TresSugar

YouTube Video of Fort Bragg Gets Results

CitizenSugar — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:00:18 -0700

We've been focused on the ills of YouTube lately, but here's one story where the website was used for good instead of evil. Army dad Edward Frawley paid a welcome home visit on his 22-year-old son - just returning from a tour of duty with the 82nd Airborne Division in the mountains of Afghanistan - and he was shocked to see the deplorable conditions of his son's barracks at Fort Bragg, NC.

In our high-tech age when we want to send a grievance we don't have to wait for a carrier pigeon - and Frawley didn't. He put together this thoughtfully narrated 10 minute video telling the story of his son and showing the conditions, which included moldy walls, a bathroom that looked flooded with sewage, uncapped sewage pipes and peeling paint.

In just a few days, Senator Elizabeth Dole of NC had declared the condition of the barracks “wholly unacceptable and it must be immediately corrected.” She contacted the Army secretary and just three days after the YouTube clip was posted, the Army responded to the claims. Repairs are under way, and the creative response seems to have spurred action.

Is this a happy ending, or a story highlighting a bigger problem? Are you surprised to see this dad had to take matters to the court of YouTube?

Should the Government Tell People to Lose Weight?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:15:45 -0700

Big Mac attacks in Tokyo have caused expanding Japanese waistlines to spur the government into action. Statistics collected by Japan's government found on average, Japanese men are 10 percent heavier than they were only 10 years ago, and the women are catching up. The solution? The government is requiring employers to slim the number of overweight employees by 10 percent by 2012 and 25 percent by 2015. The belt-circumference limit is 34 inches for men, and 35 inches for the gals.

Earlier this year, the UK government started toying with the notions of healthy food vouchers and cash prizes for slimming down. Ministers said the Health Service said:

We will look at using financial incentives, such as payments, vouchers, and other rewards, to encourage individuals to lose weight and sustain that weight loss, to eat more healthily, or to be consistently more physically active.

Some employers in the US are side stepping the government and taking matters into their own hands - incentives for weight loss are common, with some up to as much as $50 per month for employees who achieve and maintain a loss of 30 percent of body weight. There's a whole program called IncentaHealth that advertises incentivizing health by paying employees to drop pounds, will "improve your bottom line." The idea might not be far off, as a new report shows obesity costs US employers $45 billion a year.

Is it the government's place to say what size pants you need? Are they right to get involved?

Source

Two Tales of "Good Enough For Government Work"

CitizenSugar — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:00:05 -0700

Well, the US government might be taking that old chestnut a tad too literally today. Check out these two blunders of bureaucratic proportions.

Over at the Department of Homeland Security, the top immigration enforcement official ordered the destruction of photographs of an office Halloween party. The pictures showed a white agency employee dressed as a black detainee. The staff member who won the “most original costume” prize wore a dreadlock wig, what looked like a prison jumpsuit and black face paint. The employee said, “I’m a Jamaican detainee from Krome - obviously, I’ve escaped,” referring to a detention center in Miami.

Julie L. Myers, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security For Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ordered that the photos be removed from a digital camera in a “coordinated effort to conceal” her role in awarding one of the top costume prizes to the employee.

Want to see who's spending government money on Internet dating services? read more.

An audit by the Government Accountability Office released by Senate lawmakers yesterday found that nearly half the "purchase card" transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements allowing the bucks to be spent.

Federal employees forked over government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner. The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit - including laptop computers, digital cameras, and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

Well, shoot. Those certainly aren't the most flattering government stories I've heard today. Are you going to call them up and ask for the iPod your tax money purchased? How do you think these stories of government corruption stack up against those around the world?

Source

Private Security Contractors Gone Wild in Afghanistan

TresSugar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:00:00 -0700

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a letter on Tuesday from Project on Government Oversight (POGO), and I’m sure she didn’t like what she saw. It was reported that private security contractors ArmorGroup North America guarding the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, have been behaving not like professionals responsible for keeping American government workers safe, but like crazed frat boys on a particularly debaucherous Spring break.

What have they been up to? According to the letter, "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drunken brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity."

Apparently, this has been going on under the not-so-watchful eye of supervisors, creating a kind of hazing environment that has caused many incoming guards to leave within a year of arriving. Some guards claimed that they actually had to barricade themselves in their rooms because they were afraid that if they didn’t participate in this depraved bacchanal, they would be physically harmed.

This would be unacceptable behavior coming from adults at a frat house, but not only is ArmorGroup North America funded by taxpayers (to the tune of $189 million a year!), but they're also in charge of safeguarding the lives of hundreds of diplomats and other officials who work in the embassy. A representative for the security contractors testified before Congress and said ArmorGroup has been fully staffed since January 2009, but a POGO rep says that they’re chronically understaffed, overworked, and now that these allegations are out - subject to hazing abuse.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly had this to say about the shocking news and graphic pictures (NSFW): "These are very serious allegations and we are treating them that way," adding that the State Department has "zero tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged in these documents."

POGO

East vs. West: Berlin Wall Divided Two Attitudes Toward Nudity

TresSugar — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:00:49 -0800

When the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago last week, East and West Germany had to integrate two very different cultures. Freedom may have spread quickly through the East, but nudity - the East's favorite and perhaps only freedom - never caught on in the West.

Freikörperkultur (FKK), or liberal body culture, was really the only way to rebel in the East, where the most quotidian details of people's lives were observed by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. Though the East German government forbid FKK at first, many government officials were into walking around nude, so they protested with the argument that "doing FKK" did not mean you weren't a good communist. Good point - don't they put kids in school uniforms to level the playing field? What's more egalitarian than wearing nothing!

Yet on the west side of the wall, the attitude toward nudity was more on par with America and its don't-even-discuss-it-in-public ethos. A West German interviewed a former East German for Vice magazine to find out what's so great about wearing nothing. Check out some of the highlights after the jump.

Speed Read! Family and Friends of Iran's Neda Speak Out

TresSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:30:49 -0800

Family and friends of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman brutally killed in Iran while protesting, are speaking out about persecution suffered under the Iranian government and Neda's commitment to protesting. - Jezebel
Hillary Clinton is in Afghanistan for President Hamid Karzai's Thursday inauguration.- New York Times
Sports fans appreciate a win more if their team almost loses. - Lemondrop
Australian authorities are investigating whether Scientology is guilty of imprisonment, forced abortion, physical violence, and blackmail. - Times of London
All the vampires in Twilight are kosher. - Jewish Journal
Revisiting Jordan Catalano of My So-Called Life. - Double X
Courtney Love bids $120,000 for date with Bill Clinton, loses. - Culture Vulture
Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and the Gossip Girl books are more alike than you'd think/wish. - Vanity Fair

Palin: AP Did "Opposition Research" on Going Rogue

TresSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:00:25 -0800

Sarah Palin blasted the Associated Press yesterday for doing "opposition research," more commonly known as fact-checking, on her new book Going Rogue.

"Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released," she said. "They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards."

She wrote this on her Facebook page, which doesn't help her cause, but she is onto something. Going Rogue is embargoed, meaning her publisher will not release advance copies to the press before its on-sale date (tomorrow), and the press, even if it were to happen upon a copy early, is not to review it.

So what did the "opposition researchers" find? Find out after the jump.

More Than 200 Million People Are Hungry in India

CitizenSugar — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:00:54 -0700

There's no sugar coating this: India has more people suffering from hunger than any other country in the world. More than 200 million don't get enough to eat, and according to the 2008 Global Hunger Index just released, not one of India's 17 states rank in the low- or moderate-hunger categories - and 12 states have rank "alarming." India is 66th out of 88 countries surveyed (a stat in itself that makes you think of those 22 other countries that are worse.)

Kids bear a lot of the brunt of the hunger crisis - numbers released two years ago showed that even then, more than half of the children in India were malnourished. The rise in global food prices not mirrored in rising incomes has made the problem worse. As grim as this news sounds, there are people doing work to help. To find out which former presidential candidates just won an award for their work on hunger, read more.

Former candidates Bob Dole and George McGovern have just been awarded the World Food Prize for their work to alleviate global hunger. The Republican/Democrat duo created the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food For Education and Nutrition Program. The prize president says, "There's a significant message that's included by having them both honored, one Democrat, one Republican."

Despite efforts, more work is needed. The World Health Organization just warned that the life expectancy between rich and poor countries varies by as much as 40 years. Let's hope increased bipartisan efforts will do the world some more good.

Source

Front Page: Mormons Help Bring Gay Rights to Salt Lake City

TresSugar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:00:10 -0800

After the Mormon Church backed Salt Lake City ordinances that would bar housing and employment discrimination against gays, the laws passed unanimously last night. - AP
The American Medical Association is urging the federal government to loosen the classification of marijuana so the drug can be used for clinical research. - LA Times
Some victims said they still didn't feel closure after watching DC sniper John Allen Muhammad die last night of lethal injection. - CNN
Germany is in shock after a star soccer player committed suicide.- AP
Baseball great Sammy Sosa says a skin cream made his skin appear white in recent photos. - New York Daily News

Has Technology Ruined Romance For Us?

TresSugar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Conservative columnist David Brooks wrote an essay in the New York Times yesterday about how technology is ruining love and sex for the youngins.

Although Brooks reaches this conclusion based on the testimony of some horndogs who agreed to be "online sex diarists" for New York magazine (he admits it's a pretty unrepresentative demographic), Brooks nevertheless believes their stories tell us something fundamental about love in the age of technology: it's allowed people to treat potential sex partners (and it's significantly limited to this) as if they were products on eBay.

Once upon a time - in what we might think of as the "Happy Days era" - courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of these scripts - dating, going steady, delaying sex - was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment.

Now? People have lots of different kinds of sexual attachments with different people at the same time, and their cellphones help making and canceling plans as easy as rearranging Netflix queues. (I'll take the credit for that last analogy!)

Do you agree with Brooks? Is it true that, "In today’s world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act than the choice of an erotic partner"?