A crime paper flourishes by printing mug shots
By Patrik Jonsson, 2009.01.06 Tue
Christian Science Monitor

In Raleigh, North Carolina, Isaac Cornetti makes a living by selling copies of "The Slammer", a popular tabloid newspaper that carries police mugshots and rapsheets of recent arrests. Some people think it's a great idea so that people know what's going on around them, especially in an ostensibly safe city. Others doubt the ethics of putting arrestees in the court of public opinion before they are even sentenced for anything, a violation of the age-old "innocent until proven guilty". Apparently there are other newspapers like this in other cities that do the same kind of work.

At College, a World in a Rodeo Arena

When college students reinvent the world
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo 2009.01.12 Mon

At Kansas State, Professer of Anthropology Michael Wesch teaches his students to understand peoples and cultures by simulating them, not with dry facts and figures. They learn about power imbalances, colonization, and what happens when different cultures interact, nearly as firsthand as they can get.

For weeks, 400 World Sim students work in groups of 20 to invent cultures – whose often-silly names belie serious values outlined in everything from government structures to gender relations. Then they come together in a giant space – like the cold and pungent rodeo arena – to discover what happens to their societies when confronted with trade systems, war, and depletion of natural resources.

Although about half of the rules are fixed, the students of every class have to make up the rest of the rules of how their world and simulation will work. The simulation often re-enacts events such as the colonial period, instances of genocide and times of empire. Students say they come out of the class with a better understanding of cross-cultural situations and globalization.

Groups Helping Teens

When a Surrogate Family Improves on the Original
By JENNIFER 8. LEE, Published 2009.01.06T

I'm a sucker for heart-touching stories, but I like to be reminded of the good that's in the world.

Jun Chen was abandoned by her disconnected father, who left to go back to China, when she was starting her senior year of high school this past September. But thankfully, she had other support in New York City: the staff and community at the Edgies Teen Center at the Educational Alliance. She has been to the center for three years after a librarian told her about it. The center does help Jun with paying for rent and food, but equally important are the social connections that the center and Jun have made.

“This is my first home; I don’t call it a second home, because my family is here,” she said. “There are so many nights when I stay until the building closes down.”

On a yellow sheet of paper, she drew an alternative family tree: Lily, her girlfriend; Sonia, the mom; Chino, the dad; Ami, the older sister. The last three are all staff at the center.

It is through them that she built her personal identity. “I wrote my college essay bout being a quarter Chinese, quarter black, quarter Dominican, and quarter Indian,” she said. It helped her earn a full scholarship to Middlebury College in Vermont.

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