Clipmarks | Social status Clips

Bowling Alone Because the Team Got Downsized

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:20:52 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

The first study to look at the long-term impact of job displacement on social participation, the research found that workers who had experienced just one involuntary disruption in their employment status were 35% less likely to be involved in their communities than their counterparts who had never experienced a job loss due to layoff, downsizing or restructuring, or a business closing or relocating. Moreover, the exodus from community involvement continued not just through the spate of involuntary unemployment, but for the rest of the workers' lives.

Via Mark Thoma

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

The pain of downsizing extends far beyond laid off workers and the people who depend on their paychecks, according to a new UCLA-University of Michigan, Ann Arbor study.

Even a single involuntary displacement has a lasting impact on a worker's inclination to volunteer and participate in a whole range of social and community groups and organizations, found the study, which appears in the September issue of the international scholarly journal Social Forces.

"What we find is that even just one disruption in employment makes workers significantly less likely to participate in a whole range of social activities — from joining book clubs to participating in the PTA and supporting charities," said Jennie E. Brand, a UCLA sociologist and the study's lead author. "After being laid off or downsized, workers are less likely to give back to their community."

Tags: sociology, mark thoma, unemployment, work

Is it in his kiss? oh no, it's in his voice

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:39:15 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: For that reason only the idiom "how low can you go?" was probably coined...

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Honest Lovers? Fallow Buck Groans Reveal Their Status And Size During The Rut

It is known that the phonic structure of calls produced by males during the breeding season may signal quality-related characteristics in many different types of animals.

shown for the first time that sexually selected vocalizations can signal social dominance in mammals other than primates

independent acoustic components – fundamental frequency (pitch) and formant frequencies – encode information on dominance status and body size, respectively

Fundamental frequency is a measure of the rate of vibration of the vocal folds

Formant frequencies result from filtering of vocalizations in the vocal tract

Similarly in humans, men with lower fundamental frequency (pitch) voices are perceived as more dominant and have higher reproductive success due to greater access to mates

evolved in response to male-male competition

Tags: biology, animals, mating

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:15:43 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: It is easy to become unsettled by privacy-eroding aspects of awareness tools. But there is another — quite different — result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves. Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness. (Indeed, the question that floats eternally at the top of Twitter’s Web site — “What are you doing?” — can come to seem existentially freighted. What are you doing?) Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they’re trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

On Sept. 5, 2006, Mark Zuckerberg changed the way that Facebook worked, and in the process he inspired a revolt.

Pundits predicted that News Feed would kill Facebook, but the opposite happened. It catalyzed a massive boom in the site’s growth. A few weeks after the News Feed imbroglio, Zuckerberg opened the site to the general public (previously, only students could join), and it grew quickly; today, it has 100 million users

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye.

Tags: brave new world, digital intimacy

PAKISTAN: ELDERLY CHRISTIAN KILLED IN AXE MURDER

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:03:28 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: www.compassdirect.org

ISTANBUL, September 4 (Compass Direct News) – Four Pakistani Muslims killed an elderly woman with an axe over a dispute with her husband, who has been unable to prosecute them due to his low social status as a Christian.

Case workers said the alleged culprits targeted the couple for theft and later murder because they believed Pakistan’s legal system would not prosecute them for murdering Christians. The suspects’ connections to mafia and national politicians further emboldened them, they said.

“The Muslims assume the Christians are sheep and don’t have any weight,” said Sohail Johnson, case worker and chief coordinator of Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan (SLMP), a Non-Governmental Organization that supports Christian prisoners throughout the Punjab province. “The culprits thought, ‘[The Christians] have no voice. Nothing will happen if we do something,’” he said.

On July 2 at 2:30 a.m. Shareef, Ali, and two unknown persons entered their house and killed Bibi with a pickaxe.

Tags: muslims, islam, islamofascism, murder, violence, christianity

LEADERSHIP AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:52:32 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "2. Self-regulation: the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods.

3. Motivation: a passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status.
4. Empathy: the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people, skill in
treating people according to their emotional reactions.
5. Social skill: means proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, an
ability to find common ground and build rapport"

Clip Source: udgaar.in

LEADERSHIP AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

In today’s scenario if someone is asked to define an ideal leader, most of the
people would emphasize on the traits such as intelligence, toughness, determination and vision.

It has been found that most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way; they
all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence

It is not
that I Q and technical skills are irrelevant, but mainly as threshold capabilities

that is
they are the entry level requirement for executive positions.

research along with other
recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine quanon of leadership.

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage ourselves, and our relationships. It
comprises of five components which are as : Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Motivation,
Empathy and Social skill.

1. Self-awareness: the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and
drives,

Neo-Coms are the threat

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:32:28 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: This article makes so much sense!!

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

Neo-coms are the threat

After the Berlin Wall fell, many Western analysts thought the successor to the Soviet Union would willingly give up its satellite states and move inexorably toward democracy.

Then-president George H.W. Bush, who had been head of the CIA and ambassador to China, felt we were moving to "a new world order."

Many in the State Department, especially secretary of state James Baker, felt that the "end of the Cold War" meant an end to the special status of Israel in Middle Eastern affairs, not dreaming that the rise of radical versions of Shi'ite and Sunni Islam exported by Iran and the Saudis might make the country more valuable than ever.

But history does not move in straight lines or dialectical patterns to suit liberal social scientists or Marxist social theorists. Rather, it repeats itself or moves in cycles, based not only on economic factors but those of custom, culture, religion and human nature.

Ways for American TV to make a comeback (Against the Internet)

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:00:25 GMT

clipped by: a_chink_in_ur_armor

Clip Source: scofield.obxhost.net

Good reporting whether or not it goes over the head of your average American, TV shows that assume that each audience-member has read at least one book in their lifetime, the willingness to fuck corporate America and Washington if they beg for it. The fervent, relentless clinging to idealism, like a naive, young reporter, but mingled with the vicious bitterness of an old, impotent alcoholic. This is pretty much the only job where idealism and bitterness are essential. There is no way you are going to get people to dig truth up without being harshly judgmental and also desperate to fuck over random strangers regardless of their social status.

Tags: media, journalism, business

A discussion of Diversity and Race

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:42:33 GMT

clipped by: bmeuppls
clipper's remarks: An excellent post on the failures of race as a social construct.

Clip Source: proteinwisdom.com

Ironically, in my experience in the university culture, it was the students who were most accepting of such a solution — to many of them, race has never been much of a consideration, until they received the requisite leftwing “consciousness raising” — while it was the university that spent much of its time tut-tutting student willingness to “forget” about racial differences, as well as “correct” their innate refusal to Balkanize.

And I suspect that such a curricula has to do with the sad fact that, after years of catering to race and “diversity” issues, too many careers are on the line to let intellectual rigor, which involves at least the willingness to consider a change in strategy, get in the way of a professional status quo, and a lifelong defense of what it turns out was a remarkably simplistic and dangerous multiculturalist worldview.

“Diversity” — inasmuch as it remains committed to the superficial — is simply an extension of bad racial politics

Tags: race, racism

Verbal Communication

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:44:11 GMT

clipped by: NCJE19

Clip Source: wiki.answers.com

Answer

Some of the advantages of verbal comunication are:

1) the opportunity for immediate feedback to make sure the message was understood;

2) the opportunity to utilize nonverbal cues (tone, body language, inflection)

However, there are several disadvantages and the main one is miscommunication. In other words, what the listener hears is often not what is meant. The simplest words, for example, have a different connotation for people. Psychologists trace it to one's upbringing, social status, family and friends, etc.

Generally speaking, men are adverse to expressing their feelings, and hide behind enthusiastic talk about sports, women and cars. Women are often more observant and intuitively separate the truth in a conversation from the crap.

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:59:06 GMT

clipped by: Lawl78
clipper's remarks: Pretty amusing...

Clip Source: www.adbusters.org

We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality.

The “DJ” is keystroking a selection of MP3s off his MacBook, making a mix that sounds like he took a hatchet to a collection of yesteryear billboard hits, from DMX to Dolly Parton, but mashed up with a jittery techno backbeat.

Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.

Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”

Tags: hipster, culture, counterculture, lame

LIFE

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:48:30 GMT

clipped by: duncanl12

Clip Source: live.explorefaith.org

We can truly learn that our value as persons does not reside in what we have done, what social status we have, what we own, or how many push-ups we can do. We can embrace, perhaps for the first time, an authentic spirituality comprising not the rules of duty or dogma but vital relationships to ourselves, others, the world of nature, and the sacred that permeates it all.

Python Lovers Storm the Gates

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:50:12 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: I'd have much more respect for the joker who wants to keep the ban on Python's film alive if he had actually seen it. Since that's not the case the wanker's simply bonkers.

Clip Source: atheism.about.com

Life of Brian Still Banned

Faith-based censorship is an effective means of social control when a religion dominates a society, but in the West where religions have lost their political status it's just a waste of time. Apparently, though, it's a waste of time that makes at least some believers feel more important and respected because they won't stop. They still want to control the expression of ideas they disapprove of.

Case in point is the town of Aberystwyth where Monty Python's 1979 film Life of Brian is still banned. They weren't the only place to ban the film in a fit of Christian censorship, but they may be the last one left — and the local vicar thinks that's just grand. He seems to believe strongly in censoring material he personally finds blasphemous and offensive.

It's worth noting that Stuart Bell never actually gives an explanation for why the film should be banned. He sort of explains why it offends him, though that explanation is weak since he hasn't seen it.

Tags: censorship, python, uk

Attraction, strength and self humor

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:48:26 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: the article is more elaborate. but it points towards self humor as an attractive trait but only if backed up by achievements.
this too is a matter of emotional and otherwise affordability.

Clip Source: tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com

When does making fun of yourself make you more attractive as a long-term romantic prospect?

The answer, according to social scientists at the University of New Mexico, is that

Self-deprecratory humor seems to be a form of “costly signaling” — displaying an obvious handicap, like a peacock’s tail that requires strength to lift — that can demonstrate your overall robustness

In a charmingly titled paper, “Dissing Oneself versus Dissing Rivals,” in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, they report that the TV joke increased the attractiveness ratings given by listeners when it was told by a high-status man or woman — but not by a low-status person. The researchers conclude:

Thus, the the use of self-deprecating humor by low-status individuals may be counter-productive, suggesting depression, defeatism, subordination, low self-esteem, and/or low mate value.

On the other hand, if an individual has achieved high social status

self-deprecating humor may

highlight the discrepancy

Tags: humor, attraction

In Russia expensive car can be sign of misfortune

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:29:58 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy

Clip Source: www.russiaprofile.org

In a normal economic situation, a fancy car is a sign of financial success, a measure of social status. In an abnormal one, it can actually turn out to be an attribute of failure,

People try to save up money for the most important thing: housing. But the price surges, not motivated by anything but deferred demand, keep outrunning the savings, while inflation swallows them. Mortgage rates grow higher every day;

Putting money into a piggy bank, i.e. an account in a Russian bank, is the same as feeding bills into a bonfire. And the despaired one spends all of the savings on the first available luxury, on something that people usually can afford only after all the vital problems have been solved.

This problem

makes the authorities nervous

they see how mass irritation swells behind the smokescreen of outward prosperity; how the topic of rising food prices and price mayhem at gas stations is the permanent discussion topic in the lower echelons of society;

Tags: russian economy, russia

The Dance of Death

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:24:42 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

The Dance of Death or 'Le Danse Macabre' or 'Totentanz' or 'la Danza de la Muerte' was an artistic response across Europe to the devastation brought about by the plague or black death.

the idea of death visiting households without regard for social or economic status arose as a cultural phenomenon by way of dramatic plays

The earliest recorded artistic examples were frescoes in the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris in 1424 (now gone). There are recordings of other church frescoes and paintings touching on the danse macabre theme in the the 15th century

Clip Source: www.lamortdanslart.com