Weapon of mass dissent.

Fancy this. A Census report (which I cannot find on the Webternet--can you?) finds that income among bachelor's degree holders varies with sex and race.

Here's the story: Black, Asian women with college degree outearn white women

Among women with bachelor's degrees:

• Asian women average $43,700 annually;
• Black women average $41,100;
• White women average $37,800;
• Hispanic women average $37,600.

(If you're wondering how these numbers compare to the general population breakdown by race...then you're like me. Here's a link to get you started: national population estimates - characteristics)

Add about 18 grand to those numbers and you've got the income stats for men with bachelor's degrees:

• $66 grand for a white male;
• $52,000 for an Asian male;
• $49,000 for a Hispanic male;
• $45,000 for an African-American male.

What do you suppose this all means?

***********************
Some other noteworthy facts on the Census site: College degree nearly doubles annual earnings, Census Bureau reports
(all numbers are for 2004 and for people over 25. This is a very short press release.)

• Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana had the highest proportions of people with high school degrees--around 91%.
• Women tended to graduate high school slightly more frequently than do men; 85.4% to 84.8%.
• A larger proportion of men than women had a bachelor's degree or higher (29.4% to 26.1%).
• While 90% of non-Hispanic whites had graduated from high school or higher, 58.4% of Hispanics had attained the same level.

The first statistic interests me the most. Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana...solid red states, are they not? Consider this prevalence of high school education in light of the various controversies in Red America regarding creationism and evolution qua "theory".

• Jim Lehrer's Newshour did a very interesting story today about the issue (note particularly how one teacher approaches creationism by allowing students to voice their beliefs before they learn anything about evolution; note also that the religious right does not do well with scientific jargon like "theory")
• An NYTimes op-ed today described how some Imax theaters in the South have stopped playing science documentaries because some viewers have considered the content blasphemous.

Blasphemous? Those documentaries scarcely even touch the surface; they are primarily designed to delight--really, to maximize the incredible audiovisual experience--not teach, and they don't exactly focus on the hard science in astronomy, anthropology, geology, whatever. If these are blasphemy, telescopes and the periodic table are anathema.

OK, I'm going to quickly metamorphose into and out of "Saqib's Ethics Corner", and here's why:

1) I haven't posted in some time; and
2) Another reason I'm not telling you.

My talented roommate owns two guinea pigs ("Sake" and "Chianti"). [I call him 'talented' because he will be attending a high-caliber graduate school on the east coast in August.] I don't know the reason behind it, but he says that he will not be able to take his pets to grad school. It likely has to do with inconvenience, or trauma or something.

So what is his broadest set of options? Adoption. The pound (i.e. euthanasia). Release into wild. I think those are the only ones we discussed.

What he asked me: Would it be inhumane to euthanize his guinea pigs? I pass this question on to you. What do you think?

Some points to consider:
-Know any psychobiology? (A guinea pig's subjective experience)
-Society does not value guinea pigs' lives.
-One of the GPs was smuggled out of a lab to begin with.
-Gordon is at least the 2nd owner of these pets.
-They are both female.
-Spiritual/metaphysical considerations are fair game.

Have at it. I'm going to dig up some reading about guinea pigs in the laboratory.

Did you see Bobby's comment on my news media post from a couple days back? C'mon, let him/me/yourself have it with both barrels.

As for myself, I've got a response marinating in my brain-skul...coming soon. Prepare for blast-off.

Peace.

Hello all--let's make a list. Whoever sees this post: please tell us at least ONE thing that you READ regularly, i.e. thrice or more weekly. (I capitalize/embolden for the finals-weary among you, whose attention spans flicker like a graphic equalizer on a home stereo--to say nothing of your comprehension spans)

Maybe you read the news compiled by search engines like Google and Yahoo. If so, which one(s)?

If you're moi, and you consider yourself above (and beneath) decency, you might read this.

If you're Bobby, you can't make it through the day without FoxNews.com and a protein shake.

Allo--

These guys--the Pew Internet and American Life Project--are going to be my best friends. They're focusing on the internet as it affects social, political, personal life etc. They primarily use phone survey, but they try to understand their findings in the context of other internet-related research and theory.

So, good for them. Good for Saqibr. Everybody (except you?) is happy.

One of their more recent findings had to do with whether people know the difference between actual 'matches' and 'sponsored links' when they use Google, MSN search, or Yahoo. Click if the suspense is killing you.

Don't let anybody, myself included, tell you it's all bad.

Japanese soldiers reach out to Acehnese with music, medicine

A quote from one of the soldiers:
"We will never forget the faces of the children and people here. They are all very friendly. With such a warm welcome, we forget that we are in a foreign country."

Another (unhindered as it goes to text on the wasted plains of the WWW) idea:

Do you think it's possible GW Bush predicates his own image on Forrest Gump's?

I just had an idea. Let's see what you think.

So news media, as you know, are consolidating more and more. That is, independent news outlets are being increasingly purchased by large media conglomerates like Viacom, Knight-Ridder, MSN, and so on. (See this page for some sobering knowledge on that topic.)

Some people, myself among them, are concerned that this ownership structure can affect the quality of journalism. For instance, some of us suggest that news outlets owned by corporations can become beholden to the interests of that corporation. For example, a TV news station might avoid an OBVIOUS local story about the negative effects of smoking, simply because its ownership is allied with tobacco execs.

I read this study last Fall finding that news media outlets covered the 1996 Telecom Act (which deregulated media ownership--made it easier to own more media companies) favorably or negatively almost consistently with their ownership's stakes in the Act. That is, news media outlets that had nothing to gain from the Act...criticized it. And vice versa.

So, here's my big idea (now upstaged by my long-winded preface):
If it's a foregone conclusion that news outlets won't criticize their parent companies, why don't they criticize OTHER parent companies?

Or do they?

Respond!