Consumerism gone wrong --> a $100k razor?

I first read about this in Wired, but here is a quick summary of the "features".  For $100k I wish they could just make it so I never have to shave another hair from my body ever again.  The kicker is that it took three years of research, that's three years that could have been spent on anything else, like knitting....or curing cancer.

A miserable life in a California prison

I know prison life is generally pretty brutal, but I was still more or less a little shocked when I saw this picture in The Economist of a crowded California prison.  I'd have to assume everyone in this picture is in for a relatively minor crime such as drug possession or petty theft, and if so I'm not sure the crime is worth the punishment here.  I just can't imagine having so little privacy and can't even begin to imagine how badly that room must smell.  I guess I'm not alone here, as a California court just required some drastic changes within the next two years. Lazy man's summary: California is currently at 175% prison capacity, and a court decision recently made will require them to get down to 137.5% within the next two years (either releasing 46k people, shipping them out of state, putting them in county prisons, or building more state prisons).  Not an easy task for a debt burdened state.  So what caused this problem in the first place?  "The draconian sentencing laws that now unnecessarily keep huge numbers of entirely non-violent inmates behind bars: for smoking dope or writing bad checks , say, or for missing parole appointments."  Read the full article here

You mean teachers are real people with their own opinions?

Seeing as I have so many teacher friends, here is an interesting read definitely worth checking out.  In the world of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email, and almost an unlimited amount of other communication tools available (most with permanent retention), it's pretty scary what some school communities are firing teachers for. With that  said, I had this image as a kid of my teachers doing nothing but going home and reading books and correcting my homework.  I certainly didn't picture them as other people who live normal lives, never mind "crazy" stuff like drinking an alcoholic beverage or going to a rock concert.  Seeing so many of my friends who are teachers now and still living normal lives is something I still haven't adjusted to.

Putting breasts to an interesting use

I think a sign you are reading a good magazine is when you continuously read articles that surprise you, are relevant to everyday life, and are about topics that have not been otherwise publicized or discussed (and that you've never once given any thought to).  Wired magazine never seems to disappoint me in that regard. This evening I read a really interesting article about a growing community of woman that are selling their own breast milk to other mothers.  I'm so conflicted on this one;  on one hand I understand the tremendous benefits of feeding breast milk to infants and the general market need.  On the other hand, the idea of buying very expensive breast milk from some random woman on the internet who could be inflicted with one of many infectious diseases or sustaining herself on nothing but beer and cigarettes scares the daylights out of me.

What amazes me about the world in general is how wide the gap can be between people about a certain topic and how strongly they can feel about their particular stance.  I mean, on one extreme parents are feeding their newborn bodily fluids from a perfect stranger with no testing, pasteurization, or really any other systematic precautions.  On the other extreme, parents are refusing to give their children vaccines that have been around for many years and have been proven over time to have more or less eliminated diseases that used to plague infants (read another great Wired article here from 2009).  And yet, despite the passion of the two extremes, infant mortality keeps decreasing and the average lifespan continues to grow higher.

For now, I'm going to keep worrying about more relevant issues (and less stressful), like do I choose to go golfing or bike riding this coming weekend.