I'm on my way to class, but read this and just had to post the article I read in the LA Times -
The California Supreme Court overturned the ban on gay marriage ruling that the state marriage laws are discriminatory! The right to marry the person you love should be a basic human right.

Do you know Lilly Ledbetter? Well, I don’t either (at least not personally), but her story is a familiar tale of women and pay discrimination. Girl meets world, girl gets job, girl works at Goodyear Tire for 20 or so years, girl gets anonymous memo at the brink of her retirement indicating that she has been the victim of chronic pay discrimination (making, on average, 30% less than numerous male peers). Girl’s plea gets rejected by the Supreme Court. Yea, that sounds about right. No, but seriously…

Lilly’s supervisors had prohibited her from discussing pay with her coworkers, enabling this vast discrepancy to persist for her entire professional career. When she did find out though, she brought the charges before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Long story short, Lebetter was awarded a bunch of money for back-pay, punitive damages, anguish etc… only to have it revoked because, well, it took her too long to file the law suit. According to Title VII, discrimination charges must be filed 180 after the initiation of the discrimination. That’s right, even though she found out about the discrimination 20 years after it’s initiation. Read more about it here.

Academics, politicians, and laypeople have all hypothesized about women and the infamous pay gap: women’s inability to negotiate pay, awkward gender dynamics in the workplace, women prioritizing motherhood over the office, etc… but this is a very real example of a woman speaking out against sex-based discrimination (and did I mention she is 70!), and the system is quashing her demand for justice. Senate republicans blocked a bill that would have instituted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. McCain also spoke out against the bill, claiming that it would enable frivolous lawsuits to hurt big business. I’m speechless…

A little while back, the university launched the Stanford Blog Directory at http://blog.stanford.edu (big thanks to the TUSB team for working so hard to evangelize blogging at Stanford and for their help in getting the Blog Directory up!). As far as I know, this is the first attempt by a university to pull together blogs from its broader community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni -- including blogs hosted on third-party sites like Wordpress, Blogger, and LiveJournal.

Anyone with a SUNet or Stanford Alumni Association login is welcome to submit a blog for inclusion in the Blog Directory. I know that there are a bunch of other blogs that aren't yet listed on the Blog Directory, so please add your blog if it isn't already there. The goal of the Blog Directory is to highlight authentic voices and interesting stories from the broader university community. I'm hopeful that TUSB and the Blog Directory can help spark a culture of online discovery and debate that's as vibrant, engaging, and fun as what we experience "offline" at Stanford.

I've enjoyed exploring some of the lesser-known blogs from around campus. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

• Leland Stanford Jr. University Marching Band Blog: This blog is still quite new, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how the Band's blog develops. Hop over to their blog and give them a shout.
• TrippingOnWords: Chronicles two recent alums who have started a non-profit to help AIDS orphans in Africa. They also started a blog that's written by the orphans themselves. Highly inspirational.
• Philosophy Talk: The Blog: Prof. Ken Taylor and John Perry's companion blog to the Philosophy Talk radio show.
• Smart Energy Show: Prof. Margot Gerritsen runs around Stanford interviewing faculty and students on energy issues. Great to see our faculty getting into video podcasting.

PS. If you need any help with the Blog Directory at any time, feel free to send an email to blogdirectory [at] stanford [dot] edu. We also welcome your feedback and thoughts on how to make it better. Thanks!

Normally I wouldn’t write about my own startup on the Stanford blog. But I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how fast and powerful just one blog was in spreading the word about Homeslyce, now servicing students starting college.

As you can see from the graph on the right, the number of unique users and page views shot up exponentially in just three days.

So I thought I’d write and share some things I saw and learned with my entrepreneurial home.

Before a live interview with Michael Moore on CNN, Wolf Blitzer runs a short video segment claiming that Michael Moore "plays loose with the facts" in his new documentary, Sicko. Boy did that make him angry. Check it out:

For Moore's online rebuttal of CNN's claims that he fudges the facts, see here. It's quite well-cited and shows that CNN isn't being very honest, either.

By the way, I saw Sicko and loved it -- if not for its balanced treatment of the issue, then for being a reality check on the downsides of our system. And as an artistic piece, it's priceless. I relished the absurdity of the scene where he sails to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with three ailing 9/11 rescue workers on a little dingy, demanding that the 9/11 heros get "some medical attention, the same kind that Al Qaeda is getting."

"They don't want any more than you're giving the evildoers, just the same."

Guantanamo Bay being, of course, the only place on American soil that provides free, universal health care.

Fed up with the horrendous media circus surrounding Paris Hilton, Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC refused yesterday morning to let the story be the program's lead, going so far as to attempt to light it on fire. Failing that, she rips it into pieces and then shreds the remaining document in her shredder machine. Thank God someone finally snapped.

and now some interesting gossip I found on the net

• The MacArthur Foundataion has given USC a $550,000 grant to examine the role that online communities (such as second life) play in real-world activism (from Chronicle of Higher Education) [should SU be doint this research and getting this grant? We are known for our link to technology.]
• Changes in patent law sought by universities incorporated into Senate bill S 1145. "Universities are.. trying to narrow the right to challenge a patent after it is issued." (via Chronicle of Higher Education) [this is dangerous stuff guys, I already think our patent system is overwhelmed, riddled with problems, and allows for patenting of ideas and products (such as tax law strategies) which should never be allowed to become propriatary )]
• US is highest non-payer of parking fines in England with £1.5m in outstanding congestion charge payments (U.S. argues that it is exempt from congestion charge). London Mayer calls U.S. Ambassador a "venal little crook." [how come us Americans never bandy about such witty and eloquent put downs]
• When taking a polygraph test Real Questions stress out the guilty while Control Questions stress out the innocent (H. Offe and S. Offe (2007). The Comparison Question Test: Does It Work and If So How? Law and Human Behavior 31(3): 291-303 via the Deception Blog ).
• Emotive Systems is working on bringing Nuerotainment to you via Project Epoc's new human computer interface for "Emotiv-inspired game-play" NeuroSky is also trying to tap into this emerging market [I have visions of Blade Runner and Jonny Johnny Mnemonic dancing in my head]

I'm off to kill my husband (metaphorically speaking) because this is the 5th time he's hit the alarm button this morning.

EB over and out

After reading the transcript of Dana Gioia’s commencement speech, I can’t help but think that he is being overly facile with his point. Not that I’m against more air space for intellectuals in our culture—I worship at the altar of Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life—but I think he paints an overly grim and facile picture of our intellectual culture today.

It’s an afterthought in the beginning, his citing the Tarantino films Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but a revealing one. Suffice it to say that when you leave out the best film and the best TV of our generation, you get a pretty bad conception of American culture. There’s plenty of great movies coming out and being watched today, and at any rate, the average is certainly a lot better than it certainly was in terms of narrative structure and complexity.

The Stanford Spotlight has posted a cute video of the new ASSU Executives on their YouTube channel:

Update from the Chronicle of Higher Education (5/30/2007): "Teaching hospitals that stood to lose at least $1.8-billion in Medicaid funds from a regulatory change proposed last week received a one-year reprieve on Friday in budget legislation approved by Congress." (article in the CHE is by K. Mangan)

Hopefully the AMA, AAMC, and others will make their voices heard on the issues.-EB

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From the Federal Register May 23, 2007:
This proposed rule would clarify that costs and payments associated with Graduate Medical Education programs are not expenditures for medical assistance that are federally reimbursable under the Medicaid program

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) have released a new rule proposal which would disallow Graduate Medical Education (GME) as an expenditure that is federal reimbursable by Medicaid.

Medicaid is a federally and state funded program designed to provide a safety net to low income parents, children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities.

"So what?" you may be asking.

Many medical schools and hospitals, including Stanford Med School and Stanford Hospital, are dependent on direct and indirect federal reimbursement of graduate medical education (the training of interns and residents) from both Medicaid and Medicare to help pay for the costs of running a teaching facility.

via Feministing, ktvu.com, and cbs5.com -

A 17 year old was allegedly gang-raped at a college party while drunk. Several female witnesses broke down a door to intervened, rescue her, and get her medical attention. The Santa Clara DA, however, states that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute her alleged attackers (not even for statutory rape).

I need a better answer than "insufficient evidence" - if the DA can't truly prosecute this case he needs to explain what exactly is insufficient about the evidence.

I'm sick and disgusted!

It is interesting that it was three female soccer players who felt empowered enough and felt that they had a duty to stand up for the poor girl. No one else intervened.

If people need something to protest - take this on, it's a cause much more salient to women's rights in this county than the public safety patrolled exotic erotic

I found this - Terra-cycle sued by Scotts for trademark infringement - via the consumerist

I'm still figuring out how something that bills itself as "worm-poop" will be confused for miraclegro

I think that one of the best things about the American legal system is that it is accessible - anyone can sue anyone. This means that if I have a grievance against someone, and I can't get them to respond, I have a form of redress. When people talk about "reforming the legal system in the U.S. because its so messed up" and bring up "bogus lawsuits" [many of which are dismissed or wrongly characterized as frivolous in media descriptions] I worry that if we cut off access to the legal system for normal citizens, we will end up with the legal system being used as a bludgeoning tool by massive corporations [like it seems this lawsuit is an example of]. We already have cost as a barrier to the legal system, and I worry that some of the “reforms” being floated around will mean that individuals will have little recourse when they are wronged by large corporations [such as defective products or other negligence].

anyways - something I worry about and an issue that I think there is a lot of disinformation about

The Raw Story has the clip, where Lisa asks, "How can Fox News be so conservative when the Fox Network keeps airing raunchy shows? They don't fit together." Check it out:

In other news, a recent study at Indiana University found that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.” Think Progress has other highlights from the study.

I'm having somewhat of an identity crisis here: Who am I?

At this moment, as I add content to this site, what -- at the most fundamental level -- am I doing? Am I doing "reporting?" If so, what kind?

I am at an event right now at Cubberley Auditorium featuring Bill Keller, Executive Editor of the New York Times; Gary Pruitt, CEO of the McClatchy Company; Marissa Mayer, Vice President at Google; and Harry Chandler of the L.A. Times. It is moderated by Joel Brinkley, a visiting professor in the Department of Communication.

The talk is called "Pressing Times: Can Newspapers Survive in the New World of Journalism?" Among other things, the three of them have jumped between various terms for people who write in this medium right here: we are alternately bloggers, at other times citizen journalists.

Keller was critical of bloggers, saying that we could never equal professional journalists for various reasons; Keller even implied that bloggers uniformly do not fact-check. Chandler, meanwhile, continually used the phrase "citizen journalists" as if to lend us more credibility as a part of the fabric of journalism today.

So, ultimately, what is the role of a blogger? Do you think that you, as a blogger, are more or less credible than a reporter for McClatchy or the New York Times? Or are we not even comparable -- are we totally different things entirely? If you're not a blogger yourself, what do you think when you read a blog: can you trust our reporting -- are we really a subsection of journalist (citizen journalist) as Chandler said?

What exactly does blogger vs. citizen journalist mean and imply? I know for sure that no one from the L.A. Times could cover this event the way I am now, but perhaps they wouldn't ever want to.

I'm not sure what to think, but I'd love to hear your opinion.

After nearly an academic year in the making, The Stanford Daily has entered into a collaborative relationship with KZSU News and the Stanford Cardinal Broadcasting Network (SCBN). As of today, the content from KZSU News and SCBN's broadcasts will be hosted on the Stanford Daily's website, where they can be streamed.

The relationship has coalesced to provide a multi-media hub that brings together Stanford's existing media resources for a richer experience that covers more of the campus. Additionally, the relationship includes training of Daily staff in multi-media production by KZSU and SCBN. Look out for audio and media production from the Stanford Daily itself.

Now getting involved with either the Daily, KZSU, and SCBN, can potentially mean working within all three mediums and with all three media outlets.

According to the Wall Street Journal law blog, the former "Chief Education Director" of AutoAdmit.com, which bills itself as "The most prestigious college discussion board in the world," has had an offer of employment withdrawn.

For those of you not familiar with the scandal, the Washington Post published an exposé of harrassment (registration may be required) of female law students perpetuated by anonymous posters to this board in an unmoderated law student discussion forum on March 7. Names and other identifying information of the students harrassed were published on the board and not taken down.

Below are segments from the campus radio news show, the Stanford Current, from the 4/30 broadcast on KZSU 90.1.

Included in the segments is "Your World This Week," headlines from the Stanford bubble and beyond.

Also, check out "Question of the Week," where we ask Stanford students a question of campus interest. This week's question: "Should the US pull out of Iraq if it means leaving a non-viable Iraqi government behind?"

That's followed by an interview with Galen Panger, founder of the Unofficial Stanford Blog. He'll be discussing what inspired him to start the blog and how it has been going since its inception.

And lastly, we survey the counseling services on campus in light of student tragedies this year.

You can listen to the entire broadcast here.

Do you think it's okay to offer students a free drink in exchange for a signature on a special fees petition? If you don't, then this was the graduate election scandal the Daily never covered.

Click on image to read e-mail

According to the American Institute of Architects, our very own Global Ecology Research Center is one of the top 10 "green" buildings in the nation. The article states:

"Global Ecology Research Center, Stanford, California, by EHDD Architects, a low-energy laboratory and office building that cut carbon emissions associated with building operation by 72 percent."

You can read about the other choices here.

Building image from the Stanford Report

We're pleased and grateful that the Daily chose to cover us in today's issue and are eagerly watching our visit statistics to see just what the "Daily premium" is for being featured in an article. We'll let you know.

Have a look at the article and let us know what you think. It begins:

On any given day, a reader of the Unofficial Stanford Blog might find a first-person account from one of the living wage fasters, a discussion of the University’s installation art or political commentary from an opinionated student. Since its launch on Feb. 10, blog.stanford.edu has acquired a following, with 33 separate bloggers writing hundreds of posts, 500 unique visitors a day and 11,000 unique visitors since Feb. 28.

Just a brief comment on why we're here. Our big commitments are to creativity and open-mindedness; the former because the medium is so flexible, and the latter because Stanford is such a diverse community.

There is so much going on here -- so many thoughts, so many activities -- that it's impossible to cover everything and from every perspective. What this Blog ensures is that, if you or your group wants to be heard, you have access to making that happen (signing up is easy), and a lot of flexibility in how you do it. Links? Photos? Audio? Video?

Folks, this is the 21st century. Let's make good use of it.

With all of the new traffic that is bound to come to this blog, I thought it a perfect time to announce the launch of the the Student Unions blog, the third in what will hopefully become a full network of student blogs. With lots of help from USB contributors Galen (gttp) and Megan (studentarts), I was able to get this thing going, and I hope it will become a great resource for students interested in learning more about the unions and getting involved!

For now, most of the content will be around Old Union and its renovation. There seems to be a major gap between what a student involved in the process (like me) and what the average student knows. I hope this blog helps alleviate that and re-opens the channels of communication. So, check out the blog, leave your comments, or email me at studentunions@gmail.com. After all, this should really become a real student union.

Interested in news from the Stanford bubble and beyond? Want to know what's going on on campus? Tune into the Stanford Current!

The Stanford Current is KZSU 90.1 FM's news show that airs every Monday at 6:30pm. You can stream it live here.

Also, check out the Stanford Current's new website. You can download previous shows and check out the staff.

This week's show will include headlines from the Stanford bubble and beyond in "Your World This Week," a survey of campus resources for student welfare, and an interview with Peter Scheer, Executive Director of the California First Amendment Coalition, on Josh Wolf and who is a journalist.

Not mention our new segment, "Question of the Week," which we pose to random Stanford students. Look out for us on campus and give us your opinion! This week's question: Was the Three Ex-Terrorists Event constructive?

We will begin posting our audio content on the blog early next week.