Of all the places he'd go in his wildly fertile imagination, Theodor S. Geisel — better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss — probably never dreamed he'd be referenced in the journal Critical Perspectives on Accounting. But the man who wrote a classic work of children's literature using a vocabulary of only 51 words (Green Eggs and Ham) would be amused to discover how many densely packed pages of academic prose are devoted to his work. Today, on the beloved author and illustrator's 107th birthday (which, as always, will be celebrated by the National Education Association as Read Across ... Read More
The Invisible Hate Crime
March 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
In February 2010, Jennifer Daugherty, a 30-year-old, mentally challenged woman from Greensburg, Pa., was brutally murdered by six people pretending to be her good friends. Holding her hostage for days, the perpetrators allegedly tortured Daugherty, shaving her head, binding her with Christmas decorations, beating her with a towel rack and vacuum cleaner, feeding her detergent, urine and various medications and then forcing her to write a suicide note, before stabbing her to death. The sadistic attack on Daugherty was anything but unique. Still, few Americans are aware of the special ... Read More
Search Dogs Seeking Fake Disasters to Sniff
February 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Head up, nose twitching, a yellow Labrador named Nino bounded into action, zig-zagging across a jumble of rubble to try and catch the scent of a live human in the air. Following the directional signals of Jim, his handler, Nino headed for a 75-foot-by-25-foot area filled with mounds of debris containing wood, sheet metal, rebar, pipes, a wrecked car, bicycles, a mailbox, the remnants of an old bird pen and a horse trailer, all arranged to evoke the aftermath of homes demolished by a tornado. Nino followed the "cone of the scent," honing in on the area where the smell was the strongest. His ... Read More
Life in Prison Begins at 16
February 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
It's difficult to choose the most heartbreaking scene in Dan Birman's documentary Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story. But a case can be made for one in which the 16-year-old central character, who is awaiting trial for murder in a Nashville, Tenn., criminal court, shows us her "sex list." It's a handwritten rundown, scribbled on a lined piece of notebook paper, of the dozens and dozens of people she had sexual relationships with during her troubled adolescence. In a detached, analytical tone, she proceeds to sort them by category: rapes (there were many), consensual encounters, those that ... Read More
Foreign Aid for a Frugal Age
February 23, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
As they prepared to take control of the House of Representatives, congressional Republicans were also getting ready to take on foreign aid — with a scalpel or a meat-ax, depending on how one parsed words. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, conservative South Florida Republican and incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee chair, told Agence France-Presse she wants "to cut the U.S. State Department and foreign aid budgets and use U.S. contributions to force reforms in multilateral organizations like the United Nations." And Foreign Policy magazine suggested that Rep. Kay Granger — a Texan who is ... Read More
Circumcision: The Surgical AIDS Vaccine
February 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Voters in San Francisco — the city that has probably suffered from AIDS more grievously than any other in America — may soon vote on whether to ban a safe, one-time procedure that protects against the virus that causes AIDS almost as effectively as the annual flu shot protects against the flu. Millions of dollars and years of research have thus far failed to overcome the diabolical obstacles to making an HIV vaccine. No doubt exists, however, that another treatment provides protection so effective that health experts have called it a "surgical vaccine." Unlike a flu shot, this protection ... Read More
How to Stop Suicide by Cop
February 21, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Standing before a classroom of police officers, Lt. Mark Poisson of the Wethersfield, Connecticut Police Department cues up video of a young man talking about the night he tried to get Poisson to kill him. "Seth*," who was 19 at the time and attending college in New Jersey, had already attempted suicide twice. He'd never been in trouble with the law but had spent years crippled by depression, and he was searching for the best way to die. Eventually, he decided the surest method was a gun. But he didn't own one; neither did his parents. That's when it came to him: Police have guns. The ... Read More
