The future of a venerable Chicago theater is in doubt, after 18 employees were fired.

The staff members say they were let go after trying to unionize. Without them, the fabric and the future of the famed Victory Gardens Theater is a big question mark.

"Lead is a neurotoxin; it causes premature deaths and lifelong negative effects. It’s said “there is no safe level of lead exposure” — as far as we know, any lead causes damage, and it just gets worse the more exposure there is.

After a 20-year, worldwide campaign, in 2021 Algeria became the final country to end leaded gasoline in cars — something the US phased out in 1996. That should make a huge difference to environmental lead levels. But lots of sources remain, from car batteries to ceramics...

Bangladesh phased out leaded gasoline in the 1990s. But high blood lead levels have remained. Why? When researchers Stephen Luby and Jenny Forsyth, doing work in rural Bangladesh, tried to isolate the source, it turned out to be a surprising one: lead-adulterated turmeric.

Turmeric, a spice in common use for cooking in South Asia and beyond, is yellow, and adding a pigment made of lead chromate makes for bright, vibrant colors — and better sales. Buyers of the adulterated turmeric were slowly being poisoned...

But there’s also good news: A recent paper studying lead in turmeric in Bangladesh found that researchers and the Bangladeshi government appear to have driven lead out of the turmeric business in Bangladesh.

How Bangladesh got serious about lead poisoning

The researchers who’d isolated turmeric as the primary cause of high blood lead levels —working for the nonprofit International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh — went to meet with government officials. They collected samples nationwide and published a 2019 follow-up paper on the extent of the problem. Bangladesh’s Food Safety Authority got involved.

They settled on a two-part approach, starting with an education campaign to warn people about the dangers of lead. Once people had been warned that lead adulteration was illegal, they followed up with raids to analyze turmeric and fine sellers who were selling adulterated products.

They posted tens of thousands of fliers informing people about the risks of lead. They got coverage in the news. And then they swept through the markets with X-ray fluorescence analyzers, which detect lead. They seized contaminated products and fined sellers.

According to the study released earlier this month, this worked spectacularly well. “The proportion of market turmeric samples containing detectable lead decreased from 47 percent pre-intervention in 2019 to 0 percent in 2021,” the study found. And the vanishing of lead from turmeric had an immediate and dramatic effect on blood lead levels in the affected populations, too: “Blood lead levels dropped a median of 30 percent.”

The researchers who helped make that result happen are gearing up for similar campaigns in other areas where spices are adulterated.

The power of problem-solving

...When the Food Safety Authority showed up at the market and started issuing fines for lead adulteration, it stopped being a savvy business move to add lead. Purchasers who were accustomed to unnatural lead-colored turmeric learned how to recognize non-adulterated turmeric. And so lead went from ubiquitous to nearly nonexistent in the space of just a few years.

That’s a better world for everyone, from turmeric wholesalers to vulnerable kids — all purchased at a shockingly low price. The paper published this month concludes, “with credible information, appropriate technology, and good enough governance, the adulteration of spices can be stopped.”

There’s still a lot more to be done. India, like Bangladesh, has widespread adulteration of turmeric. And safety testing will have to remain vigilant to prevent lead in Bangladesh from creeping back into the spice supply.

But for all those caveats, it’s rare to see such fast, decisive action on a major health problem — and impressive to see it immediately rewarded with such a dramatic improvement in blood lead levels and health outcomes. It’s a reminder that things can change, and can change very quickly, as long as people care, and as long as they act."

-via Vox, September 20, 2023

Many people think that the reason proshots are not filmed more often is because producers are unreasonably paranoid that they will cannibalize ticket sales, but while that seems to have some truth to it, I have learned there is a bit more too it than that.

Here are some of the other primary reasons why proshots are not filmed more often:

They cost a lot of money to make. The Hamilton proshot cost around $10 million to make, which is almost how much it cost to produce the actual show. I don't know if every proshot costs quite that much, but seeing as most Broadway shows lose money and most producers are in it to make a profit, most producers are unwilling to spend an extra sum on a proshot unless it is a big hit. Normally when proshots do get filmed on Broadway it is because PBS or some other distributor is willing to pay for it.

Salaries and residuals. There are no standard contracts detailing how cast and crew are paid for proshots, so each proshot requires new negotiations between the producers and the unions detailing how much everyone gets paid, and as we all know after the recent actors and writers' strikes, negotiations are fraught and can easily fall apart. Proshots involve both film and stage unions, making everything more complex as well.

So why are there so many proshots from London?

It is partially because it is significantly cheaper to film things outside the US (actors get paid less in the UK and unions there are comparatively weak) and partially because the UK has government-funded nonprofit theatres where many of these proshots are filmed, while the US does not have any such institutions.

Can't the New York Public Library release it's archival footages to the public?

That would require them to pay residuals and royalties. It would be a gargantuan task for the NYPL to track down everyone involved in every Broadway show and get them to sign contracts. These footages are also not of a terribly good quality but I know we're too desperate to care about that.

In short, there are various reasons why proshots are not more common, and they are generally still because Broadway producers care more for money than art.

Getting Involved Locally

Every time I see a post implying the only two politically relevant actions you can take in America are voting or not voting in federal elections, I tell myself I will make this post, so now I am finally doing it.

As an American, it can be frustrating and dispiriting to feel like we're being held hostage by our politicians while the United States continues to be one of the biggest forces for suffering on a global scale. This post is not about what we can do on that scale but instead suggests that, if you're feeling powerless and depressed about your national/international impact, you can take action on the local level. I got involved with a local activist group a few years ago, and we've been able to tangibly help people in our community, get genuine policy passed, and net some legislative wins. It's much easier to influence a smaller system, and a lot more rewarding than doomscrolling on social media.

Disclaimer: I am an American who lives on the outskirts of a fairly large city. This post reflects my experience and not everything in it may be applicable to yours. Take what is useful and leave the rest.

What's out there?

There are a variety of ways to get involved locally depending on your preferences. I'm going to lump them into a few categories:

Local government. City council, school boards, library boards, etc. Many of these orgs have open meetings and allow public comment. They're often sparsely attended and members are frequently elected by small margins, so they're far more likely to listen to what you have to say than federal legislators. Check out your home's website to see if you can find minutes and agendas to learn what they're discussing and how you can weigh in. Great choice if you want to develop a first name basis nemesishood with a local politician.

Volunteering. If you have low bandwidth and just want someone to tell you what to do, but would like to know your actions immediately benefit real people, volunteering gigs might be for you. Lots of organizations need help! Community kitchens, greenspace cleanups, giving immigrants rides to appointments, phonebanking, tutoring, supporting cultural centers, etc. Find orgs connected to something you're interested in and see what they need.

Organizing. Organizing involves long term work to build groups of people who can push for change. Outside of labor unions, there are tenant unions (renters pushing their landlords for better conditions) and groups organizing around a specific issue. (Off the top of my head, in my area I'm aware of multiple groups organizing around abolition/decarceration, minimum wage, environmental justice, transit, and reproductive justice.) These groups require more commitment, but that also means you'll have more input than showing up to volunteer for a nonprofit a few times a month.

(The group I'm currently involved with is organizing-focused, so if you're curious I'm happy to share more details of what that's like, I just don't want this post to be even longer.)

How can I learn about opportunities?

Word of mouth

Local government websites

Library, college, and community center bulletin boards

Local events (I tabled at a music festival last summer)

Protests and rallies

Local news outlets (might be covering actions, etc.)

Social media

Google (try 'mutual aid' and your location)

Start getting involved. I cannot express how much I've learned about the activist landscape in my city just from joining one org. Between partnerships, solidarity requests, etc., so many groups are now on my radar that weren't before. As I said before, I'm in/near a fairly big city, but you might be surprised by how much is going on where you are!

A note on self-interest

Something we talk about in organizing is self-interest. Why are you passionate about this cause? Why are you in this fight? Identifying your self-interest is important for a few reasons. First, it helps you convince other people to care. Second, it keeps you engaged. If you start volunteering out of a vague sense that you're 'helping', it's much easier to lose interest. If you recognize how winning this fight makes your life better, you're more likely to stick with it. I'm not saying you should only get involved in causes that immediately materially benefit you, but it's worth thinking about your personal stake so that you can return to that when you think 'ugh I don't want to get out of bed for this meeting'. You may have seen the quote credited to Lilla Watson and a group of other Aboriginal Rights activists: "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

In conclusion

This is work. I've spent weekends in campaign retreats and driven 45 minutes across the city to make care packages. I am doing group projects and not even getting paid for it. But when you're frustrated with the state of the world, it's nice to be able to roll up your sleeves and make a visible impact on something you can control. It's also a great way to meet people irl who care about the same things as you and learn ways we can support each other when larger structures let us down.

As yet another American election season draws near with its avalanche of posts about voting, whether you intend to vote or post on tumblr about how much voting sucks or are a long-suffering non-American cursed to always see this shit, I challenge you to take a step* into your community and tackle a problem there. Who knows? You might even help solve it.

*Virtually if necessary. Many orgs try to be accessible. I attend many of my org's meetings on zoom!

Related to your Instagram story about support group for ‘high functioning’/low support needs autistics, I’m really frustrated because my local adult autism support group specifies that it’s for people without learning disabilities only and I asked why it was so exclusive and they said it was the condition for getting it funded by the local council (I’m in the uk) because they were ‘already funding too many learning disability groups’. I don’t think I can do much to combat this because it’s a decision made a lot higher up than me but it’s really frustrating because I really want to be in community with all kinds of different autistic people and I think people should be able to decide for themselves if the group is relevant to them. I also help run the disability society at my uni but obviously that selects for the sorts of disabled people who manage to go to uni. I would classify myself as having low support needs rn but it’s changed a lot since I was younger and I still struggle a lot in ways where I don’t always relate to other autistics at uni, a lot of whom are late diagnosed and struggle a lot with unmasking. I’ve never really been able to hide my autism and I was diagnosed quite young so I often feel a bit alone. I don’t know if you have any advice/comments to this, but I really wish there was more inclusive community with all kinds of different autistic people with different needs because I think we need to have that solidarity. -S

I'm so sorry to hear that is happening, that really fucking sucks. I agree that you will benefit a lot from being in community with a wide swathe of types of Autistic people, as all of us can -- and your experience points to how limiting and oversimplified "support needs" labels really are. Though the term may have a more pleasant connotation than functioning labels, it still flattens the Autistic experience to the point of being nearly useless. Many people who are nonverbal are relatively low in support needs; some people who can mask have high support needs, and many of us fluctuate depending on the day or where we are in life.

I think you may want to look outside of formal institutional channels. Nonprofits and government agencies will approach Autism inclusion in a very dehumanizing bureaucratic way. What you need I think is a community space made by us, and for us. Look up any local ASAN chapters in your area-- and since you're in the UK, look up Neurodiverse Self Advocacy UK as well. Selfadvocacygroups.co.uk is another place to turn. See if you can find local groups run by these organizations, and try hopping onto sites like Meetup and even Facebook to see if there are ongoing Autistic social groups happening as well. there is almost certainly something. Eventbrite also has a lot of virtual community events these days, oddly.

I know that it's a big ask to tell you to create your own groups, but after you've gotten the lay of the land in your area and gotten to meet a few people, consider organizing small hang outs for people in the community -- movie watching parties, outings to accessible spaces, attending a parade or festival together, something like that. We take care of one another, and community is a thing we build, one relationship at a time -- it's not a thing we can trust powerful institutions to give us or grant us.

Thanks for your message.

Archewell the Human First Coalition and Allegations of Abuse and Fraud in the Nonprofit NPO) World by u/QuesoFresca

Archewell, the Human First Coalition, and Allegations of Abuse and Fraud in the Nonprofit NPO) World Another group member posted something interesting about the dastardly duo's support The Afghan Women's Workshop earlier today. It was titled "Arsewell's The Welcome Project: Lynn, Massachusetts Edition"Made me think of an earlier attempt at supporting Afghanistan via the Human First Coalition. Aside from sounding a lot like the Human Fund, Archewell committed their support to the relatively new organization. Back in 2021-2022 the organization seemed to be closely entangled with H & M. Their Christmas card claimed they gave a donation on the recipients' behalf to the HFC and the org listed both H & M as honorees at their NYC gala. Curiously, they skipped the event at the last minute and instead sent an employee.At the time, the young founder of HFC was being showered with accolades (Forbes 30 Under 30, A Pat Tillman award etc.) but some of his back story seemed fantastical. So what is the organization up to now?They've posted nothing to their socials since last April. What happened? It seems founder Safi Rauf has been accused of mistreating refugees and fraud. "an ABC News investigation has learned of numerous allegations against Rauf and his organization -- none of which have previously been reported. A U.S. government-backed institution has sued Rauf and Human First Coalition, alleging the organization failed to evacuate its employees after it was paid over a half a million dollars for that rescue, and one former volunteer has said she raised questions about how funding to the organization was being spent. The group is also facing accusations that it mistreated some of the refugees it promised to help."Safi left us behind," said one refugee, who asked ABC News not to use her name. "He left us in darkness."The entire article is archived here: Forbes '30 Under 30' honoree's charity accused of mistreating refugees, sued for fraud post link: https://ift.tt/LIN7tec author: QuesoFresca submitted: December 17, 2023 at 11:01PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

How Big Pharma bribed docs to overprescribe opioids

I have complex chronic pain, and I’ve seen a lot of specialists. One of them prescribed long-term opioids for me. I dodged a bullet there, I think. Here’s a little story about how hard it is to know whether to trust your doctor when you have a pain condition.

One day, I was in a neurologist’s office here in Burbank, waiting for a nerve timing study. I picked up the neurology journal on the waiting-room table and thumbed through it. The lead study was an article about how opioid addiction risks had been overstated and doctors didn’t have to worry about it. It cited the infamous “Jick letter,” a five-sentence letter to the editor at the NEJM, which pharma companies turned into the foundation of a tower of junk addiction science that collapsed and led to 800,000 fatal overdoses, and counting.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/nejm-letter-opioids/528840/

I knew that this was a bad sign, so I turned to the journal’s colophon and learned that it was not a journal at all. It was an advertorial from a pharma giant — one with a profitable line in opioids — that was disguised as a peer-reviewed journal. It looked like a journal, but it wasn’t. It was targeted at doctors — like my doctor.

I put the journal down, just as a well-made-up, confident woman strode into the waiting room with a tray of Starbucks Frappuccinos and toaster-sandwiches, which she handed to the receptionist, who shared them out across the back-office staff. They clearly all knew each other well, and the food was a prelude to a merry chat about the doctor, her prescribing habits, and the practice overall. That woman was a pharma rep, from a different company to the one that published the fake journal.

I discussed all this with my doctor when I got into the examination room and she sighed and said she didn’t know what to do. She relied on the pharma companies for continuing education and technical updates on medication for her patients, and her staff were only getting the same perks that every medical office staff in the building were getting.

It didn’t inspire confidence.

Over the past 15 years, the origins and scope of the opioid epidemic have come into focus, and we’ve learned that this was no accident. Pharma companies — led by Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin, owned by the secretive billionaire Sackler family, who once threatened to sue me for criticizing them — deliberately created the epidemic and made fortunes by doing so.

The plot to addict people to opioids had a lot of moving parts. One arm of it targeted pharmaceutical distributors. McKinsey was brought in to help with this, and they proposed that pharma companies could pay bonuses to distributors based on the number of overdoses in their sales territories:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids-settlement.html

But the key battleground of the opioid crisis was right there, in my doctor’s office, and in thousands of offices just like it. Pharma companies bribed office staff with Starbucks calorie-bombs, and then they bribed docs. They paid docs vast sums of money to give “speeches” at conferences, or paid to fly them and their families to those conferences at swanky tropical resorts. They paid them to do “research,” or paid them to “consult.” These were tissue-thin pretexts for transferring vast sums — sometimes millions — to the doctors most willing to overprescribe their products.

12 years ago, Propublica stood up Dollars for Docs, a searchable database of cash transfers from pharma companies to MDs. The reason a nonprofit newsroom had to step in to provide this critical information to patients? The US government abdicated that responsibility.

https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

Finally, in 2019, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stepped up and launched the more comprehensive and up-to-date “Open Payments” service. Go check whether your doc is on the take!

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/

But these databases offer an incomplete picture of the opioid wars; the only offer a glimpse into one aspect of the outcomes of pharma bribes: how much money changed hands. The Washington Post did yeoman service fleshing out that picture, cross-referencing the list of top bribe recipients with the list of top opioid prescribers:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/mallinckrodt-documents-doctors-sales/

Still, we were only seeing the outputs, not the inputs, so we only had a partial picture of the depravity and callousness of the pharma industry execs who masterminded this plot. That changed earlier this year, when a court settlement with some pharma giants led to the release of 1.4 million internal docs:

https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/opioids/

Now, Propublica offers the first findings from that trove, with Charles Oornstein laying out the internal deliberations and schemes at opioid peddlers, leaving no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of deaths they caused, and the millions of lives they destroyed, were no accident:

https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceuticals-pay-doctors-drugs

Take this chart from Covidien, tracking whether Las Vegas doctors were hitting their prescription targets for the highly addictive opioid Exalgo. An accompanying email from a Covidien rep excitedly recounts using small bribes to turn doctors’ office staff into eager cheerleaders for opioids:

https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/#id=qngf0253

Covidien’s reps followed a script, and they fed back on its efficacy to the company so it could be constantly refined to enable the company to recruit more footsoldiers in its battle to increase opioid use.

Covidien was eventually flogged off to med-tech monopolist (and notorious tax-evader) Medtronic, and the opioid business was spun out into a company called Mallinckrodt — which eventually paid a $1.75b settlement for its opioid tactics (the company refused to admit any guilt).

https://www.mallinckrodt.com/about/news-and-media/news-detail/?id=26491

The company also paid $260m to settle claims related to its program of paying kickbacks to doctors who prescribed its H.P. Acthar Gel, an expensive alternative to cheaper drugs, whose efficacy is, at best, dubious:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-obscure-drug-with-a-growing-medicare-tab

The new document trove will continue to reveal the corrupting influence of pharma companies who view their fines as merely part of the cost of doing business, and who continue to operate and generate dividends for their shareholders and bonuses for their executives.

==

[Image ID: A US $100 bill; Benjamin Franklin's portrait has been replaced with an Oxycontin tablet.]

[Image ID: A chart listing whether LV doctors were prescribing Exalgo.]

[Image ID: A Covidien sales-tracking questionnaire, tracking whether reps 'shared an influential story' by 'transition[ing] effectively to a [company] message while staying on the agenda of the customer,' etc.]

Small thing but thanks for like. Vaguely mentioning your field in passing cuz it gave me the spesific branch of biology that I wanna pursue, ecology! Aka I now have a more spesific target other than "idk, bio."

I think. At least. If I'm wrong then thanks for mentioning ecology's existence in passing at least lol

oh this is such a wild ask to receive since I'm somehow part of this revelation. I'm glad you could figure that out! I hope you have a good time studying it if you decide to pursue that field. I'm actually not an ecologist, but I have taken ecology in college. My bachelor's is in Environmental Science, which is a pretty broad field involving many forms of physical and life sciences. My job has labeled me both "Physical Scientist" and "Life Scientist" at different times, but I'm not doing in lab work, field work, or experiements so some people might argue against the scientist label.

In general, my education and career lean much more heavily into less alluring and less glamorous subjects like pollution, toxic chemicals, energy, landfills, remediation of hazardous waste sites, etc. I do a lot of outreach in my job, typically things like: creating outreach strategies, creating outreach materials, ordering materials, speaking with city and state government employees, speaking with community nonprofits, actively making professional relationships for my organization, organizing symposiums and classes, attending events with educaiton materials, presenting educational material, answering questions from the public. The subject of my job is mostly things about lead poisoning, children's health, public health, environmental regulations, and recycling but I have also spoken about pesticides, brownfields, groundwater pollution, etc.

Much of what I learned in school wasn't, like, pretty nature or wildlife or plants--although that's what everybody thinks I studied. It was about toxic chemicals exposure. Pollution sampling and monitoring. Wastewater treatment and drinking water quality. Remediation techniques like pumping sites, filters, bioremediation, etc. Groundwater hydrology and how pollution moves in aquifers. Environmental law, legal exposure theshholds, how to write risk assessments and quantify risk, etc.

However, there is a very strong overlapping link between ecology as a field and my field--there's a reason I also studied ecology as part of my degree, as well as biology! An ecologist might "classically" study things like how ecosystems work, food chains, wildlife populations, habitats, etc. The intersection with my field comes in with questions like: How does this chemcial spill affect the fish population? What is the impact that this proposed construction project might have on the local ecosystem and is that reason to block the project? How does pesticide runoff from agriculture affect non-target plants and animals?

Anyway, I love ecology. It's one of my favorite branches of science. I would have studied it or gone into it fully but the allure of preventing toxic chemical exposures/cleaning them up was too great xD

I was wondering if i could ask for career advice? I’m going to be a senior in the fall and i’m majoring in english (which i don’t regret at all!) but i realized in the last few months or so that i want to work in govt affairs/politics postgrad....i have work and internship experience, but they‘re pretty much only in the arts/nonprofit fields, and i’m worried about trying to make this transition to a different field. would love to hear anything you might suggest on this!!

Hmm okay, this is extremely late but let me bullet it out for you guys:

Learn how to work with Excel (and don't just lie about it on your resume lol). You don't have to learn to code (although if you have an aptitude for it, go for it), but being proficient with Excel as well stuff like SPSS can be really lucrative. It's what I did with a humanities major!

Network a lot. Just make friends and keep them. Communication and retaining connections goes a long way!

Be extremely polite to everybody you meet. Things like thank you notes, and going the extra mile interpersonally, holding doors (metaphorically and literally) can make or break your career.

For changing to government or politics, just read everything you can get your hands on. Be as knowledgeable in the subject area you want to work in as possible, so if the opportunity arises, you can show off.

Don't hesitate to talk yourself up or brag about yourself like there's nothing wrong with being scrappy and ambitious, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Make friends with your coworkers, especially those at a similar level as you, and collaborate when possible, and teach other skills that you guys might each be lacking.

If all else fails, go to law school lol. For the LSAT, take a lot of practice tests, and don't waste your money on a class like I self-studied and got a 178 (and then didn't go to law school lmao) so it's absolutely possible. .

You: When Is Piracy Ethical?

There are number of contributing factors to Tumblr’s enthusiasm for pirating. We are heavily invested in the media we consume, and it is easy to interpret (sometimes accurately) copyright as a weapon used by publishers and distant descendants of long-dead authors to restrict creativity and representation in adaptations of beloved texts. There are also legitimate barriers that keep us from legally obtaining media, whether that is the physical or digital inaccessibility of our local libraries and library websites, financial concerns, or censorship on an institutional or familial level. In fact, studies have found that 41% of book pirates also buy books, implying that a lot of illegal piracy is an attempt at format shifting (ripping CDs onto your computer to access them as MP3 files, for example, or downloading a digital copy of a book you already own in order to use the search feature).

The interesting thing is that copyright law in the U.S. has a specific loophole to allow for legal format shifting for accessibility purposes. This is due to the Chafee Amendment (17 U.S.C. § 121), passed in 1996, which focused on making published print material more available to people with disabilities that interfere with their ability to read print books, such as blindness, severe dyslexia and any physical disability that makes holding and manipulating a print book prohibitively difficult. In practice, this means nonprofits and government agencies in the U.S. are allowed to create and distribute braille, audio and digital versions of copyrighted books to eligible people without waiting for permission from the copyright holder. While this originally only applied to “nondramatic literary works,” updates to the regulations have been made as recently as 2021 to include printed work of any genre and to expand the ways “print-disabled” readers can be certified. Programs like Bookshare, Learning Ally, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print-Disabled no longer require certification from a medical doctor to create an account. The Internet Archive also uses the Chafee Amendment to break their Controlled Digital Lending regulations for users with print disabilities. While applications of the Chafee Amendment are still heavily regulated, it is worth noting that even U.S. copyright law acknowledges the ways copyright contributes to making information inaccessible to a large amount of people.

Accessibility is not the only argument when discussing the morality of pirating. For some people, appreciation for piracy and shadow libraries comes from a background in archival work and an awareness how much of our historical archives today wouldn’t exist without pirated copies of media being made decades or even a century ago. But we have to be more careful about the way we talk about piracy. Though piracy is often talked about as a victimless crime, this is not always the case, and each one of us has a responsibility to critically think about our place in the media market and determine our own standards for when piracy is ethical. In some cases, such as the recent conversation surrounding the Harry Potter game, some people may even decide that pirating is a more ethical alternative to purchasing. Here are a few questions to consider when deciding whether or not to pirate a piece of media:

Have you exhausted all other avenues for legally purchasing, renting or borrowing a copy of this media?

Is the alternative to pirating this media purchasing it or not reading/referencing it at all? If the former, how are you justifying the piracy?

Who is the victim of this particular piracy? Whether or not you think the creator(s) deserve to have their work pirated, you need to acknowledge there is someone who would otherwise be paid for their work.

If every consumer pirated this media, what would the consequences be? Would you be willing to claim responsibility for that outcome?

If you got this far,  thank you so much for reading! It is genuine work to try and understand the complexity behind every day decisions, especially when the topic at hand is as complicated as the modern digital lending crisis. Doing this research has changed the way that I understand and interact with digital media, and I hope you have found it informational as well.

Further Reading:

Panorama Project Releases Immersive Media & Books 2020 Research Report by Noorda and Berens

The Chafee Amendment: Improving Access To Information

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials

National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled

Books For People With Print Disabilites: The Internet Archive

Bookshare

Learning Ally

Index:

MASTER POST

First-Sale Doctrine & the Economics of E-books

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

The “National Emergency Library” & Hachette v. Internet Archive

Authors, Publishers & You

-- Authors: Ideology v. Practicality

-- Publishers: What Authors Are Paid

-- You: When Is Piracy Ethical?

Yes. Gib Snyder backstory

C/W: child trafficking

OKAY :D

For context, the guy playing Snyder either works or used to work with nonprofits and is very familiar with the worst parts of how orphanages work, so he's drawing from people he really knew...

ALRIGHT. So Snyder started life as the only child of a very poor couple, but around 9 or 10 they both died very abruptly. Young Snyder was sent to live with his uncle, who ran an orphanage known as The Refuge.

Snyder's uncle had no family of his own, so he immediately started training his nephew to take over The Refuge, something Snyder had absolutely no interest in, but he also had little desire to try anything else. Running the orphanage was at least a guaranteed job, and when he learned as a teenager that the government paid for every child kept in The Refuge he became a lot more interested.

Snyder honestly saw himself as no different from the orphans - after all, he was one too. But instead of this fostering empathy he instead looked down on them. If he had managed to become successful, then the fact they were just wasting space was a sign of their own worthlessness, and he was quick to dehumanize them all in his mind. At the end of the day, Snyder looks out for himself, and all he cares about is making money so he never has to be like his parents or uncle.

Under his leadership The Refuge expanded exponentially, increasing the number of children they accepted and thus increasing the amount of money he was getting from the government for their upkeep. As Jack notes, none of that money went into The Refuge - it all went straight into Snyder's lavish lifestyle. And yet he wasn't satisfied.

Men like Snyder have a way of finding each other, and the man soon secured connections that allowed him to open a little side business out the back of the orphanage. People would pay good money for kids that no one would miss, and Snyder had his pick of children that fit the description perfectly.

On September 21, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would officially begin conscripting people to fight in the country’s war against Ukraine. Contrary to what the bulk of media coverage has suggested, cisgender men aren’t the only people at risk of being sent to war. Some cisgender women and transgender people are at risk of being drafted, too — potentially a lot of them, given that the call-up could apply to as many as 1.2 million Russians. The Feminist Anti-War Resistance and the nonprofit Center-T recently spoke to legal experts about what cis women and trans people should know about the mobilization. Meduza summarizes their advice.

According to Tamilla Imanova, a lawyer from the Memorial Human Rights Center who recently spoke to the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAS), the women most likely to be called up for Russia’s mobilization are those who have degrees in certain fields as determined by Russian law: medicine, communications, computer engineering, hydrology and meteorology, printing, and cartography.

“All women are assigned to the third category of Russia’s reserve forces,” said Imanova. “Women with the rank of officer remain in the reserve until 50 years old, while all others are taken off at 45 years old. Unfortunately, the fact that women are in the third [of three] categories doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be the last to be drafted.”

Instead, she said, who gets drafted will depend on which skills are in demand at the front. And this has already begun to play out: in just the last three days, there have been numerous reports in the Russian media of people with medical degrees receiving draft orders “en masse,” Imanova said.

Certain women in these categories, however, will be spared from mobilization — at least temporarily. According to Imanova, women in the following categories are eligible for deferment:

Women who have at least one child younger than 16 years old, as well as women who are at least 22 weeks pregnant;

Women in reserved occupations as spelled out by the Russian Government (though the only way to find out whether you’re in this category is to asked your employer; the official documents outlining which occupations are reserved are classified)

Women declared temporarily unfit for service due to health issues (for up to six months)

Women responsible for providing constant care to family members or to people with certain disabilities

Women whose mothers have four or more children under the age of 8 and who care for the children in place of their father

Women who work in the defense sector (only for the duration of their employment)

‘Some want to flee, but others can’t — because of their husbands and children’

One woman who works as a doctor spoke to the FAS about how her work has changed since mobilization was announced — and about her fear that she’ll be drafted. As a medical professional, she said, she’s required to report to her local military commissariat if summoned. She’s also not allowed to change her place of residence during mobilization without the military commissariat’s permission.

But because the Russian authorities are trying to have it both ways, maintaining that this mobilization is only “partial,” the doctor has had difficulty keeping up with the specifics, she told the FAS.

“I get my information about the ‘partial mobilization’ and its various odd rules from Telegram channels,” she said. “Every day, it's something new. We don’t get any clear information.”

The woman said a number of employees at her workplace were granted exemptions from the draft, but she wasn’t one of them — and it appears to be too late to get one.

In addition, she told the FAS, the higher-ups at her workplace don’t seem to be concerned about the mobilization at all. “It wasn’t until [September 23] that the head of my department learned that some people hadn’t been granted exemptions,” she wrote, “so 🤡.”

So far, said the woman, nobody at her hospital has received a summons — though it’s only been three days. “There’s one guy who [previously] served in the army,” she said, “and he’s been pale as a ghost.”

She told the FAS that she felt “anxious and panicky,” and that every time she’s found herself idle since mobilization was announced, she’s started shaking. “The other women are in shock, too; some of them are thinking about fleeing the country, while others can’t, because of their husbands and children. [...] The only good thing is that because I’m a woman, I don’t have ‘medic’ written on my forehead, so at least they won’t grab me off of the street.”

A lawyer’s advice for trans people

Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin’s mobilization order doesn’t mention trans people directly, many of them could still be subject to conscription. Center-T, an advocacy group for trans people in Russia, asked Alexander, a lawyer, what trans people seeking not to be drafted need to know.

According to Alexander, if a transfeminine person has a female gender marker in her passport and doesn’t have a degree in a "military occupational" field but was once included in the draft registry, she’s legally supposed to have notified her local military commissariat of her passport change when it was completed. Failing to inform the commissariate is punishable by a fine. Nonetheless, Alexander recommends that anybody in that situation keep quiet for now — unless they receive a summons, in which case he offered a template for requesting to be removed from the draft registry.

Transmasculine people who have male gender markers in their passports are probably not on the military authorities’ radar unless they’ve gone to their local commissariat and requested to be added to the draft registry, Alexander said. There is a chance, however, that somebody could be spotted by a law enforcement official and reported to his local military commissariat, which might require him to register for the draft. In that case, he should insist that he’s unfit for military service when he appears before the medical evaluation board, which every conscripted soldier is required to do before being sent to a combat zone.

In the past, however, the Russian Defense Ministry has done everything in its power to “disown” trans people, including by categorizing them as “unfit for military service” when there’s no legitimate reason to, according to Alexander. Even if a transmasculine person is deemed to be fit for military service after an initial medical evaluation, the lawyer said, he’s legally allowed to submit a written statement demanding an additional one — and that's likely his best option.

PERSPECTIVE Q FOR U if you have the time!! Ive always dreamed of going back to school but my performance in undergrad was so unbalanced (straight A's for 3 semesters, then a withdrawal, then more A's then failing then incomplete etc.) And while my professors were incredible (and even asked me to do join a phd in archiving WHICH I SHOULD HAVE DONE!!!!!) and i remember almost everything we read and learned i didnt have a lot of direction and was im afraid a p mediocre student in the end. Since then i've been in government in DC and its been fantastic getting some impactful policy experience and the like but at this point its been almost half a decade out of school and i dont even know how to begin!! The trump "administration" was such a bonkers time to be a civil servant lol but DID help clarify the things i want now and the goals i want to achieve (crazy stuff like "feed hungry ppl," and "don't fuck up the earth too badly") almost definitely mean i have to go back for something. Idk do you have any colleagues/personal experience in making these kinds of academic pivots? I dont have any huge pedigree either im a state school scholarship girlie and the informational interviews ive done with dc area nonprofits and things have left me....less than impressed (lots of ivy leagues, lots of uhh baseline assumptions). Ok sorry this got long and reminiscent of reddit i'd love to hear your thoughts!

As ever, my advice would start with: is it financially feasible, do you know what degree you want (i.e. public policy, politics, economics, global affairs, is it something related to your present work or a total 180) and what school you want to go to, are you in the position to leave your current job, etc.?

Since you've been in the workforce for a while, that's practical experience that would help, and be easy to demonstrate for why you need the degree to enhance your career. If they do have questions about your uneven undergraduate transcript, hopefully you could get in contact with some old professors who could vouch for you and confirm that they invited you to the PhD program. Then again, graduate schools tend to be fairly forgiving as long as you can make a good case for why you want to join their program and adequately explain your previous academic career. I work at a good/highly-ranked private school, and our minimum GPA for admission to a graduate program is only 2.5. So there is probably more leeway than you think, if you're worried about your undergrad grades being an issue, and it's not like you have to be 4.0 in everything. Practical experience and a solid track record in a relevant field will also be helpful in demonstrating that you've done more since that time.

Likewise, and as ever: what is the financial situation? Are you in a position to leave your job, if that was to be necessary, and what kind of financial aid package can they give you? Is it mostly grants or mostly loans? Do you have, say, a partner who can continue to work and support you? Does the graduate program offer tuition support and/or a living stipend? As I've said before, they really should be paying YOU to do an advanced degree, rather than anything out of your own pocket. Is it possible to go half-time or full-time, and do you know how you want to apply it to your career when you're finished? Is there maybe an online program where you could take classes in the evening and/or in between work, or do you want the full campus experience? Do you perhaps just want a professional certificate or other enhancement to your qualifications, without having to spend the time and money on a full graduate degree?

Anyway, I obviously do support you if this is something you decide to pursue, and I think it's plenty doable. You'll have to do some logistics planning on your end and clarify what you want and where you want to go and what they'll give you in terms of money, but it's definitely something that can be achieved!

Kendra F. Senior Coordinator of Research and Knowledge Mobilization at Volunteer Alberta.

Kendra Fincaryk is the Senior Coordinator of Research and Knowledge Mobilization at Volunteer Alberta. Volunteer Alberta focus on promoting civic engagement and volunteerism throughout the province, primarily by utilizing a network of volunteer centers. Essentially, they work on connecting and catalyzing this kind of community to make it easier, better, and more fulfilling for volunteers to be volunteers

Can you trace your involvement with the CSL Program?

I only participated in one CSL class, a Knowledge Mobilization course (PSYCH 505), a course designed for students who have had a Community Service-Learning experience or have considerable volunteer experience and wish to gain a deeper understanding of civic engagement and community changes. Students can investigate community engagement as a means of knowing the political contexts of volunteerism, self- and social narratives, concepts of community and citizenship, and community-based research methods. 

I first got involved because I was interested in the topic, but I was doubly excited when I learnt that there was a CSL component. Since I transferred from the University of Ottawa to the University of Alberta in my third year as an Honors Psych Student and getting involved in my community was really important for me, CSL could help me find some grounding in a new place. Therefore, I did a work experience internship through the science internship program for sixteen months, and when I got back, I learned a bit more about the CSL program, and that's how I got to know about CSL. 

Why did you choose to incorporate CSL students into your organization?

Being one of the first CSL students to work at Volunteer Alberta and knowing the experience I brought to the table during that time made me want to advocate for CSL students. Students can bring in fresh perspectives and bolster our work, especially since we often have a plethora of data to sift through. As a nonprofit, we're really limited in the amount of funding we have and the amount of staff we have, so taking on eager, engaging students was an excellent way for us to not only be able to provide experience for them as they get their hands on community-based research but also a way for us to be able to analyze and report data that we might not have been able to previously do as well as utilize the great knowledge that CSL students can bring forward.

What do CSL students learn in their placements?

CSL students can learn a lot because Volunteer Alberta is a diverse place that provides opportunities to grow in various areas. For example, one of our departments focuses on youth engagement. One of my first roles at Volunteer Alberta was working with the Youth At The Table Program, which gets youth involved in board governance. My role included qualitative data analysis followed by a knowledge mobilization activity.

Mainly, CSL students would be doing research-based activities, whether that be assisting with focus groups, interviews, survey development, data analysis, or communications design. We want to ensure that the work that we do is something that our community needs, and that our processes reflect that.

What have CSL and CSL students added to your organization?

CSL students have brought a lot of fresh perspectives. Especially being a nonprofit, this is a sector few know about, so it can seem very complicated to look into when trying to comprehend the structure of it all. It’s nice to have students come in and be that perspective of questioning what we're doing and pick apart why we do certain things this way or provide suggestions for how we can work more efficiently. Curiosity and inquisitiveness are valued in our organization, and we really like allowing people to flourish. Students have such a great capacity to do that with Volunteer Alberta. 

What have you learned by being involved with CSL?

In terms of being involved in CSL as a former student, personally starting as a student and taking this Knowledge and Mobilization course has helped me better understand the nonprofit sector. Also, the added factor is that I would have never gotten this job if it weren't for CSL. I started my CSL placement in January 2022 and volunteered with the organization as an evaluations intern that summer. Then that fall, I was recruited part-time during my final semester of school. Afterwards, I was hired full-time in January (working two different roles initially to be a full-time employee), received a full-time contract and have been working here ever since.

For me, not only did I learn about the nonprofit sector, I was able to develop many connections while working with an organization that cares about its employees. Also, through CSL, it was cool to see the other work students in my class had done and the impact a program like that could have on the community. 

When I continued volunteering with Volunteer Alberta after my placement, it was cool to feel valued as a person. The sense that often, I think, unfortunately, the university system tends to say, "you're an undergrad; you don't know anything" or "you need to cite your work" because your opinion doesn't matter yet. However, the organization I'm working in is incredible because I found that people valued my thoughts, opinions, and knowledge, which I was grateful to be able to experience.

If you can, sum up your experience with CSL in one sentence.

I'm a woman of many words, so I'll try my best. 

"My CSL experience was very validating and rewarding."

This organization valued me so much as a student, not even as a student, a person, a potential employee, and someone who had knowledge and experience. So my CSL experience was very validating as well as fulfilling. As a student, before my full-time contract, I learned many concepts and skills from the CSL course, which allowed me to bring my knowledge from class to the real world in a way that was rewarding for myself and the organization.

Hello! I'm currently in college, but still don't know my major and it's stressing me out. I'm an Autistic ENFJ who at the bottom of my heart is inquisative and someone who craves creativity even though I'm not creative or artistic. I also like helping people (im in student government and a disability rights activist). Any ideas on what I should major in?

i'm not sure why i of all people have gotten this question, but I'll give you my best. i just picked art because I was the art kid in high school and I liked doing art so sure why not

creativity doesn't have to be in the form of art, a lot of creativity is found in solving problems, which can apply to a lot of fields, science, math, medicine, business, etc.

if you're interested in student government and are an activist, have you considered political science? you could get into communications and learn how to effectively communicate with other people or, if you like math, get a degree in statistics so you can help provide quality data to influence government policy and help share data about ableism and its effects.

tbh after 6 years of working at a business school I think a business degree is really useful too. every single company or nonprofit works off of the principles you learn in a business program. anywhere you're going to have a job is going to operate off those concepts, which makes that knowledge valuable.

or, alternatively, you could start your own company. there are a lot of companies and nonprofits that have been started by people who want to help

i hope that is some kind of help??

Political (Part 2)

A while ago I wrote about being political. Sometimes I am political on this blog. But I am limited in how I am political. I work for a nonprofit (gonna keep this vague). According to the government, nonprofiits (501c3s) cannot advocate for a political candidate or spend a certain amount of their time or budget on lobbying. This is the same as churches. While there are political nonprofits (501c4s often), I am not a part of them and they do not encompass most camps. Because I work for a nonprofit, I cannot be seen as politically active in these ways if I am seen as representing (in any way) my nonprofit.

Youth empowerment, especially focused on girls, is inherently political, for better or worse. Youth are also touched by pretty much every issue in the world in their own unique ways. And some things that shouldn’t be political are.

I think a lot about my duty to be political as someone who works with youth and someone who just exists in the world. What can I truly do? I am one little person. I make a difference in the world by letting children experience science and the outdoors. What business do I have espousing policy?

I have a policy degree. I don’t think I’ve shared much about it, but half of my master’s is social policy. Mostly I studied policy analysis, research. But that’s not what I do now.

I understand not everyone wants to be political and that some people would rather I not be political. But everyone is affected by politics, and so am I. So I will continue to speak out about issues that effect camp and youthwork. And I hope that you will oblige me, and maybe even learn something.