Hasta La Gadget!

News about climate change, both negative and positive, has been dominating the media recently, putting a spotlight on the need for immediate action by Congress.

Today, I awoke to NPR broadcasting another story about Norfolk, Virginia, one of the areas of the United States on the Eastern seaboard where we’ve seen the most rapid increase in the sea level. This is of vital importance to the US, as Norfolk is home to the largest naval base in the world, and rising sea levels threaten its long-term survivability.

A similar story in the Washington Post several weeks ago talked about the impact that this is having on the Norfolk waterfront, including one church that is being forced to relocate. The pastor commented that he didn’t “know many churches that have to put the tide chart on their Web site” in order for people to know if they could attend church at certain times.

This week’s news also included the Supreme Court’s third affirmation of the power of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses. Hopefully, this will finally put to rest the long-term battle over whether or not the government can begin to deal with the critical area of carbon pollution.

There has also been a media blitz from a coalition of respected senior officials–Republicans, Democrats, and Independents–stretching back to the Nixon administration talking about the impact of climate change, particularly as it deals with business, as well as testimony in the Senate from four Republican EPA administrators talking about the need to support the EPA’s efforts with the new rule for carbon emissions.

Advocates are mobilized, too. This morning, on the steps of Capitol Hill, as I passed, there were representatives from the Citizen Climate Lobby from all over the country who are fanning out across the Capitol making their case.

The science on climate change is clear. Evidence points to a tripling of the number of days of 95 degree plus weather in some parts of the US. Louisiana is looking at up to five percent of its insurable land being under water by mid-century, perhaps 20 percent by the turn of the century. There’s a trillion and a half dollars that is likely to be under water of insurable properties. These severe problems are associated with carbon pollution and other impacts that humans have had on climate.

It’s time for us to stop debating the science, and time for us to start look at opportunities to prevent and mitigate the damage.

First, Congress must accept that the EPA rule on carbon emissions is going to go into effect. We have to stop complaining about it, and begin to take advantage of the flexibility that has been proposed by the administration to fine tune it to the needs and opportunities in our state.

Also, Congress must important that we start work on the implementation of a revenue neutral carbon tax. Virtually every expert, whether conservative or liberal, agrees that we should have a revenue-neutral carbon tax to change the habits of American business and households, and use the created revenues to reduce the impact on lower-income citizens and small businesses.

Experts in climate science, joined by hard-headed businesspeople and citizen activists, all agree that it’s time for Congress to get engaged, for Congress to stop this act of denial and come together on simple, commonsense steps that we can make to strengthen our communities. We can, in fact, slow the impact, and we can prepare for what we cannot avoid.

This post is part of a series from the Safe Climate Caucus. The Caucus is comprised of 38 members of the House of Representatives who have committed to ending the conspiracy of silence in Congress about the dangers of climate change. For more information, visit the Safe Climate Caucus website and like the Safe Climate Caucus on Facebook.

“Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man / but I know what I am, and I’m glad I’m a man / So is Lola.” In 1970, Ray Davies suffused rock culture with its first transgender icon. Two years later, Lou Reed solidified gender bending in the lexicon of every teen who strolled suburban streets singing, “Hey babe/ take a walk on the wild side.”

Transgender issues have gone beyond pop culture as underscored by a recent U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services decision in favor of a transgender veteran. The HHS ruled the government could not exclude gender reassignment surgeries from treatments covered by the national health program for the elderly and disabled.

The response highlights just how misunderstood transgender people are by the general population, drawing comments equating reassignment surgery to getting a tummy tuck, a voluntary procedure that makes you “feel better about yourself.” In fact, meta-analyses indicate a lifetime prevalence of attempted suicide in transgender individuals at 41 percent as opposed to 4.6 percent in the overall population. People who don’t get their Botox injections may not like their wrinkles, but they don’t try to kill themselves. Being transgender is not simply a matter of wanting to look better, it is a fundamental discord between innate identity and how individuals are categorized and treated by society.

Therein lies the first hurdle — understanding the intricate and complex interaction between biology and culture. Both academic disciplines and the popular press set up a false dichotomy treating these two important forces as separate and isolated. In the recent Time magazine cover story on transgenders, the author states, “Sex is biological, determined by a baby’s birth anatomy; gender is cultural, a set of behaviors learned through human interaction.”

Two major problems with this conclusion is, first, the assumption that sex is solely defined by penises and vaginas, ignoring the fact that one of the most important sexual organs is the brain: It is this biological collection of gray and white matter that actually determines gender identity. Studies of xy males and xy male to female transgender subjects have shown significant differences in the size of specific brain regions, as well as in the numbers of neurons and the chemical signaling systems within those regions. How these differences arise and precisely how they relate to gender identity is not known, but there are differences in the brain that correlate with gender identity. And the brain is biology.

The second problem is the implication that gender identity is solely a cultural phenomenon. There is no argument that the definition of gender is sociologically and culturally defined. But to suggest gender is only a manifestation of culture is to suggest gender identity is solely a matter of choice, like whether we put our salad forks on the outside of dinner forks at a place setting. Gender definitions may broaden as society changes (e.g., Facebook’s new option to customize gender identity). But it is unlikely that societies across the globe will soon come to recognize greater than 50 different gender identities, and efforts to combat the discrimination and dysphoria reflected in suicide statistics of transgender individuals are more likely to succeed if our understanding of biology is not divorced from the efforts to change cultural norms.

And of course, the above discussion doesn’t touch on the misunderstanding and derision that swirls around the fact that the HHS decision is pertinent to the elderly and Medicare. Stephen Colbert’s riff on this implied old people don’t have active sex lives (a subject for another day), so just put old guys in a muumuu and save some bucks. The routine was great, and Colbert may get the difference, but the subliminal message doesn’t help dispel the misconception that gender identity is only important in terms of sexual activity.

There is a wealth of information on how early hormonal, genetic and epigenetic events impose permanent differences in brain structure and function that contribute to conventional male vs. female-specific behaviors in animals. There are studies demonstrating that interfering with a specific brain region in male ferrets can switch partner preference from female to male. Is gender identity shaped by similar forces? We have no idea what kind of gender identity non-humans may have (and biologists should stop referring to mice and rats as having gender). Moreover, we do not know if these biological processes are in turn influenced by environment and culture in ways that could shape gender identity.

However, as society grapples to change how our culture defines gender, it would be wise to do so by integrating, not ignoring, the significant role our brains and biology play in this fundamental trait.

Single moms looking to thrive may want to head out of the city and into the suburbs, a new survey suggests.

NerdWallet, a personal finance website, recently ranked the top 10 best cities for single mothers and found that places outside America’s largest cities had the most to offer moms who go it alone.

To determine the ranking, the site analyzed U.S. communities with populations of more than 50,000 and looked at several key factors that affect single mothers: social stability (how many single moms are living below the poverty line?), economic opportunity (can single parents make enough to cover rent or mortgage?) and affordable child care.

Bartlett, a Memphis suburb, nabbed the top spot based primarily on the strength of its affordable child care. The town had among the lowest average child care costs of all the places surveyed, with parents paying just under $6,000 a year for full-time infant care.

Check out the interactive graphic below for other communities that cracked NerdWallet’s top 10 list. Be sure to click on the bubbles to sort by each category.

Head over to Nerd Data for more on what makes these cities so hospitable to single moms.

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Working in education, I am often asked if I enjoy my summers off. For sure, activity on a college campus is slower during the summer months when compared to fall and spring; however, at Fulton-Montgomery Community College, there are many activities in which to engage.

First, of course, are summer classes. While the number of students enrolled in college courses reduces from thousands to hundreds in the summer, FM has two summer sessions and a number of offerings to help students get ahead or catch up with their studies. We often see students who are home from other colleges take classes to transfer back to their college or university. Aside from classes, there are a number of other activities that take place on the FM campus during the summer as well.

This year, FM will host the region’s first “Buck Moon Arts Festival” on Saturday, July 12 and Sunday, July 13. This Arts Festival is designed to bring a variety of artists from our area together for a large celebration of the arts. There will be music, dance, seminars, vendors, photography, paintings, a play, etc., for the entire weekend. We expect to have thousands of people visit the region and our campus to participate. Visit buckmoonartsfestival.com for all the details.

Summer also brings to our campus a number of educational opportunities for students of all ages through our Summer Academy. This year students in grades 3 – 5 can experience classes like: Science Can Be Fun, American Sign Language, Marvelous Monsters, Hands-On Tech, The Voice, and many others. Students in grades 6 – 9 can experience such classes as: Sprouting Spartans, Think Outside the Box, The Phreekshow School of Magic and Illusion, Hunger Games, and others. It is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn and have fun on the FM campus.

Another activity includes our summer sports camps. We host opportunities for young students who want to hone their skills in a variety of sports, giving them a chance to play their favorite sport on a college campus while getting a firsthand look at our FM facilities.

Then, there is planning for next year. We are heavily involved in recruiting students for Fall. We host a number of families as they tour our campus and decide if FM is the right college for their student. There will be several orientation sessions for first-time students and their families. In these sessions we strive to let students know the expectations that college brings of them and how to deal with some of the stresses of those expectations.

There is always physical plant work to do in the summer as well; a good cleaning of the facilities, remodeling, updating, etc., often takes place in the summer months. This summer FM is adding/ replacing $800,000 worth of technology across our campus in order to improve the students’ experience during the year.

There are continuous happenings on FM’s campus all summer long. Whether its college courses, Summer Academy, or the Buck Moon Arts Festival, I hope that you can join us this summer.

 Google Fit has risen as part of an prodigious, two-and-a-half-hour-long I/O keynote that included everything but the kitchen sink (and Google Glass and Google+).
Today during its annual developer conference, Google announced a platform preview of Google Fit, a set of APIs that will allow developers to sync data across wearables and devices. Read More