School Budget Cuts
In Other Words wants to hear how budget cuts are affecting your school. Leave us a comment or send us your pictures and videos.
Our email address is inotherwords@kqed.org.About In Other Words
In Other Words is part of the Digital Natives project, a CPB funded partnership between Youth Radio and KQED Public Media.
Do you sext?
According to a study released today by The Pew Internet and American Life Project 4% of teens ages 12-17 who own cell phones say they have “sexted” or sent sexually suggestive photos or videos of themselves to someone else. 15% say they have received such images of someone they know. Tell us, is sexting cause for concern or does the older generation just not get it? Are you suprised by the study’s findings? Leave your opinion in the comments section.
Please note: At the beginning of the show, host Michael Krasny checks in briefly with Rob Schmitz, KQED’s Los Angeles bureau chief currently covering the climate summit in Copenhagen.
Students Fight For Human Rights at COP15
By Molly Samuel
While hundreds of protesters were arrested in Copenhagen last weekend, thousands of other people representing countries, research institutions, businesses, and non-government organizations (NGOs) went on talking and negotiating at the
United Nations climate conference. Delegates to the fifteenth Conference of Parties, or COP15 (it’s not an abbreviation for Copenhagen even though it looks like it could be) are trying to work out an international agreement on reducing and adapting to climate change. Balance is tough to find: many nations have not been able to meet the goals they signed on for with the Kyoto Protocol, which was the previous treaty signed in 1997.
So the negotiators are inside negotiating and the protesters are outside protesting, and there’s a lot of room in between for everyone else to get together and talk about tech innovations, new scientific findings, human rights, animal life, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are side events, kiosks, tents, panels, discussions, debates, and press conferences. And in the midst of Nobel laureates and seasoned professionals, there are young people presenting their views and their research.
Read more
Does Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill Have American Roots?
By Emmanuel Hapsis
Editor’s note: Updated on 12/15/09
Something important is happening in Uganda, but unless you watch The Rachel Maddow Show, you probably haven’t heard much about it. There is a proposed bill (officially called “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill”) in the Uganda parliament that proposes to execute people for having homosexual sex and for being gay and HIV positive. Recently, news outlets reported that Ugandan officials had bowed to international pressure and had removed execution and life-imprisonment from the bill, but David Bahati, a major proponent of the bill, recently denied those reports. The bill is severe with or without the death penalty: it calls for a three year jail penalty for anyone who fails to turn in someone they know to be gay, a seven year sentence for “attempting to commit the offense of homosexuality,” forced “conversion therapy,” and the extradition of any Ugandan who is living abroad and suspected of being gay.
So where did the Ugandan legislators get the idea for this bill? According to Maddow and Time magazine, the work of prominent American evangelicals such as Rick Warren and books such as The Pink Swastika and Coming Out Straight have been used to justify the Ugandan legislation. Below is Maddow’s interview with Richard Cohen, author of Coming Out Straight.
It is important to note that Rick Warren, Pink Swastika author Scott Lively, and several members of the group “The Family,” to which Maddow refers, all recently released statements to the American media denouncing the Ugandan bill.
Further Coverage of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill: Inspired by the U.S. at Time Magazine
White House Condemns Uganda Bill at the Advocate.com
A commentary by Log Cabin Republicans spokesman Charles T. Moran at NPR.org
A Youth Take on San Francisco Panorama
By Eric Gneckow
If you have ever tried to fit your Volkswagen into the refrigerator, then you know what it is like to carry home a copy of San Francisco Panorama. Many newborns weigh less than this newspaper, and finding a space for it in my backpack made me want to trade my journalism degree for an engineering one.
In fact, the act of portaging a newspaper has become decreasingly common for me since graduating this May. Amid the disordered and time-consuming lifestyle change from scholastic newsman to 23-year-old retail stooge, I visit my bank’s website more frequently than I peruse SF Gate.
Yet here was this nuclear bomb of a thing, San Francisco Panorama, the latest edition of Dave Eggers’ quarterly journal McSweeney’s. . . with two magazines spilling out of it and a wingspan to match its epic heaviness. But my awe quickly resolved into an urge to protect it. I would soon learn about its massive mix of graphics, investigative features and subtle humor, but right now I only knew that it was something very special. Only on the safe real estate of my living room floor would it again see the light of day.
What I uncovered after peeling back the first enormous page was a love story for knowledge and a call to arms for those who want to know. San Francisco Panorama is a celebration of news that plays out like a choose-your-own adventure, each path rich with the merits of print. It is the punch line to a long joke that reveals the reality of our modern media landscape: that podcasts, Twitter and YouTube are, as far as most news is concerned, profoundly annoying. Long live print.
“This,” I thought before pausing at a two-page color spread depicting the electromagnetic interactions of the Earth and Sun, “is the dangerous, heroic thing that can move a nation. This. . . is news!”
Read more
Word of the Week: Afghanistan
Each week, KQED interns tackle a different word that is dominating headlines. The word for the first week in December was Afghanistan, with just about every show in our newsroom covering President Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to the country. Watch what the interns have to say. If your interest is piqued, listen to an episode of Forum that discusses Obama’s decision or The California Report’s story on reactions to news of a possible surge. There are also links to more resources below.
Forum discusses the troop surge:
The California Report talks to liberals about the likely troop surge:
Other articles, shows and resources to help you learn more about Afghanistan:
Black Friday Defined
One of the interesting things about working in a newsroom is the language (and no, I’m not talking about the colorful, expletive kind) and how a term can saturate conversation one minute and disappear completely the next. Remember, hanging chads, subprime mortgages and our most recent example– the S-curve? Those of us at In Other Words thought it would fun and well, perhaps even helpful, to define one buzzy phrase a week. We started with an easy one: Black Friday.
What terms would you like us to define?
UC Regents Approve Tuition Hikes
Despite protests at University of California campuses across the state, the UC regents voted today to approve a tuition increase that brings the yearly cost of attending a UC to over $10,000. Rob Schmitz filed this report for KQED Radio News.
Huge Enrollment Cuts at CSU
KQED Radio News reported this week that the California State University system will cut almost 10% of its current enrollment– that’s about 40,000 students.
Forum: UC Berkeley’s Sports Budget
Universities across the state are facing budget shortfalls, resulting in cut classes, faculty walkouts, and spending scrutiny. Close attention is being paid to funding allocation and non-academic areas, like sports, are feeling the heat. The athletic/academic divide is not new but has renewed passion in these tight economic times. Some in the UC Berkeley community are calling for an end to athletic department subsidies. Listen to the discussion on Forum and read more at the DailyCal.org.
The Slow Wheels of Change
By Will Sprecher
As a Democrat and a political news addict, I am constantly rifling through all number of news stories about the happenings in Congress and the Obama administration. It’s a habit that’s been a bit discouraging lately due to the logjam that is health care overhaul. I am thrilled by the progress that has been made, but, my god, has it been slow coming. I try reminding myself that this stuff takes time but I had no idea it took this much time. I figured Obama would get elected, and boom, change. Done and done, Great Society achieved. But not quite.
The sluggish pace of progress has left me feeling like a child demanding attention. I want to scream, “Where’s my change? I want it now!” while banging my fists on my desk. Given that this week marks the anniversary of Obama’s election, you know every news station and pundit will rate Obama’s effectiveness thus far. Some, like CBS, were critical 6-months in, citing the economic stimulus package and health care as proof of Obama’s broken promises. Fox News, recently added an “Obama Change Index“ that uses a seemingly arbitrary scale of 0-700. Currently Obama rates just over 370 on the index. But as fun as the Fox index might be to play with and as tempting as it might be to label Obama as the harbinger of false hope, we must remember the politics of progress are complicated.
I tend to forget this. Read more
-
RSS FEED
Subscribe to our blog feed and you'll never miss a post!