Activist Research as a Methodological Toolbox to Advance Public Sociology - Miguel A Martínez, 2024
Sociologists – and social scientists more broadly – have often resorted to ‘public sociology’ and ‘activist research’ (AvR) with the aim of producing useful kno...
Valerie Castile says the state’s new school-meals law is an investment in Minnesota’s kids—and a tribute to her son, Philando
After the police killing of Philando Castile, his mother, Valerie Castile, has helped raise more than $200,000 to pay off the cafeteria debt of kids who can’t afford school lunch. On Friday, Governor Tim Walz signed a bill providing a basic breakfast and lunch to every kid in Minnesota.
Why Katie Ledecky initially kept her POTS diagnosis private
Katie Ledecky, the most decorated U.S. female Olympian in history, wrote about her journey to her POTS diagnosis and initial decision to keep it private in her book “Just Add Water: My Swimming Life.”
Why the Psychosomatic View on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is Inconsistent with Current Evidence and Harmful to Patients
Since 1969, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) has been classified as a neurological disease in the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Although numerous studies over time have uncovered organic abnormalities in patients with ME/CFS, and the majority of researchers to date classify the disease as organic, many physicians still believe that ME/CFS is a psychosomatic illness. In this article, we show how detrimental this belief is to the care and well-being of affected patients and, as a consequence, how important the education of physicians and the public is to stop misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and stigmatization on the grounds of incorrect psychosomatic attributions about the etiology and clinical course of ME/CFS.
Enactive behaviour settings: situating agency, normativity and transformation | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Behaviour settings are sociocultural places defined by three main ecological aspects:
the affordances of material structures, typical patterns of skilful action and socially
situated norms. These aspects explain the observed regularities of human ...
"Old and weird?" is linguistically interesting, and a new departure in political messaging. Let's see why.Edited with Gling AI: https://bit.ly/46bGeYv#lingui...
Tim Walz and His Wife, Gwen, Open Up About Son's Non-Verbal Learning Disorder: 'His Secret Power' (Exclusive)
Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, are opening up to PEOPLE about their 'brilliant' 17-year-old son, Gus, who has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD and an anxiety disorder — all conditions that they call his 'secret power'
By Thomas Ultican 8/5/2024 Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider just published The Education Wars. In their 2020 book, A Wolf at the School House Door, the focus was the rightwing and neoliberal a…
Age-Gating Access To Online Porn Is Unconstitutional
Texas is one of eight states that have enacted laws that force adults to prove their age before accessing porn sites. Soon it will try to persuade the Supreme Court that its law doesn’t violate the…
“You always had a hard time finding your place in this world, haven’t you? Never knowing your true worth. You can settle for a less than…
Stimming acts as the mixing process that stirs all of these ingredients together. The cake represents this soon-to-be-finished article. By repeatedly listening to a fragment of a film trailer, I have been able to transform various sources of inspiration into motivational energy. With this energy, in spite of a life now filled largely with despair, I am making something out of nothing. Some might say I am using my tragedy as a source of energy.
The phrase “What does not kill me makes me stronger” comes to mind. My autism was neglected so late into adulthood that, at age 42, my potential for a prosperous future was all but ruined. Nothing can repair the damage to my life, not to mention the psychological trauma. By embracing natural autistic stimming, I used what would otherwise be shunned as strange to make myself stronger. I am going to need it…
(2) @Autistic Realms on X: "1/6 New heartbreaking research from @AutCollab Change is needed. "It is only within nurturing, small ecologies of care beyond the human, that we can (re)discover our faith in humanity and our faith in the healing powers of the big cycle of life" https://t.co/W0djriEbHK https://t.co/4RYJP0gGka" / X
Change is needed.
"It is only within nurturing, small ecologies of care beyond the human, that we can (re)discover our faith in humanity and our faith in the healing powers of the big cycle of life"
— @Autistic Realms (@autisticrealms)
U.S. Athletes Are Taking Full Advantage of Free Healthcare in Olympic Village
Women’s rugby player Ariana Ramsey’s videos showcasing her appointments have gone viral, and now many others are making good use of Paris's medical services.
Sen. Bernie Sanders introduces $10 billion Long Covid Moonshot legislation to support research, healthcare, education - The Sick Times
Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Long Covid Research Moonshot Act of 2024. The bill allocates $1 billion in federal funding per year for the next 10 years for Long Covid research, treatments, public health education, and expanded healthcare. A draft version of the Act received thousands of comments from the Long Covid community in April. The official legislation, which would establish a new program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth, Ed Markey, Tina Smith, Peter Welch, and Tim Kaine, who has Long Covid.
Under the new VP nominee, Minnesota became the first state to fund research on the debilitating condition.
Under Walz’s leadership, in May of last year, Minnesota became the first state to dedicate funding to Long Covid and associated conditions, including myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Billy Hanlon, the Minnesota ME/CFS Alliance‘s director of advocacy and outreach, says that Walz was instrumental in pushing for the legislation.
“Just as COVID-19 is not going away,” Walz wrote in his 2023 funding proposal, “Long COVID is not going away.”
THIS IS WHAT TRANS PUNK LOOKS LIKE (full documentary)
"This Is What Trans Punk Looks Like" is a documentary about the transgender punk culture in Texas and the beauty of community. It features several interviews...
Pluralistic: Circular battery self-sufficiency (06 Aug 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
As a species, we have always treated energy as scarce, trying to wring every erg and therm that we can out of our energy sources. Meanwhile, we've treated materials as abundant, digging them up or chopping them down, using them briefly, then tossing them on a midden or burying them in a pit.
Chachra argues that this is precisely backwards. Our planet gets a fresh supply of energy twice a day, with sunrise (solar) and moonrise (tides). On the other hand, we've only got one Earth's worth of materials, supplemented very sporadically when a meteor survives entry into our atmosphere. Mining asteroids, the Moon and other planets is a losing proposition for the long foreseeable future:
As Chachra says, infrastructure is inherently altruistic, a gift to our neighbors and our descendants. If all you want is a place to stick your own poop, you don't need to build a citywide sanitation system.
Our species' historical approach to materials is not (ahem) carved in stone. It is contingent. It has changed. It can change again. It needs to change, because the way we extract materials today is both unjust and unsustainable.
This isn't to say that cleantech is a solved problem. There are many political aspects to cleantech that remain pernicious, like the fact that so many of the cleantech offerings on the market are built around extractive financial arrangements (like lease-back rooftop solar) and "smart" appliances (like heat pumps and induction tops) that require enshittification-ready apps:
Take "innovation." Silicon Valley's string of pump-and-dump nonsense – cryptocurrency, NFTs, metaverse, web3, and now AI – have made "innovation" into a dirty word. As the AI bubble bursts, the very idea of innovation is turning into a punchline:
Routledge Handbook of Creative Futures Author Series – Transformative Studies–CIIS
Dr. Gabrielle Donnelly and Dr. Alfonso Montuori, the co-editors of the Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures, delve into the challenges of thinking about c...
Identifying the functions of restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests in Autism: A scoping review.
Restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests (RRBIs) are common and integral to the everyday living of autistic persons. While RRBIs are often s…
Radical Unschooling: Anarchy Starts at Home — Academic Anarchy
Conscious parenting and unschooling go hand in hand, blending together into what Dayna Martin dubbed Radical Unschooling . This philosophy transcends traditional education, reshaping how we interact with and nurture our children. We cast aside conventional practices like strict bedtimes, mandatory
Former geography teacher Tim Walz is really into maps • Minnesota Reformer
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz really, really likes maps. The former Mankato geography teacher, now a vice presidential candidate, identifies as a “GIS nerd” and proclaimed November 15, 2023 as Geographic Information Systems day, writing that an understanding of maps and data “helps community leaders and government officials make data-driven decisions” governing important policy issues like […]
Reacting, Retreating, Regulating, and Reconnecting: How Autistic Adults in the United Kingdom Use Time Alone for Well-Being | Autism in Adulthood
Background: Firsthand accounts by autistic people describe a need for regular time alone. However, there is little in the literature that explores (1) why time alone is desired, (2) how that time is spent, or (3) where that time is spent. This article describes a neurodiversity-informed, qualitative study that demonstrates the importance and purpose of “alone-time” for autistic adults. Methods: We interviewed 16 autistic adults living in the United Kingdom about how and where they spent their “alone-time” and the benefits experienced from this time. We conducted the interviews online, some using a video link, and some using a synchronously accessed text-based document, according to the participants’ preferences. Results: We used Reflexive Thematic Analysis with the interview data to generate four qualitative themes as follows: (1) reacting to social and sensory overwhelm; (2) retreating from social and sensory overwhelm; (3) regulating, recovering, and recharging; and (4) ready to reconnect with others. Conclusions: These themes highlight a need for balancing social activities and spaces with time and space alone and the benefits of creating or protecting spaces, which encourage recovery from overwhelm.
These themes highlight a need for balancing social activities and spaces with time and space alone and the benefits of creating or protecting spaces, which encourage recovery from overwhelm.
This study shows the importance for autistic adults in balancing social activities and spending time in social spaces, with alone-time. It also shows the benefits of finding/creating and protecting spaces that are not overwhelming for autistic adults. These findings may help autistic adults explain their need for alone-time, which is useful information for people who support, live with, and work alongside autistic adults.
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