This article I ran across on Vox makes me very happy because it reflects something I’ve been teaching students in my classes for years: that being too clean can make you less healthy. This is especially true for children. The article discusses what is known as the hygiene hypothesis, which proposes that exposure to allergens, viruses, bacteria,… Continue reading
When I first discovered the website Jezebel, the writer Lindy West quickly became one of my favorite contributors. She is fiercely intelligent, incredibly funny, and delightfully straightforward. I loved everything she wrote for Jezebel. Lindy has moved on to writing for The Guardian, and in this piece she talks about what it is like to… Continue reading
Now that the Superb Owl has passed for another year, I’d like to share this article about how investments in sporting arenas and teams and the big events they generate are not the economic boon to cities that sports boosters would like us to believe. Travis Waldron of Think Progress zeroes in on the economic woes… Continue reading
Today’s Daily Read relates to the post I wrote a few days ago about how difficult it can be to convince people to accept ideas that go against their already strongly-held beliefs. I actually have two articles to share today. The first, from the Washington Post, made my eyeballs pulse with rage when I read it: it… Continue reading
Here’s a great idea from some folks in Oregon: use the treated wastewater produced from sewage to brew beer. Writing on the NPR blog The Salt, Cassandra Profita discusses the process by which clean, drinkable water can be produced from sewage sludge. Although Oregon does not approve this water for consumption, a new experiment is… Continue reading
In this very thought-provoking article in the Wall Street Journal, author Jill Leovy writes about what she calls the “underpolicing of Black America.” Leovy, who is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the book Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (from which this article is adapted) argues counterintuitively that focusing on non-violent petty crimes such… Continue reading