Skip to main content

Food Preferences Learned in Social Contexts

Jim Logan Noozhawk
A main finding from this research is that babies learning about food is fundamentally social. When they see someone eat a food, they can use the person’s reaction to the food to learn about the food itself, such as whether it is edible, and also to learn about the people who are eating the food.

Public Sector Pensions Under Attack -- From the LA Times

Bill Raden Capital and Main
Call it the tale of two pension crises. In June, the Los Angeles Times’ business pages looked at the looming retirement savings disaster caused by the nearly 40-year transition from traditional employer-sponsored defined-benefit pensions to individual 401(k) plans — a sea change in retirement insecurity, it noted, that “has been a failure for all but the wealthiest Americans.”

Women in Iceland to Leave Work at 2:38 PM

Vala Hafstad Iceland Review
Women in Iceland strike over the gender pay gap. The first Women's Day Off was held on October 24, 1975. While the gap is closing, it would take another 50 years at the current pace in order to achieve parity.

Voter Suppression Is a Much Bigger Problem Than Voter Fraud

Ari Berman The Nation
Trump’s rigged election lies distract from the real threat to American democracy. You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than impersonate another voter at the polls. The real danger to American democracy stems from GOP efforts to make it harder to vote.

When the Election Is Over, It Will Not Be Done

Bill Berkowitz Smirking Chimp
What to expect if Trump loses? More attempts at gridlock, and more anger, and an ever-widening opening for the extremist right to dig their heels further into the GOP.

Why Trump's Male Chauvinism Appeals to Some Voters More Than Others

Lynn Prince Cooke The Conversation
Assuming that not even Donald Trump can destroy American democracy, the real challenge begins for whoever is sworn in as president on January 20 2017. Americans need more economic security for their enlightened sides to shine through again. This means more good jobs at living wages for men as well as women. Only then can the country begin to close the social chasms revealed and fueled by Trump’s campaign.

Sympathy for the Devil?

Seth Ackerman Jacobin
The numbers will be clear: downscale whites are a big pool of untapped votes. Yet if a cordon sanitaire is placed around that demographic territory and hung with the notorious label, “Trump Vote,” the Democrats will be even more likely to let the party system drift down its current path: into the culture-war politics of the reactionary Tammany-versus-Klan 1920s, rather than the class-based politics that followed.