This Week's Recommended Reading #21
From Ash:
Some short, random articles worth reading over the long-weekend:
A more important piece I can't yet link to – but the New York Times Sunday Magazine will be running a piece on how circumcision may be a key to preventing the spread of AIDS in Africa. (If you're wondering why I'm so special to get NYT advanced copies – I'm not special. It's a wee perk they throw in if you're willing to pay for NYT's "Times Select.")
AP via Yahoo has a fun little piece on the difficulties for a husband to take his wife's name, instead of the other way around. Apparently, it's just not done – so there's little way to make it happen. Almost needless to say – a couple is now suing over this.
The BBC has an interesting article on a current court case in Morocco. Journalists are on trial for writing a joke about their King. But what makes this particularly interesting is that they are sort of the vanguard of a new culture of laughter and free speech brought into being with the Moroccan new king. . . or they might go to prison for five years.
I try not to post every article on immigration I see, but I do try to note the ones with a different perspective on the issue – since I know my views change by the hour – so if you haven't seen it yet, the Washington Post article on Mexicans trying to stay in Mexico is well-worth reading.
And I'm one of those people who gets sick if someone I've never met sneezes. So I was fascinated by this San Francisco Chronicle report on a new local requirement that all businesses must provide sick-leave for employees. Businesses are complaining – not surprisingly – while some are just surprised to hear that there is even such a requirement.
But what I really want to know about is food-service-related workers. Personally, it's sort of amazing to me that there aren't more demands for sick-days requirements just for these workers: they're the lowest paid, so they can't afford to miss work, but they have the potential to infect hundreds of people a day. I mean seriously, who hasn't been grossed out to see a cashier cough on your "to go" order (for Brits, that's the cooler sounding but still germ-infected "take-away."). Note for San Franciscans: both a local grocer and a restaurant-owner both complained this was too expensive a requirement (The reporter didn't tackle the public-health issue of their work in this piece.). I'm not saying they'll refuse to comply with the law, but still, you might want to consider either skipping their locations or bringing antiseptic wipes with you during the flu season.
And in the whaa-at? category – not a recommendation, just a mystified observation –
"Greatly Exaggerated" is currently on the Time.com list of most popular articles. That is an article about a couple errantly reported as being dead, which might not be a surprise as an article emailed around... except for the fact that the article was written in 1927. And I can't for the life of me figure out why that one even surfaced out of the archives, let alone hit the "most popular" list.
Some short, random articles worth reading over the long-weekend:
A more important piece I can't yet link to – but the New York Times Sunday Magazine will be running a piece on how circumcision may be a key to preventing the spread of AIDS in Africa. (If you're wondering why I'm so special to get NYT advanced copies – I'm not special. It's a wee perk they throw in if you're willing to pay for NYT's "Times Select.")
AP via Yahoo has a fun little piece on the difficulties for a husband to take his wife's name, instead of the other way around. Apparently, it's just not done – so there's little way to make it happen. Almost needless to say – a couple is now suing over this.
The BBC has an interesting article on a current court case in Morocco. Journalists are on trial for writing a joke about their King. But what makes this particularly interesting is that they are sort of the vanguard of a new culture of laughter and free speech brought into being with the Moroccan new king. . . or they might go to prison for five years.
I try not to post every article on immigration I see, but I do try to note the ones with a different perspective on the issue – since I know my views change by the hour – so if you haven't seen it yet, the Washington Post article on Mexicans trying to stay in Mexico is well-worth reading.
And I'm one of those people who gets sick if someone I've never met sneezes. So I was fascinated by this San Francisco Chronicle report on a new local requirement that all businesses must provide sick-leave for employees. Businesses are complaining – not surprisingly – while some are just surprised to hear that there is even such a requirement.
But what I really want to know about is food-service-related workers. Personally, it's sort of amazing to me that there aren't more demands for sick-days requirements just for these workers: they're the lowest paid, so they can't afford to miss work, but they have the potential to infect hundreds of people a day. I mean seriously, who hasn't been grossed out to see a cashier cough on your "to go" order (for Brits, that's the cooler sounding but still germ-infected "take-away."). Note for San Franciscans: both a local grocer and a restaurant-owner both complained this was too expensive a requirement (The reporter didn't tackle the public-health issue of their work in this piece.). I'm not saying they'll refuse to comply with the law, but still, you might want to consider either skipping their locations or bringing antiseptic wipes with you during the flu season.
And in the whaa-at? category – not a recommendation, just a mystified observation –
"Greatly Exaggerated" is currently on the Time.com list of most popular articles. That is an article about a couple errantly reported as being dead, which might not be a surprise as an article emailed around... except for the fact that the article was written in 1927. And I can't for the life of me figure out why that one even surfaced out of the archives, let alone hit the "most popular" list.
posted by Ashley Merryman at 7:52 AM
2 Comments:
Regarding the article about the court case in Morocco, does that mean there is NO paparazzi in Morocco?
From Ash: Well, there are journalists there, but they've traditionally been under very tight control as to what they could and could not write about, especially when it pertained to the monarchy.
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