is the message of an unusual and striking new series of experiments conducted at Dartmouth College, with the help of brain-imaging equipment and a crew of undergraduate volunteers.

According to the findings, the more biased people are, the more their brain power is taxed by contact with someone of another race, as they struggle not to say or do anything offensive. The effect is so strong, the team found, that even a five-minute conversation with a black person left some of the white subjects unable to perform well on a test of cognitive ability.

"Just having a prejudice makes you stupider," said John Gabrieli, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who was not involved in the research. "It is really interesting."...

...The work also paints a dispiriting portrait of the state of the nation's race relations, the lead researcher said, even among the well-educated, well- meaning Dartmouth undergraduates whom the scientists studied.

"I think people are getting caught in this trap where they are trying not to do the wrong thing, rather than trying to act natural," said Jennifer Richeson, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College. "Somehow, we have to get past this awkward phase."

Richeson and her colleagues began by recruiting a group of white Dartmouth undergraduates and asked them to perform an "Implicit Association Test," a test that is widely used to measure unconscious racial bias. The subject is given a screen and two buttons. First, the subject is asked to push the button on the left if the word that appears on the screen is a positive word, like beauty, or a common first name for a white person, such as Nancy. Otherwise, they are instructed to push the button on the right.

After a session, the test is changed slightly, and the names given are those more common for a black person, such as Tyrone. The greater the difference between the reaction times in the two sessions, the more the person has trouble associating black names with positive concepts.

Next, the team had each of the students speak briefly with a black experimenter and then perform a test of cognitive ability called the Stroop test. They showed that the higher a bias score the student had in the IAT test, the worse they did on the Stroop test after speaking with the black experimenter.

...It is part of a nascent movement to study the neurological basis of social phenomena, in particular racism. One study, by Elizabeth Phelps at New York University, found that biased people were more likely to have greater activity in their amygdala, a portion of the brain associated with negative emotions like fear, when shown the picture of a black person they don't know.

Another, conducted by Stanford's Gabrieli and other scientists, showed that the brains of white people process white and black faces differently from the moment they see them.

NY Transit Strike Reason: $1 Billion surplus -- not even a portion -- not used to pay workers

According to the World Scocialist Web Site, the main issue that caused this strike which has cast millions of New Yorkers into the street during a cold winter, is the New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board's decision to allocate MTA's $1 billion surplus to various programs, but not the workers' payroll.

The WSWS reports: "Finally, in its last announced wage offer, the MTA has proposed a mere 3 percent and a 2 percent increase over 27 months -- an amount that would fail to keep up with inflation. The transit bosses have even made this miserable amount contingent on workers reducing their use of sick leave."

And according to the NY Times, a judge has issued an injunction against the striking workers, slapping them with a fine of two days pay for every one day they're on strike.

NY Transit Strike Map

The New York Times has produced a helpful transit alternative map to assist New Yorkers in navigating the city during the strike. You can see it with a click on the title of this post.

Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente's big mistake

Read about it at Oakland Focus

Rolling Stones 2006 Concert Opening Acts Confirmed

According to IORR, the list of opening acts for the Stones shows in USA & Canada 2006 have been confirmed by the Stones, including acts such as Brooks and Dunn, Merle Haggard, Anik Jean, Sloan, Metric, Antigone Rising, Soulive, Queens of the Stone Age & The Meters.

You can get tickets at Stones Tickets Exchange for shows.

The President, Iraq, and wire tapping - Don't forget 9/11

I'm not a conservative and I don't play one on TV, but I really don't have much of a problem with wire tapping of phone conversations by the US Government, but I do think the American people should be warned about the policy.

I disagree with the President's notion that notifying people of that is "helping the enemy" -- it's a deterent. Yes, "the ememy" may be less likely to use a cell phone, but I really don't think so. Think about it; what's the alternative technology? We seem to assume that "the enemy" is super rich and all powerful. No. There is no "enemy" but there is a set of very upset people with backgrounds different from our own. The US seems to want to not improve relations with some of them.

There are also others -- Americans -- who are to be feared. White supremacist and Neo-nazi groups are two examples of this.
In short, as long as wire taps are appropriately used, there should be no problem with them. But if the President went out and did this without proper authorization, then he should be repremanded, if only with bad PR.

Five new worldwide trends for finding love

Ok, it's the start of 2005, but it's still relevant!

THE SEXES with MEL RISON
Five new trends for finding love
Mel Risdon
January 7, 2005

If you brought in the new year without locking lips with a special someone, chances are you're among the many singles resolving to find Mr. or Mrs. Right in the next 12 months.

Here are five of the hottest dating trends to watch for in 2005:

SOLO TRAVEL:

Look for more companies coming on board with travel packages designed for singles. Diane Redfern started the Connecting Solo Travel Network back in 1990. "It's a central resource that looks for opportunities for singles to travel comfortably and economically on their own and it includes companies that are dating-oriented." Diane's membership-based website (www.cstn.org) advertises more than 350 such trips from a multitude of companies.

They include fastdatertravel.com, a New York company specializing in a kind of vacation speed-dating. Singles can take a Caribbean cruises, a ski getaway to Aspen or a golf trip to Scottsdale, Ariz., all while meeting other singles (and not fretting over the usual "based on double occupancy" brochures).


BLIND DATES WITH A TWIST:

You've done the chat rooms, dating services and pretty much everything else out there, but I'll bet you've never tried a Dinner-in-the-Dark party. Originating in New York and making its way across the States, it's the latest on the socializing scene.

Offered by cosmoparty.com, Dinner-in-the-Dark is an interesting new way of hooking people up. You gather at a venue where you are paired with a dinner companion in pitch blackness. You dine blindly, and your partner isn't revealed until dessert arrives.

The program — touted as a way to get to know a potential partner without looks being the first impression — is coming to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, so it's only a matter of time before Calgary singles dine in the dark.


IDIGU:

Huge in Japan and spreading like wildfire, text-message-dating brings a high-tech tool to the singles' world. It's a portable, inexpensive, safe and definitive way to target exactly what you're looking for and pursue on your own terms.

Canadian-based Mobilehookup launched in May of 2004 and is now introducing a North American first — Talk Now voice/SMS technology allowing two mobile users to hook up anonymously via the telephone. Your privacy is maintained while you get to know each other.


SPEED-DATING EVOLUTION:

What was once a novel idea is today almost mainstream: Get a group of guys and girls together and allow them quick sessions to chat and see if they can make a connection. Calgary has a number of speed dating services, including Six Minute Dates.

Christine Hart, who runs the service with business partner Dana Blonde, says the company is always looking for new ways to enhance and improve. "We feel like we're on the edge of greatness," said Hart. With a new speed-dating venue (Zodiak, 515 10 St. S.W.) and a new monthly speed-dating/wine tasting event, Hart and Blonde say the old "meat-market" stigmas are fading away.

"We've expanded into Vancouver with our first event coming up on Jan. 18," Hart says.

"We're also in the process of developing added online feature. We've been watching other companies in the States that have very successfully added these types of features."

REALITY TV:

Built on the success of such shows as The Bachelor and Bachelorette (plus lesser reality mind candy such as Elimidate), look for more of the same on the tube. Though nothing can be divulged at this point, I can say this — look for some new local dating programs in the coming months.

No doubt I'll have all the details in The Sexes once the "leaks" are confirmed.

Happy dating in 2005!

Interracial relationships are on the increase in U.S., but decline with age, Cornell study finds

An interesting article in that it indirectly explains why women over 35 with personal ads such as those on Match.com seem to specify a man of a type of color, be it black or more often -- American is majority Caucasian -- white. Below is an excerpt, and the rest can be read by clicking the title of this post.

By Susan S. Lang - Cornell News

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Interracial relationships and marriages are becoming more common in the United States, according to a new Cornell University study.

The number of interracial marriages involving whites, blacks and Hispanics each year in the United States has jumped tenfold since the 1960s, but the older individuals are, the less likely they are to partner with someone of a different race, finds the new study.


Pat Cassano, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, and Ron Booker, associate professor of neurobiology and behavior, are an interracial couple who have been together since she was 19 and he was 20 years old, about 31 years ago.
"We think that's because relationships are more likely to be interracial the more recently they were formed, so younger people are more likely to have interracial relationships. This trend reflects the increasing acceptance of interracial relationships in today's society," said Kara Joyner, assistant professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell and co-author of a study on interracial relationships in a recent issue of the American Sociological Review (Vol. 70:4).

Coldplay disappointed at three albums

The band want to be like The Beatles
(From NME.com)
Coldplay have revealed they are disappointed with only releasing three albums.

The band have said that compared with The Beatles' work rate, they are a lot slower and are starting to panic.

"We just love being creative," bassist Guy Berryman said. "When we're out on the road, it's amazing to play live but we're really missing what we do best, which is creating. We've been together for almost ten years now and we've only made three albums."

Speaking to BBC 6 Music, he added: "When you look at people like The Beatles who knocked out a couple a year, it sort of makes us start to panic a little bit. So we're just desperate to get back into the studio."

Coldplay tickets link is the title of this entry

Racism and Mental Health

I found this book today, and while looking for something entirely different. But given the recent controversy over racism's consideration as an official mental illness and the Sydney Riots, I thought this was very appropriate. I hope others see this.

Racism and Mental Health
Charles V. Willie
Bernard M. Kramer
Bertram S. Brown
@1973, University of Pittsburgh Press

The forward of the book reads that "discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, and national origin interferes with opportunities for individual expression by some and blinds others to their normal obligations. There is no health in a society afflicted by racism and discrimination."

In the chapter "Racism and Mental Health as a Field of Thought and Action" Bernard Kramer states that "mental health professional react in one manner to racism in general and in other to racism in mental health. They tend to finesse the question of race." He contends that mental health has ignored or underplayed racial aspects of the field, and gives examples to demonstrate this, pointing to a then-widely-used textbook in the field and stating that of 1,631 pages, not one concerns the topic of race or racism. He presents other evidence as well.

The book also presents a kind of history of racism and mental health and provides "definitions of mental disorder in a racist society." Before I elaborate on that, I must present what the authors give as "the essence of racism," which "lies in a relatively constant pattern of prejudice and discrimination between one party who is idealized and favored and another who is devalued and exploited in a common relationship" (p.61).

That is in a racist relationship there can't be an equality of roles, and has not been -- they basically state that relationships between whites and people of color have been imbalanced. They also go on to give other examples of similar relationships: male and female, and management and labor. "When racism is defined this broadly," Mr. Pinderhughes writes," it can be viewed as a characteristic of human nature that may be employed for constructive or destructive purposes.

The Negative Impact of Racism on African American Mental Health

The authors discuss how a declining yet historic fear among African Americans regarding seeking psychiatric treatment for the impact of racism may result in paranoid social behavior.

There is one chapter called "Racism and the Mental Heath of White Americans" which suggests that it's a form of paranoia, where a person believes that the lesser group either receives a special benefit, or is lazy, or will kill them, and so on. Thomas Pettigrew writes that "the highly prejudiced less often possess positive mental health than others," (p.292) and that there's a relationship between mental health and authoritarianism such that "it may not be possible to manifest an extreme degree of authoritarianism without being psychologically maladjusted."

The point of this is that racism has been linked to negative mental health for several decades -- it's not as new as the recent news would suggest. But considering the wealth of date and evidence, it is amazing that racism still is not officially considered a mental illness.