the most unequal place in America

This short documentary, which explores Lake Providence, LA, presumably the "most unequal place in America," is part of a recent CNN series on economic inequality in America 
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/29/opinion/sutter-lake-providence-income-inequality/index.html, which in turn is a part of a larger series entitled "Change the List," a project addressing the 5 most extreme-case problems as defined by CNN viewers 
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/18/opinion/sutter-ctl-vote-results/index.html .  

Nov 11: class, war, and dying (updated Nov 11, 2022)

Veterans' Day is a most appropriate time to reflect on the relation between social class and military service. In particular need of reflection is the fact that those from the lower reaches of the stratification order typically bear the brunt of casualties during war. Poor and working-class men are more often killed because they are more likely to serve in harm's way as non-commissioned front-line soldiers, but they also have been less able to avoid conscription by either paying another to serve as in the Civil War or receiving college deferment as in the Vietnam War (see MacLean, 2012). Today's military is exclusively comprised of volunteers who often join because they lack viable employment alternatives, and this has only heightened the class-biased composition of casualties from recent wars in the Middle East. Moreover, poor and working-class men are also more likely to feel the continuing effects of war in terms of psychiatric distress as they transition out of the service and try to adapt to civilian life.

Army and Marine suicide rates increased sharply between 2001-2020 and today are about twice that for the U.S. population (US Dept of Veterans Affairs 2022) . During the heigth of war in the Middle East, more active-duty military personnel took their lives than died on the battlefield (Williams, 2012). However, suicide among veterans is of even far greater magnitude. According to Veterans Affairs, although about 1 percent of adults served in the military over the past decade, veterans represented 20 percent of all U.S. suicides. As discussed in the above Democracy Now! interviews with Aaron Glantz and others knowledgeable about the issue, the extreme suicide problem among military personnel and veterans reflects several key factors, including multiple deployments to the Middle East and an inadequate government treatment response to depression and PTSD.

For an excellent description of how war produces mental disorders and other adjustment problems, view the PBS Frontline documentary, The Wounded Platoon, which follows soldiers in an Army infantry unit from Fort Riley to deployment in Iraq and then back to the U.S.

recent multimedia on modern slavery

In addition to KONY 2012, other multimedia pieces on abduction and modern slavery have recently come online. In the top video, photographer Lisa Kristine gives a TED-talk on modern-day slavery around the world and the abolitionist efforts of Free The Slaves. The bottom clip is from CNNs Slavery's Last Stronghold, examining conditions in Mauritania where a sizable minority of the population remains enslaved.

Mike Daisey's Foxconn story retracted

The popular NPR series, This American Life, has retracted the Mike Daisey episode aired in early January. The March 16, 2012 episode of TAL was devoted to examining the misinformation and inaccuracies reported by Daisey about Apple's major fabricator, Foxconn. Daisey's major defense for wrongdoing is that he is a showman, rather than a journalist. (Needless to say, all stories posted on this blog about Daisey's work should likewise be reassessed.)

For reportage on what went on in terms of TAL's retraction, see the bottom segment of CNN's Reliable Sources in which commentators take to task the uncritical ease by which many members of big media, including CNN itself, accepted Daisey's stories at face value without fact-checking efforts.