The CatBib Will Stop Your Cat From Catching Birds! video. Scientific proof. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu on May 17, 2008 - 33 comments

Female educator & writer comments on male culture - describing video gaming males in their 20s as 'child-men', delaying traditional responsibility by decades compared to previous generations (NPR interview). Inevitable response by gaming community and others in their 20s. Further example on the change in societal isolation that leads to bowling alone, or a new social community structure being born? [more inside]
posted by Argyle on Jan 30, 2008 - 171 comments

'You Can't See Why on an fMRI.' Brian Doherty explores the vagaries of the insanity defense, centering on the sad cases of Andrea Yates and Eric Clark.
posted by Sticherbeast on Jun 19, 2007 - 7 comments

Recycle your computer junk. A large US office supply retailer just became the first to offer everyday, in-store recycling for computers & other office technology, and will recycle them using EPA guidelines. Only $10 an item (smaller stuff like mice and keyboards are free).
posted by Dave Faris on May 31, 2007 - 52 comments

Roads To Riches (or We've Got a Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You--Seriously) -- Why investors are clamoring to take over America's highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous.--...a slew of Wall Street firms—Goldman, Morgan Stanley, the Carlyle Group, Citigroup, and many others—is piling into infrastructure ... Assets sold now could change hands many times over the next 50 years, with each new buyer feeling increasing pressure to make the deal work financially. It's hardly a stretch to imagine service suffering in such a scenario; already, the record in the U.S. has been spotty. ...
posted by amberglow on Apr 29, 2007 - 107 comments

FabIndia becomes a Harvard Business Case study It's a brand that does not advertise. It, in fact, celebrates the success of its copycats. And now Fabindia, the craft-conscious enterprise, is a Harvard Business School (HBS) case study. "Founded in 1960, Fabindia makes the cut for being an example of a corporation that does not just aim to do well, but does good too. "A strong mission can be both an opportunity and a constraint on the growth of a firm," points out Dr Khaire. However, the private retailer's unique value proposition has not come in the way of it being recognised as big brand today. And this in spite of the fact that Fabindia has never advertised, points out Dr Khaire."
posted by infini on Apr 15, 2007 - 8 comments

The Open Architecture Network "is an online, open source community dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design." {via Cameron Sinclair's Ted Talk}
posted by dobbs on Apr 14, 2007 - 6 comments

AIGA: Inequality Matters
posted by ijoshua on Apr 10, 2006 - 15 comments

Do the Right Thing
posted by Gyan on Sep 14, 2005 - 63 comments

Words I was sure I would never hear
posted by x_3mta3 on Sep 13, 2005 - 137 comments

Little Timmy's fallen off the parking garage? Forget Lassie, call the lawyers! He didn't choose to jump between the eight-story buildings. The inanimate object made him.
posted by schroedinger on Mar 3, 2005 - 54 comments

Send a White Feather to Jonah --When WW1 broke out young Englishwomen would hand white feathers to men on the street who were not in uniform to shame them into enlisting. Let's send white feathers to a prominent chicken hawk who is willing to vilify anyone who opposes the war in Iraq but seems to have many reasons for staying safe here.
Also of interest, Juan Cole tearing Goldberg a gigantic new one, and the type of people Goldberg apparently thinks should go: a dad with 11 kids
posted by amberglow on Feb 13, 2005 - 117 comments

Does "Tried As An Adult" Mean Anything Anymore? I don't like the kid. I despise the defense. But what does it mean to try a 12 year old as an adult? Are we only willing to grant the responsibilities of adulthood, and not the rights? Or are some things too horrifying to yield to the innocence of youth?
posted by effugas on Feb 2, 2005 - 52 comments

"There is no excuse for superior authority not choosing the most suitable agents for particular duties, and not removing unsuitable agents from particular duties." With all the talk of empires and resignations, a reflection to history turns up a remarkable story about an already remarkable man:

A tense time in British India came to a head when General Reginald Dyer's brigade opened fire on an unarmed crowd assembled in Amritsar with machine guns, killing 379 and wounding over 1500. Command wanted to relieve him of duty, but patriotic (and imperialist) fervor at home led to a parliamentary debate which was expected to repudiate this decision and honor him. Enter War Secretary Winston Churchill who defended the Government so eloquently that the minds and hearts of the entire deliberative body were turned.
posted by allan on Dec 17, 2004 - 16 comments

Welcome to self-policing corporate responsibility. A division of the pharmaceutical company Bayer (Expertise with responsibility) sold millions of dollars of blood-clotting medicine for hemophiliacs - medicine that carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS - to Asia and Latin America in the mid-1980s while selling a new, safer product in the West.
posted by The Jesse Helms on May 22, 2003 - 6 comments

How sad! DALLAS--From the Bart Simpson "I didn't do it" school of how to avoid taking personal responsibility, we have what could be the start of a trend. Real men, enveloped in scandal and accused of wrongdoing, don't admit mistakes. They don't apologize. They simply express sadness.
Ken Lay
In Dallas, it was the DA's office that pursued convictions--and did so for four months after learning that the drugs were fake.
posted by onegoodmove on Feb 16, 2002 - 10 comments

The PBS show "Nobel:Visions of our Century" interviews past Nobel Prize winners on their views of social responsibility. Which got me thinking, is the Nobel Prize the top award society can give? Is it a Grammy? A Pulitzer? Or is it something completely different altogether? Granted I will never win any of them, I was wondering what the planet Earth's top honor was.
posted by remlapm on Dec 12, 2001 - 7 comments

Robert Johnson is the first black billionaire, and ranks #172 on the list of richest Americans after he sold BET to Viacom. Does he have a social responsibilty to show more than T&A and comedy on BET, or is he being unfairly singled out?
posted by owillis on Sep 29, 2001 - 32 comments

Are there limits to Freedom? Liberty means responsibility, said Betty Knowles Hunt in 1951. "The answer, and the only answer, is for all of us to educate ourselves to the responsibilities as well as to the benefits of freedom. Perhaps as a people, we are not morally strong enough to be free. If that is the case, then we shall certainly lose our freedom, and it will not matter much what "ism" supplants Americanism. But this will not prove that our free way of life was not the best way. It will only prove that we were not worthy of it. " What a spoil sport. Best sell the SUV, eh?
posted by RichLyon on Aug 25, 2001 - 6 comments