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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Voters in California, Florida and Arizona voted on Tuesday to ban gay marriage, bringing about a victory for conservatives on a day which did not bring many conservative wins.

Meanwhile, voters in Colorado, South Dakota and California voted on measures which would have restricted abortion in those states. In Massachusetts and Michigan, voters passed measures that loosen marijuana laws. Finally, in the state of Washington a measure was passed that allows physician-assisted suicide.

The California ballot measure, Proposition 8, overturns the recent June ruling by the California State Supreme Court in the case In re Marriage Cases which reversed a 1977 statute passed by the California State Legislature and a 2000 ballot measure, Proposition 22, which also banned same-sex marriage by defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The wording of Proposition 8 is identical to Proposition 22. It was noted that many of the African-Americans and Latinos who cast their votes for Obama, also voted for the measure. The measure passed at 52% to 48%.

Lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres noted, “This morning, when it was clear that Proposition 8 had passed in California, I can’t explain the feeling I had. I was saddened beyond belief. Here we just had a giant step toward equality and then on the very next day, we took a giant step away.”

Singer Melissa Etheridge, who is also a lesbian, stated that she would no longer pay taxes due to the passing of Proposition 8, announcing in a blog post, “Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen.”

Also in California, voters rejected a measure which would require parental notification for a minor to receive an abortion. The measure was rejected with the same percentage as Proposition 8, 52% to 48%. Meanwhile in Colorado, voters rejected a measure that would define life as beginning at conception. While the measure did not specifically mention abortion it would have required legislators and courts to confront legal rights for fetuses – effectively preventing abortion. The measure was defeated in a wide margin, 73% to 27%

In South Dakota, voters also defeated an anti-abortion measure which would have outlawed abortion in all cases except in the case of rape, incest or if the mother’s health was in serious question. If passed, the law would most likely have been challenged as unconstitutional.

In Michigan, voters approved a measure which legalizes medical marijuana. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, voters approved a ballot question that decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana in which the possession of an ounce or less would be punishable by a $100 fine. The measure will also require minors under the age 18 to participate in and complete a drug awareness program and do community service. Failure to do so, would net the minor a $1,000 fine.

“Tonight’s results represent a sea change. Voters have spectacularly rejected eight years of the most intense government war on marijuana since the days of ‘Reefer Madness,'” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “The people were ahead of the politicians on this issue; they recognize and want a more sensible approach to our marijuana policy,” said Whitney Taylor, the chair of Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, which backed the Massachusetts proposition.

Also, in Massachusetts, voters overwhelmingly, in every single Massachusetts city and town, rejected a ballot measure which would have eliminated the state income tax by 2010, the ballot measure was sponsored by the Committee for Small Government, which is headed up by two libertarians, Michael Cloud, a Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate in 2002 and Carla Howell, Libertarian Party candidate for governor in the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

The last time the income tax elimination measure was on the ballot was in 2002, where it was defeated, narrowly by 45.3%. This stunned supporters of the income tax, who mounted a fierce campaign against the measure this time warning Massachusetts residents that repealing the income tax would have drastic effects on the state’s finances, leading to cuts in services, education and local aid.

Finally, voters passed a question which bans dog racing in Massachusetts, which will lead to the closure of Massachusetts’ two greyhound racing tracks, Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park and Wonderland Greyhound Park.

The campaign against dog racing was headed up by the Committee to Protect Dogs and endorsed by GREY2K USA and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals along with other animal protection organizations who claimed that dog racing was inhumane as the dogs were stuffed into cramped cages and endured injuries. The measure was opposed by the park owners including George Carney who owns the Rayham-Taunton park and Charles Sarkis, a restaurateur who owns Wonderland.

“We did it. We did it for the dogs,” said Carey Thiel, executive director of GREY2K USA. “For 75 years, greyhounds in our state have endured terrible confinement and suffered serious injuries. We’re better than that,” Thiel added.

One campaign supporter, Sandy Bigelow noted, “It means everything. We’ve worked so hard for the dogs and they heard us. It feels so good. Oh, God, it feels so good.”

George Carney said of the results, “It’s not a very pleasant thing right now. Some of these people have been here 40 years. Here’s a company that did nothing wrong, paid their federal taxes on time, paid the town on time. The town is going to be a severe loser, and a lot of people here dedicated their life to the company.”

Both sides used emotionally-charged advertisements, the anti-racing side showing “sad-eyed greyhounds,” while the pro-racing side highlighted the workers who would be out of work when the tracks close.

Both measures must now come before the Massachusetts Governor’s Council for approval.

A ballot initiative approved by voters in the north-western state of Washington will make it the second state to permit physician-assisted suicide. Initiative 1000 follows the ten-year-old example of the Death With Dignity Act of neighboring Oregon, and will allow physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medication for a terminally ill patient to administer themselves. It was approved by a margin of 16%, and the ‘Yes’ campaign outspent the ‘No’ campaign by more than three-to-one. The law comes into effect in 2009.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Within 24-hours of posting a web advertisement for an upcoming hackathon in Boston, Massachusetts, web startup Sqoot has lost four sponsors for the event, in what has been described as the “worst startup PR crisis in recent history.” This caused them to postpone the event and apologize in response to thousands of tweets that opposed the advert and found its content sexist.

On March 20, Sqoot, an API provider that delivers daily deals like Groupon and Gilt City, posted an online advert for their upcoming Boston API Jam. The advert promoted various perks for the event, including an in-house DJ, cocktails, food trucks and access to women: women specifically there to serve beer to attendees. As soon as the ad was posted to Eventbrite, many on Twitter expressed concern. Over 3,000 tweets later, the advert was deemed sexist by many and Twitter users both condemned Sqoot and contacted the sponsors of the event. The ad, which Alex Williams of SiliconANGLE described as “bizarre” and “misogynist,” was quietly changed on Eventbrite by Sqoot, removing the mention of women as beer peddlers.

In a matter of hours, four sponsors had pulled out from the Boston event: CloudMine, Apigee, Heroku, and MongoHQ. Shortly thereafter, Sqoot offered two apologies: a brief apology which was then followed by a more detailed apology stating that they desired to have a “good party” that was not a standard hackathon experience of pizza and keynote speakers. Sqoot stated that they “aimed to call attention to the male-dominated tech world through humor and intended to be inclusive, the gravity of our wording was just the opposite. Our words completely undermined our intentions and went further to harm the world we’re trying to have a positive impact on.” Other sponsors such as Constant Contact and Simple Relevance remained as sponsors.

Shanley Kane, director of product management at Basho Technologies, supported the sponsor withdrawal and didn’t just consider the advertisement sexist, but also homophobic by ostracizing gay men by promoting a seemingly “straight” agenda for the event. Kane also believed that Sqoot had the “false assumption that women would not attend the event at all,” by promoting it with a male targeted spin. In an industry that is dominated by men, it can be assumed that more men would attend the hackathon than women, but, the advertisement ostracized women even more from attending. And this wasn’t Sqoot’s first foray into straight male targeted marketing. Blog posts like “Sqoot Makes You Yelp!” featuring the Yelp logo on a woman’s backside and “Sqoot Goes Topless” featuring an image of a topless woman, are meant to promote the opening of Yelp’s API and company transparency.

Alex Williams believes that the Sqoot situation shows that sexism within the tech industry is broad and growing. “Women are marginalized and treated more as objects than as colleagues. The trend is a disturbing one and poses a serious threat to the health and diversity of the tech sector.” Techli’s Kathryn Hough chocked it up to immaturity, “Someone needs to tell young founders that frat house behavior is not acceptable in the business world. If Sqoot’s business collapses for a few sentences of sexist copy, I hope that other young founders get to see the wreckage before following them off the plank.”

Lukas Blakk, a release engineer and advisory board member for The Ada Initiative, a non-profit that tries to increase female participation in technology and open source, believes that having a code of conduct in place is a necessity for businesses, and for those businesses who don’t “you’ve got a ticking time bomb in your organization’s future.” Social media is giving businesses a new challenge when it comes to marketing. When it comes to the criticism fielded by the public towards businesses regarding sexist content, fellow Ada Initiative board member and database analyst Selena Deckelmann agrees that businesses need to step up to the challenge and respond appropriately. “…companies need to develop the skills necessary to respond with grace and understanding, even when under intense, negative scrutiny. Silencing, gas-lighting and ignoring the messenger tactics no longer work when a social network quickly spreads information, and occasionally, outrage.”

Is there a future for Sqoot? Mike Maney believes Sqoot can recover. Maney, head of influencer management for Alcatel-Lucent, acknowledges that Sqoot will have a long way to go to regain their credibility amongst the tech industry and the clientele they serve, “But, the work they’ll have to do to undo the self-inflicted damage […] is going to require a massive effort.”

Monday, May 3, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald today interviewed Petros Tzomakas, a Greek far-left activist and member of Xekinima, which is the Greek division of the Committee for a Workers’ International. The party is a member of Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).

Tzomakas also sits on his local 5th Athens Municipal District committee, which is a joint effort by left-wing parties including SYRIZA, the Anticapitalist Left Cooperation for the Overthrow and a number of other political parties to oppose austerity measures proposed by the government. All left-wing parties in the country except the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) are involved. Tzomakas explained that the KKE prefers not to co-operate with other radical left-wing groups.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

A large and dangerous fire has broken out on Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.

Dry and windy conditions have swept the fire around the base of the mountain, pushing it towards the bordering suburbs in the City Bowl and Vredehoek area with furious flames reaching ten meters into the air.

A number of houses along the border of the reserve are being threatened as the fire heads around the mountain from the cable car station towards the southern suburbs.Thick smoke and high winds are hindering fire-fighting efforts and causing havoc with the traffic around the area. Heynes helicopters, contracted to fight fires on the mountain, are assisting from the air. However since the main water reservoirs near the Vredehoek area are shrouded in smoke and water must be retrieved from the harbour instead.

So far one elderly woman has reportedly died due to smoke inhalation and many others may be at risk as they attempt to defend their homes. Firefighters have been attempting to bring the situation under control throughout the night but the blaze continues unabated.

The cause of the fire is still uncertain. However a 36-year-old British man has been placed under arrest for allegedly dropping a lit cigarette whilst on the mountain.

Fires in the area are an annual problem and may threaten to destroy the delicate indigenous fynbos ecosystem. Opinions about the effects of the fires on the mountain vary, however, with some specialists indicating that regular fires could cause permanent damage to the ecosystem whilst others believe that the fynbos is actually partially reliant on the heat of the fire to set off the shedding of seeds.

In previous years the area around Muizenberg and Fishhoek have been ravaged by fires of similar intensity. The scars of those fires still remain.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Crown Office are staying quiet about possible prosecutions after an inquiry found medical failures caused three deaths at NHS Lanarkshire.

In response to a specific question as to the possibility of prosecutions, a Crown Office spokesperson told Wikinews today that “The three deaths were fully investigated by the Procurator Fiscal and reported to Crown Counsel [laywers] to consider. Crown Counsel concluded that, given the facts and circumstances of the deaths, a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) was the appropriate forum to consider the circumstances of the deaths.” It was further noted that “[a] FAI cannot make any findings of fault/blame against individuals.”

However, Crown Office did not specifically rule out prosecutions for offences such as cuplable homicide despite the spokesperson noting this was a direct response to such a question. They also declined to comment on National Health Service care as “it would not be appropriate to comment on the provision of NHS services” and entirely ignored questions about Crown Office satisfaction in the inquiry’s outcome and the length of time it took to reach a conclusion. The inquiry wrapped up last week but the deaths were in 2006.

Agnes Nicol, George Johnstone, and Andrew Ritchie died within a three-month period following keyhole surgery to remove their gall bladders.

Later expanded to look at all three deaths, the inquiry initially established to look into the case of Nicol, 50, who received surgery in late 2005. A surgeon at Wishaw General Hospital mistakenly cut her bile duct and her right hepatic artery. Whilst suturing her portal vein, her liver was left with 20% of its normal blood supply; the errors were not discovered until her transfer to liver specialists at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary.

By then, her liver was seriously damaged. She developed septicaemia, dying from multiple organ failure in March 2006.

Johnstone, 54, underwent the same procedure at Monklands District General Hospital on May 9, 2006. A consultant surgeon accidentally damaged, possibly severing, his bile duct. He died two days later in intensive care from the combined effects of multiple organ failure and a heart ailment.

Ritchie, 62, died in intensive care a week after an operation in June 2006. He died from intra abdominal haemorrhage caused by errors during the surgery.

Different surgeons were involved each time and the inquiry, under Sheriff Robert Dickson, found no evidence of poor training or inadequate experience. Dickson noted that in each case there was lack of action on a “growing body of evidence that there was something fundamentally wrong with the patient” and surgeons failed to contemplate their own actions as potentially responsible. He agreed with two professors that it may have been possible to save their lives “had the post-operative care been to the standard which they expected, and had there been a proper management plan which staff could have worked to” and noted that all the patients suffered from a lack of adequate medical notes being available after their surgery. He described the care as having “clear faults”.

NHS Lanarkshire apologised and said improvements had been made regarding “these types of cases” as well as with document management. Wikinews got in touch seeking details of the changes made but the health trust failed to respond.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

An outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a wing of the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, Canada has resulted in the temporary closure of the hospital’s High Risk Perinatal Service in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

The NICU, operated by the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, will not accept direct newborn admissions or maternal transfers, temporarily, until the outbreak is controlled. Current patients are being cared for in the NICU and Sunnybrook has created a separate area to accommodate new babies.

The closure of the NICU at Women’s College Hospital is expected to put a strain on availability of high-risk neo-natal services in Ontario. According to Sunnybrook, the NICU cares for one in five of all babies born in Ontario weighing less than three pounds.

Head of Sunnybrook’s department of newborn and developmental pediatrics, Dr. Michael Dunn, suggests that some patients of the NICU will need to be transferred to other facilities to allow for intensive cleaning of the area.

In a CBC interview, Dunn explains that, “all the babies who developed infections have been successfully treated, but we were not able to completely prevent the spread of the organism from one baby to another.”

New patients will have to be diverted to other facilities in the province of Ontario or even out of country. Buffalo, New York in the United States may be a potential destination for some women in Ontario with high-risk pregnancies or premature babies.

According to a Sunnybrook press release, the High Risk Perinatal Service will remain closed until there are no new transmissions of the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium. It further explains that outbreaks in the NICU are rare and that several measures have been put in place to keep the bacterium from spreading. The hospital has isolated babies who have symptoms and are ensuring that a specific team of clinicians only treat the affected babies.

The Sunnybrook press release suggests that, although MRSA bacteria are commonly found on the skin of newborns, the organism that has surfaced in the NICU has caused a variety of infections to the skin and eyes of the babies. The babies in the NICU are, apparently, responding to antibiotic treatment.